Saturday, July 14, 2012

Vegetable Garden Part 3

Just because I use to sell the seeds and plants didn't mean I knew everything about them. We had specific ladies that helped with the tough questions. But until I planted this garden I never knew how hard it can be.

Trouble number 1
This is the driest spring/summer we have had in years. We have only gotten .52 inches in July so far. Today did rain, you could almost hear the plants and trees singing for joy!

Trouble number 2
My vegetable beds are filled with half topsoil and half compost. The soil has sand in it, since it came from by a river. So naturally I thought I need to water a lot. Raised bed, sandy soil, no rain for months and its been a consistent 95F for two weeks. My tomatoes were wilting and even with watering twice a day they were not happy. So I put more mulch around them and decided they had a disease and they were goners. Since it was loaded with buds and tiny tomatoes I didn't pull them, I just stopped watering. After about 3 days they started looking better. So apparently you can kill them with kindness. Now I only water them every other day, and when I don't water I still water the mulch a little to keep the heat down.

Trouble number 3

Heavy rain and strong wind are not good for vegetables.

 After about 3 days they did snap back up.

The peppers needed propped since their heavy fruits were weighing them down.

Celery and carrots looking good.

 My not so dead cherry tomatoes. To bad they never make it to the house :)

Celebrity tomato. Just about ready for BLT's.

Strawberries, you have to pick them before you think they are ripe. Or else they will rot by the next day. Another thing I had to learn.

Vegetable Garden Part 2

Planting the seeds.

Planting radishes

Planting radishes

Radishes sprouted

 Our dollar store find. We used them as plant markers.

Onions coming up

Lettuce, mustard and kale.

 

We went to menards and they had their strawberry hanging baskets on sale for $7.00. So we got two. We'll plant them in the garden this fall so they will survive the winter.