Pumpkins
Our pumpkins are coming along quite well! Of the 12 mounds I originally planted, around 7 are growing. As a bonus, two of the pumpkins from our carving party last year that I unceremoniously tossed in the garden to rot away over the winter have also sprouted up new vines in other areas of the garden.
Posts tagged outdoors
Pumkin Mellons!
Bam! Wait, I Mean… Peas!
Last Friday our dwarf pea plants were four feet tall and they had beautiful little white flowers all over. Two days later, almost every one of the flowers was sporting a 3″ pea pod.
I’d never seen anything grow so fast. If only the rest of our garden kept such a pace.
The beets are too small to eat just yet, but the leaves really are just like red spinach. Tonight we had our first salad made entirely of greens from the yard.
Our neighbor’s tomatoes are very large and already producing many small green fruits. Ours are still less than a foot tall and only the largest of them is flowering. From what I gather from talking to him, I brought the plants outside too soon. They also don’t get nearly as much reflected heat and light as his plants since his are about four feet from his yellow house.
This Thing Blows!
Hydroponics
The original blower I built for the fog hydroponic rig was a simple $7 desk fan that I put inline with the fog stream. It did a good job for a time, but it was destined to fail from the moment it was submerged in supersaturated air.
When it eventually did fail, there was rust on the brushes and every part of it looked like unhealthy electronics. When I got around to replacing it, most of my strawberries had died, but my loofah plants hadn’t yet sprouted so there is still hope for them.
Slugs. I Kills Them.
Slugs
With my fences deployed, I have discovered that its 1″ mesh is no match for my newest arch: the slug.
Progress Within and Without
For the past week, I’ve been out of town in Chicago. In the meantime, my wife watered the indoor garden, had the mower repaired, and (probably) continued to throw her sandwich crusts in the front yard to attract crows (we’re not trailer, I swear).
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Last night I happened to find a 50′ x 3′ roll of plastic mesh fencing with 1″ square holes. It cost me $10 and will cover my garden perfectly when laid out in two strips, side-by-side. Now I’ll be able to remove the garden cloth which ought to be a boon because I’m pretty sure it’s not good for these young plants to be smothered like this–even if it is for their own protection.
Progress Inside and Out
Indoors
Due to the unseasonably cold spring so far, I have opted to keep my upside-down tomato planters inside until I am confident the sprouts have taken firm root. Out of 7 hanging planters, six of them had at least one sprout survive the first week. I probably broke the root of the sprouts that dying.
I have plenty of starts to spare, so I re-planted the dead sprouts and put some more lights up for all of the plants.
CARNAGE!!!
Jerk Pests and Their Jerk Hunger
I have seen the enemy… and it likes watermelons. And onions.
Okay, I haven’t necessarily seen the enemy, but I did spot a squirrel, a crow, and a robin all making advances on my garden as I stepped into the back yard to see how my little green beauties were doing.
Day 1 Outdoors: First Casualties
I checked the garden this morning as I left the house. I noticed an unnatural cylindrical hole in the ground and didn’t have to look far to see what came out of it.
One of my 4″ Charleston watermelon starts had been yanked out, pod and all. Whatever took it must have been a small creature because there were no signs of digging; it dragged the pod only a couple of feet before eating the rest of my precious plant. We don’t have many squirrels in our yard, but we have a lot of crows who love the crawly treats in the garden dirt.
Plants: Deployed!
Garden
Saturday brought us some really lame weekend weather: rainy and 50s. Today was sunny and perhaps as high as the 70s. It was a perfect day to send my little green babies out into a world full of cats and raccoons and birds who would like nothing more than to eat them all up right now.
