Sunday, May 17, 2009

Sunday Garden Update, Week 3

Looks like I'll be trying a bit of transplanting this year - my green beans and peas kind of came up in clumps. I'd really like to spread them out a bit! My dad recommended waiting until they get about 3" tall or so (any suggestions Annemarie?) as he thought they'd do better with the big move.
So, it looks abut the same as last week, although you'll notice (I'm sure!) a different angle and excitement at the neighbors'. They're having a party, and I didn't want them to think I was taking a picture of them! You'll also notice Goose's ball - somehow it found its way into our yard and no one ever came and got it. She loves tossing it around and chasing it while I'm hanging out laundry or working in the yard. Today, she was squatting and leaning on it and saying "stretch!" (At least I think that's what it was.) I'm guessing she got that from my MIL, but I'm not exactly sure.

Back to the garden. I did a bit of hoeing to mess with the weeds. My carrots are looking pretty clumpy, too, but I don't think they'll transplant very well. Plus it doesn't matter quite so much with them - I'll thin them later and we can have true "baby carrots"! The tomatoes and pepper plants seem a bit sickly; I don't think they need water but I'll give that a try tomorrow and see what happens.

The onions are looking pretty good so far! I like to cut some of the tops and chop them like chives once in a while. My potatoes aren't up yet (except some volunteer ones that I pulled out) but I think it's a bit early for them yet since they were planted so late. I replanted some of my Indian corn and put some insecticide in with it. Hubs noted that we have corn borers in the garden, so hopefully that'll fix em'. It doesn't look like my gourds are going to do very well, but actually that's probably OK.

Hubs's grandmother is 92 or so and hasn't been able to garden the past few years. She's currently recuperating at a nursing home after a fall around Christmas, and we're not sure what is going to happen. Hubs asked her if we could plant some things in her garden, and with her blessing, Goose and I did that this week.
That's Hubs's parents' place in the background. We put in four hills of spaghetti squash, four hills of butternut squash (on opposite ends, so hopefully they won't cross-pollinate), three or four hills of pie pumpkins, and two each of watermelons and cantelope (again, opposite each other). Here's hoping that it isn't all for naught, though, because we need to get it watered this week. I'm hoping Hubs can help me out there.

Hmm, I typed in a nice little update on our week and it somehow disappeared while I was trying to get the spell-check to work. Nothing terribly exciting - Goose has been a bit under the weather with a random fever, but seems otherwise fine; my lawn mower is on the fritz and Hubs doesn't have time to fix it. Actually, I'm thinking the short version is sufficient. :>)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I talked with my husband and he said that peas and beans can be planted pretty thickly with little adverse affect. They probably wouldn't do well with being moved; if you have extra seed you can fill in the spaces where they didn't come up so well.

Also even if your squashes, melons, pumpkins et al cross pollinate this year, you won't notice anything in the fruit. You will notice it if you save the seeds and try to plant them next year, you may get some wacky fruit.

We have found the using mulch and drip tape works great with the tomatoes and peppers. We just started planting our tomatoes in the field today (we had a frost this weekend); we got 400 plants in today, only a couple thousand more to go.