vegetable garden Archives | Page 4 of 6

Saying goodbye …

Say goodbye.

Goodbye to the 10-foot tall tomato plants.
Goodbye to the 6 varieties of Heirloom tomatoes grown from seed, lovingly raised in the greenhouse last winter.
Goodbye to the lush plants around the tomatoes, including giant okra, parsley, jalapeno peppers and red bell peppers.
Goodbye to my towering jungle.
All because of HIM! And his hundreds and hundreds of cousins and uncles and nephews and babies.

Everywhere.

And I mean everywhere.

So one of my “guys” came over yesterday and ripped the guts out of my whole garden. And me, for that matter. It was hard to watch.
So, with the truck full of my formerly beautiful plants, he drove off with what was the promise of my fall tomato crop — up until a week ago.

And I was left to squash and squeeze and stomp on literally 150 of those #$%^&*#&* bugs — just on the ground! And climbing on the empty tomato cages. I killed about 25 more today. I will check again tomorrow, but I think they are all gone or dead.

There are only 2 things left in the garden — the strawberries and the basil, which weren’t infested and don’t seem to have drawn them. My fingers are crossed for them. But I am diligently checking them several times a day.

My goal: To eradicate the *&$#@%*&# bugs so that I can plant new teeny tiny tomato plants this weekend for a fall crop. We are blessed with two seasons here and the time to plant is NOW. I figure if a few bugs show back up, I can handle killing them on a few couple inch-high plants! The jungle, not so much.

I WAS planning on an amazing crop from my huge existing plants. (Did I mention that? sigh.)

Ok — I am not over it. But it’s gone. So, now I am making a list:

some compost
some new mulch
a few new marigolds (fat lot of good THEY did keeping the bad bugs out!)

Tomorrow is a new day.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:42:42-05:00August 3rd, 2009|Blog, fall tomatoes, Sharing Nature's Garden, tomato leaf footed bug, tomatoes, vegetable garden|0 Comments

A preview of tasty morsels and, oh No … It’s BAAAACKKK!!!

Some more green beans are growing in my garden. These little blooms are a foreshadowing of a side dish to come.
And this pale little strawberry will soon be ruby-red and ripe and juicy — ready to eat while I am standing right in the garden. (But be careful, the juice will run down your hand and get all over you if you’re not careful! These strawberries are NOT white and hard inside, like those in my grocery store.)
The variegated lemons are small but powerful — a few more months and they will be delicious and ready to pick.

But WAIT.

Oh NO!

As I was picking weeds in the pathway, what do I see?

Do you recognize this little leaf?

It’s the EVIL Malabar spinach that threatened our very existence with take over last season.

It crawled up the house wall, scaled the garden and tried to come out into the yard. You can check it out on my pulling my hair out post, “Ok, don’t laugh!”

It was a heck of a lot of work to keep it from taking over and smothering the rest of the veggies in the garden.

And then I had the epiphany. I would rip it out and feed it to the deer, who were suffering last September from the drought and 40+ days of 100 degrees.

So, here’s the deal. We’ve had about 10 days at 100 already. It’s dry as a bone and the drought is STILL going. And the last few days I’ve seen a yearling doe in the woods looking for bird seed and her waterbowl.

My DH bought a protein block for the deer today.

And now I am thinking I might let that evil Malabar keep growing in the path and use it to feed the deer.

What the heck…

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:34-05:00June 20th, 2009|Blog, deer, malabar spinach, Sharing Nature's Garden, vegetable garden|0 Comments

It’s veggie time …

The veggies are all in.

The decision to empty out the greenhouse also meant that the veggie seedlings had to have somewhere to go — namely, the garden.

So I spent all day yesterday and most of today weeding, mixing in fresh compost, and plotting where to squeeze in all the plants and seeds I’ve been collecting.

I wanted to show you a picture of the 17, yes, count ’em, 17 nasty grubs that I dug out while digging 8 holes in the first bed. Can you believe that? Ewww. I put them all in a pot in the sun as a holding place and they died. But before I could take a picture of my “collection” they all disappeared. Weird. The wind was blustery yesterday, so they could have blown away once they dried up, or a bird could have swooped in and eaten them. Ewww…

Speaking of the wind, the poor little tomato plants were all being whipped about and I am worried about them being under such stress. But the fact is that we are on a hill and our neighborhood is called the Overlook, so we always have wind here. This will just have to toughen them up since they can’t stay in the greenhouse any longer.

These are the strawberries, planted last spring, spilling out messily into the mulch pathways. I have to do quite a dance in the garden to step around them, but I just can’t prune them back. (As you know, I have a problem with this!)

And all but one these tomatoes were grown from Tomato Bob’s Heirloom seeds. In this bed we have Black Krim, Omar’s Lebanese and Hank. I also grew a Big Boy from seed and he’s in there, too, along with dill, cilantro, a red bell pepper, a jalapeno and six marigolds for pest control.

In the other two beds I have:

radishes
green onions
lettuce
cucumbers
okra
bush beans
edamame
chives
cilantro
leeks
curly parsley and
strawberries

Yum!

We are supposed to have a chance of rain for the next 5 days, and nights will be in the 50s and 60s, days in the 60s and 70s.

Grow, veggies, grow…

Are there veggies in your garden yet, or in the garden in your mind? Little seedlings starting in the windowsill? What’s on your veggie list for 2009?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:39-05:00March 7th, 2009|Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, vegetable garden|0 Comments

Ah ha — garden guest uncovered!

Ok…this post is from Tanner.

I’ve been trying to help my mom decipher the garden salad bar thief mystery.

I keep snooping around…

looking…

sniffing…

barking…

and, yes, eating.

Today I finally led her to the best clue. She was sneaking up on me, hoping to find me doing something mischievous (who, me?).

And I had my nose deeply buried in the grass, chomping on a little snack.

What did she find when she came over? Rabbit turds! Yumm-o.

She was grossed out, needless to say, and shoed me away for further inspection of the clues.

So, now she can set about fixing some of the gaps under the garden fence and keep that little bunny out of the salad bar.

I mean, if she put up that fence to keep ME from eating tomatoes, and I LIVE here, then no rabbits should be allowed in there to get what I can’t have.

Don’t you think that’s only fair?

I’ll be on careful watch now to make sure the bunny doesn’t come back in the yard, either.

That’s my job, after all!

I’m a good boy. That’s all for my post today, now I’ll turn it back over to Mom!

— Tanner

Mom, here. Ok – I decided everyone needs to come out of the greenhouse before next week’s trip to Indiana. Here’s the last photo of the plants all nestled in their winter beds.

A few plants are happily blooming in the warmth of the greenhouse, like this hibiscus.

Bougainvilla

Geranium

Dutchman’s pipe in full, fragrant bloom.

In addition to the tropical plants, now all the veggies have to go into the veggie garden. So I have been composting and planting and digging out grubs today.

Took a lunch break, but now I have to get back out there. We’re supposed to have chances of rain, glorious rain, from Sunday through Thursday and I want to make sure the veggies are ready for it.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:39-05:00March 6th, 2009|Blog, greenhouse, rabbits, Sharing Nature's Garden, Tanner, vegetable garden|0 Comments

Sunny Sunday

It was a beautiful day yesterday, and amid watching 3 kids (they were on the playscape totally entertaining themselves for 3 hours!), I got a LOT done in the garden.

First, I amended the soil with compost and planted two rows of lettuce – some sweet Mesclun mix and another Green leaf, and a nice clump of Cilantro.

The strawberries are growing like crazy – that’s what’s covering the ground on that whole corner of the bed and flowing out into the path. See the 1 little orange Nasturtium bloom on the left?

So sad. My basil tree succumbed to winds this week and split and broke. I cut off some stems, but these are still alive, so I will leave them until I can have a mega-pesto making day. Pesto anyone? We’re not such big fans, so I’d be happy to share!

And here I planted 3 leeks and some parsley.

With the weather in the pleasant range, it’s so much nicer to be in the garden, even if I am pulling up grass and weeds!

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:45:06-05:00November 10th, 2008|Blog, cilantro, lettuce, parsley, Sharing Nature's Garden, vegetable garden|0 Comments

Garden mish-mash…

These are a few of my newest little knick knacks in the garden. No baby birds live here, but I do have a little red Cypress Vine that’s climbed up the fence and is trying to find a room!

(Actually, I think I might want to plug the hole rather than inviting birds to live IN my vegetable garden — what do you think?!)

On that note, I thought this ceramic Mr. Cardinal was a clever way to keep some less-than-friendly friends out of my garden and make me smile at the same time.

His real-life cousin lives on the other side of our yard in the woods, where he frequents the many feeders my DH fills. He also occasionally pecks at my windows in a very unfriendly fashion, for which I manage to forgive him since I have been wholly unsuccessful at detering him!

Well, this little cuke was green and healthy a week ago when I ripped out the rest of the cucumber vine. I left a few vines since this seemed to be ok.

Clearly it isn’t ok! Don’t know what it has, but it is an unhappy plant, that’s for sure!

But take a look at her neighbor. This is my Malabar Spinach, and it is taking over. And it’s not just taking over my garden, I think it has designs on our whole neighborhood and maybe even Austin!

Whatever got the cuke sure didn’t get this girl. She’s gonna find herself a window and come in the house pretty soon!

Hmmm… I guess if my posts start to sound strange soon, you’d better check to see if she’s a body snatcher that’s taken me over because of my gardening weaknesses!