New Garden Pictures

This is my Big Max pumpkin.  One of those that get 500 to 1,000 pounds if you live in the Midwest.  Mine is a whopping 4 inches long from stem to flower.  The leaves are bigger than the pumpkin.

The Brussels sprouts are forming along the main stock of the plant.  They are almost the size of a quarter.  This is supposed to be a 90 day crop.  The seedlings were planted outside on 3/22.  I don't think I will plant them next year.  I have other things I like better than this crop that has so far taken over 5 months to grow and still isn't ready to harvest.

This eggplant doesn't get enough sun.  Not expecting anything from it.  There isn't even any flowers starting.  Oh well it is a pretty plant in an otherwise empty pot.

The lettuce I planted about 3 weeks ago is doing really well.

The lettuce plant from the little barbecue is dead, but the seed didn't finish forming.  I half expected that because the lettuce didn't do well it that tiny container.  I think it got to hot and even in the shade it didn't do well.

I will save the seeds from this lettuce plant now.

 I stopped watering my zucchini from overhead and have been careful to not get the flowers wet also.  I have two zucchinis now.

This is the other zucchini growing straight up.  There is a little spaghetti squash on the ground below the zucchini.

Here are two spaghetti squash.  The cement block is 6 inches wide and 16 inches long almost.  They measure like a 2 x 4 piece of wood does.  Anyway you get an idea of their size.  The front ones is very scratched up for some unknown reason.  I hope they finish developing before the frost gets to them.

This Sugar Pie pumpkin is 3 inches long form stem to flower, but it is bigger around than the Big Max pumpkin.

I dug these tiny potatoes out of the rectangular tote of potatoes, because the plant was almost dead even though it didn't grow as big as it should have.  It never got big enough for the plant to flower.  I was surprised to see holes in the potatoes.  There were only 8 potatoes.  Two other smaller ones had these same holes. I put the potatoes on one of the concrete block after I dug each one up.  When I finished and was starting to pick up the potatoes, I saw tiny tiny ants crawling out of the holes.  I have never seen or heard of that before.

Beets at different sizes.  Some were planted a little over  3 weeks ago and some were planted almost 2 weeks ago.

 This is four tomatillo plants.  It looks like a jungle.

 There are tons of little green husks with the tomatillos developing inside them.

All the tomato plants in the pots look terrible.  Usually when plants die from the bottom up it means too much water or too dry between waterings.  I'm not sure which it is.  The plant water tester always reads that they have a ton of water, but when I put my fingers down in the soil it feels dry.

Not putting tomatoes in pots again.  Especially ones without holes in the bottom.  This is my first year of container gardening.  Not very happy with the tomato results.

Wandering onions AKA Egyptian onions and chives are planted under all of my fruit trees.  These smelly plants help keep the bugs away that like to overwinter in the ground and climb up the trees in the spring.

Close-up of the Wandering onions.  The new onion sets form on the top of the onion stalks.  They will dry up, fall off, and start growing again.  Some will get blown to other parts of the yard and start growing if they get enough water.

Here is a close-up of one of the Wandering onion plants.  One new onion has a cluster of new onions growing off of it.  This happens very often.  I have plenty to share if anyone wants some.

Here is what is left of the ones I dug up and dried two years ago.  As you can see I don't use many onions.  They are little and very mild.

This is one of two parsley plants that are in with the asparagus.  All of the asparagus died and was replanted 2 years ago.  Two parsley plants managed to find their way back.  I am letting them go to seed and spread throughout the asparagus again, hopefully.

Saving Seeds and Tomato Blossom End Rot

The yellow flowers from this broccoli plant have turned to brown seed pods.

I put a small paper bag over the top of the broccoli plant; then folded the top of one side of the bag towards the other side of the bag until it was snug around the plant stock. I used a binder clip to hold the folded bag in place.

Gently press the plant over to help keep the seed from falling out of the bag.  Do not break the plant stock. The plant will fall over more with time.  I have the edge of a small pallet holding the plant in place. The pallet is also there to keep the quail from digging holes in the moist soil.  The piece of window screen at the top of the picture is covering garlic I planted that some critter was digging up and eating the top edges of.

Here is the same broccoli plant a week later.The bag covered plant has fallen towards the ground a little more.  Tiny bunches of broccoli have grown and started turning to flowers also.

This is the lettuce from the grandkids garden.  The lettuce leaves are almost dead, but the yellow flowers have turned into white puffy balls.

I covered it with a small paper bag; rolled the edge in; and secured it with the binder clip also.

Gently press the plant to one side to hold the seeds in and be very careful not to break the plant stock.

This bag now touches the ground a week after putting the bag over the lettuce seeds.  I don't worry about keeping the bag dry when I water.  It doesn't seem to affect the seeds.

Here is one of my heirloom paste tomatoes that had blossom end rot.  Saving tomato seed is not an easy process, so this year I am going to try saving them like my friend, Bruce, does.  He puts the very ripe tomato in a bag and lets it completely rot and dry out.  Then he closes the bag and stores the seeds for planting next year.  I left the center top of this sandwich bag open (otherwise it will never dry out) and it is sitting in my window sill.

I planted 5 tomato plants in tubs.  The plants look great, but the first 6 or 8 tomatoes had blossom end rot.   Watch for Tomato Horned Worms.  I heard on the garden talk show Saturday that these critters are starting to show up.

Here is a picture of blossom end rot.  I forgot to take a picture of my tomatoes with this, so I got this picture off of the Internet.

I went to my favorite nursery in Sparks that just reopened and talked to Mark.  He told me that tomatoes planted in pots have a problem with blossom end rot, because they do not get the calcium out of the soil like plants in the ground do.  Too much nitrogen  makes blossom end rot a bigger problem.  I mulched all of my tomatoes in the pots and in the ground with a thick layer of grass.  Nitrogen overdose for the tomatoes in pots.
This bottle only makes 8 gallons.  It can be sprayed on the plants and on the soil.
Blossom end rot can affect tomatoes, bell peppers, melons and squashes.  This is my first year of having it happen to more than one or two tomatoes. I was able to get two watering barely out of this bottle for my 5 plants and so far the new tomatoes look great.