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.

Garden Progress Pictures

These are the Cal White potatoes that I planted on 3/22.  They had white sprouts on them when I planted them.  They have grown enough that they have also been covered with 2 inches of peat moss.  Maybe next year I will take the potatoes out of the refrigerator and get them growing before I plant them.

This is all that has grown on the red potatoes that I planted 3/17.  There were no sprouts on these when I planted them.

The Yukon Gold growing in the tote are a little larger than the red.

The kids have lettuce growing better in their barbecue that I do in my bed.

That patch of green is mesclun.  The lettuce is just two tiny starts in front of the mesclun.  Spinach is on the left, looking like a few weeds.  Behind the mesclun is beets.  The carrots on the back left have not germinated yet.  All of these things were planted on March 29th and 30th.

A few of the peas are coming up good.  There are a lot that are just breaking through the soil and don't show in this picture.  These were planted 3/30.

All-in-all I must say that of the things planted outdoors nothing is doing as well as expected, except the mesclun and the Cal White potatoes.  Everything is slow to germinate this year.

This is cilantro that grows mostly in the shade at my front door.  This is what started growing a few months ago.  It has been in this pot for about 4 years.  Everything you read about cilantro will tell you to grow it in full sun.  All those in this area who grow it with success grow it in the shade.

This is one of the cilantro plants I started indoors from seed on 2/28.  This pot's label says that it holds a 6 inch plant.

Genovese basil that I started from seed indoors 2/28.



Tomatillos started indoors from seed 3/5.  We are going to plant one of these in a Topsy Turvy as an experiment this year.  If you use a Topsy Turvy, you will need to water it often.  Probably more than a normal container.

The Walla Walla onion sets I planted on 3/31 have grown grown quite well.

The garlic planted in the fall of last year are doing good also.

Here is a picture of my rhubarb. These are all the same kind, but for some reason unknown to me, the back three always grow a lot sooner than the front three.  I have one water well dug out so far.  It was full of volunteer violas that I transplanted.

Here is an asparagus plant that is 12 years old.  Ten to twelve years is about the life time of  asparagus.

One year old asparagus.  I won't harvest any of theses one year plants until the third year.

This rosemary plant is in a place where I removed the bed and the other herbs.  I pinned 4 branches that were curving upward into the ground with some tie wire.  I made a "U" shape and turned it upside down.  There is about 5 inches of wire going into the ground and about a 1/2 inch of soil over the wire.  I will check for roots in a couple of months.

This is all of the small buckets of water that I have left.  There has been a lot of evaporation.  The rest has been used on the garden outside and the seedlings/plants indoors.  I am looking for very large water containers for next year to make a better storage system, but I am very thankful for any free water.