Garden Update

I can hardly believe it is June 6th.  I thought I had posted picture earlier in the year, but I guess I haven't.  I have been a terrible blogger.  Now it is time to do better, so here is the gardening news.

These are Isis Candy cherry tomatoes that I started indoors from seed on February 3.  I kept putting them into larger pots until they were outgrowing the gallon pots.  They sprouted faster than I was expecting and got leggy, so I planted them up to the fist set of true leaves on the first transplant into a larger pot.  I took them outdoors and back in for several weeks to get them acclimated to the outdoors.  Every time they were almost ready to plant it got down to freezing.  Finally on May 29 I planted them outside.  They were starting to die in the pots and needed transplanting again. 

Here is another view of the Isis Candy tomato plants.

Planted potatoes on March 2.  Some of them froze three times.  This group was the worst.  I watered one day and they froze that night, so they looked really bad the next morning.  Potatoes are tough.  They keep coming back.

 Found a little potato in the ground a month ago, so I planted it in a pot.

These are Walla Walla onions in the front half.  They were sick little onion starts that I planted March 2.  The back half is big German Red Garlic that I planted the same day.  Garlic should be planted in the fall.  It is only available in the nurseries in the spring and onions and garlic can no longer be sent to Nevada from the seed catalog companies.  I planted most of it and used a few pieces to cook with.  I like the flavor of this one.  Hope it does good.

This is what is left of the lettuce that was planted last fall.  The ones on the left edge (side and front) are transplant form seeds I started in the house on Jan 5.

I have spent the last 3 weeks moving my raspberries.  They were behind the fruit trees and get too much shade and don't produce very well any more.  Most of them seem to have taken the transplanting well.

My poor peach tree is almost dead.  It couldn't hold all the weight last year and broke in many places.  It is a semi-dwarf and about 17 years old, so it is about done producing anyway.

Here is what is left of the garlic I planted in August last year.  A lot of it got eaten by who-knows-what.  I did cover it all Winter when I found it eaten to the ground.  Now I see something is laying in there.  A lot of smashed plants.  Probably the cat.  I have smashed clumps of daffodils on the other side of the yard too.  The back half is carrots that I started about 1 month ago.  I didn't cover them until about 2 weeks ago.  I see a few starting to germinate.  I'm thinking that most of the seeds were probably eaten by the birds.

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.