My New Favorite Quote

"If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research, would it?"

My, how you've grown!

So its been about a month since I have posted any pictures (oops!) and my how things have grown! And I have lots of news and updates to report!

OK, so lets start with the overall picture:

This is actually only about half the plot. The corn, sunflowers, beans, pumpkin and watermelon are behind me. Anyway, the ocra is the empty looking space in there. It still hasn't really taken off yet. I've heard it really likes the heat and it has been cool(er) lately.

Next, a story about my tomatoes. My roma tomatoes have been flowering like CRAZY but I had yet to see an actual tomato. I noticed last week that the blooms were just falling off!! I was so sad. I thought maybe my soil nutrients were off, but a little internet research suggested that it was due to the heat wave we had the week before. Anyway, as you can see in the picture below I have at least one baby roma! yay!!

Oh, and one more story. So I was all excited that I was going to string up my tomatoes and have tomatoes growing up this 6 ft high strings, etc. I failed to realize that romas are indeterminant so they won't climb, just make giant bushes! Which is fine, I am just a little sad that they won't get to make use of my great trellis! The cucumbers are enjoying it tremendously though.

I also have a baby 'mystery tomato' from the picnic day batch. yay!!

Below is the chard. Oh great beautiful chard that I have no idea what to do with! I have discovered one yummy recipe that involves wrapping it around fish but other than that I am at a loss. Anyone with good chard recipes please hook me up!

I have peppers!!! So. excited. I bought this plant from Ace- some kind of hot peppers (red something, maybe you can read the tag in the pic ;) )

Here we have soy bean on the left and black turtle beans on the right. They are growing lots but no flowers yet.

Here are the limas and the remains of the peas on the left and pumpkin and watermelon on the right. The Green Arrow peas have been wonderfully delicious and productive. The pumpkin is growing really well. I thought I had lost it during the high wind storm we had last week. The main stem got a little broken, but apparently it doesn't need the whole stem to feed the whole plant. Watermelon is looking kind of pathetic. I got the seeds from a watermelon from the grocery store. I'm not even sure what kind it was. It was small and really tasty. Hopefully not a hybrid though. I am tempted to go to Ace and get a new one...

My corn is so pretty! It and the sunflowers have created their own personal jungle. Some are starting to form tassels. The real test will be when the corn comes and the squirrels notice..

L: Cucumber flowers! So far most of them look like male flowers, although they are still small yet. I don't know, I have never grown cucumbers before. If I can figure out the flowers I want to try hand pollinating.

R: Potatoes! They are blooming. I didn't know that potatoes bloomed- I guess I never really thought about it. These are another sort of experiment. I took organic grocery store potatoes and stuck them in the ground. How do I know when they are done? Does the plant die and I just did them up? I need to do some google-ing.

OK, just one more- the strawberries! I have two different types. The first are the ones I got from my neighbor. They are growing well, putting out lots of yummy berries and lots and lots of runners. Even the runners have runners. Crazy. So if anyone wants any strawberry plants just let me know!

The other variety I have is Fragaria. I got these from Ace. They are supposed to produce throughout the summer and do not produce as many (if any) runners. They have also produced lots of yummy berries.  Here is an almost ripe ones and the remains on ones I had a nibble on.

Whew! That was a long overdue update. I am amazed at how much everything has grown up in just a month. Before I know it I will have produce up to my ears ( I hope!).

Peas, Lettuce and Beneficial Insects

Over the weekend I harvested my first peas and they were so delicious. I just shelled them and ate them raw. yum! Today I harvested all the lettuce and will eat a yummy salad in a few minutes.  The spinach bolted last week.  Its supposed to get up into the 90s this week (where did spring go!?) so I figured the lettuce was about done too.

Today I also saw a Soldier beetle (I think). It was just chillin' on the sunflowers, hopefully making a meal of lots of cucumber beetles.  I also saw another bug that I think (even less sure on this one) may have been spined soldier bug.  Or maybe just a regular stink bug.  I didn't get a close enough look at it.  I did notice that as it flew off, there was red coloring under its wings.  I will have to get pictures next time!

More sprouts

One ocra and a lot of the black beans came up today!  I think I will be able to pick my first harvest of peas this weekend!

Beetles and Sprouts

The past week in the garden has been very exciting!  Here's a list:

• Planted soy, black and lima beans; limas and soy are mostly up; still waiting on the black beans


• Planted clover in back beds


• Planted pumpkins and watermelon; came up yesterday


• Cucumber beetles (spotted and striped) are out with a vengence (as of May 1). I squished lots of them as they nibbled on my sunflowers.  When their numbers seemed to dwindle I put my actual cucumbers out. So far so good


• Bought hot (chile and something else) and chocolate bell pepper plants to replace those lost to frost.


• Bought fluffy pyramid flower plants to add some color.


• My tomatoes have flowers!!!!!!!


• I have peas!!!!!!!!


• I'm only mildly excited about those last two..

So everything is gradually greening up and filling in all the empty space.  yay! I will try to post some pics eventually.

Picnic Day 2008!

I'm not sure why this never got published but anyway here goes:

Saturday (like a month ago) was picnic day and it was so fun! We spent the morning wandering around looking at stuff- I got my free plants (tomatoes). The viticulture people were giving out grapevine plants. I really really wanted one but couldn't think of where I would plant it so I passed. I spent the afternoon at our lab's poster in BAE and the Biotech exhibit. I was pooped by the end of the day. I also carried around my camera for the entire day and didn't take a single picture..

Also, my computer is having issues- it has downloaded Windows (XP) updates but won't install them. I click on the yellow shield to install, it thinks about it for a minute and then tells me that the updates were not installed. No error message or anything. Does anyone know whats wrong? Do I have a virus or something?