Life and Death–with my Container Garden

I have been struggling once again with keeping some plants alive while others are thriving.  I never claimed to have a green thumb, and now I know without a doubt that I don’t have one.  Here is a link to my last gardening post so you can see the growth and death that has happened over the last 10 days. 

The butternut squash have really taken off.  I saw one of the first blooms on the plant this week, so I hope we get to enjoy our own butternut squash this fall.  I decided a fungus killed my yellow squash and not bore worm after thinking about what Miriam pointed out to me on my last post.  I did see red squash bug eggs on these leaves, but I am hopeful that we got all of them.

I have lots of little blooms like this on my cucumber plants.  We like cucumbers, hopefully we will be enjoying lots of them this summer.  I may even look into making pickles.

Natalie and Megan are posing with a fresh picked cucumber in front of our cucumber vines.

I lost the zucchini the that were in the bed with the cucumbers.  I was really excited to see the first signs of real zucchini.  I was checking on them Saturday afternoon and barely lifted the leaves back to look underneath and the stem broke.  It was very yellow inside.  I think it was another death by fungus.  I looked closely at the other plants and they had the same problem.  We removed all of them Saturday.

 

The grape tomato “trees” are overtaking the bed.  They are producing lots of grape tomatoes!

When you pull back the grape tomatoes you can see the banana peppers underneath.  This is the biggest one, but I have several baby ones (like in the picture below) and more blooms.

If you look closely behind the pepper plant you can see a group of green grape tomatoes hanging down.

The non-tomato eater doesn’t know what to do with these tomatoes.  They don’t seem to really be getting larger, but they haven’t started to turn color either.  I bought this plant from the farmer’s market and I am wondering if it was a green tomato plant.  Any tips?

We even have a cherry tomato plant growing in our driveway.  It popped up last year next to where Steve parks his car.  We think the seeds got there from some cherry tomatoes his mom gave the kids.  We think one dropped when they were getting out of the car and the seeds grew into the plant.  We pulled it up in the fall, but it looks like we have another one.

You can see we already have a few cherry tomatoes growing on the plant.  Thank goodness Steve and the kids like tomatoes.

Please keep checking back for my gardening progress (or defeats). I am also linking this post to Frugal Gardening 101 hosted by Connie and Amy. Check out what other gardeners are accomplishing!

~Ann

Update on my Summer Project–A Container Garden

Here is a link to my last post if you want to compare the improvements and failures that have happened over the past two weeks.

We were able to enjoy the two squash that I showed in my last gardening post.  They were yummy, but something got to my squash plants.  I think it might have been bore worms. I was checking for eggs and didn’t see any.  My only thought is that they attached and did their dirty work while we were on vacation. 

Steve noticed the middle plant was dead at the base of the vine (the leaves were going from a vibrant green to a pale yellow) last Saturday when he was attaching the plants to stakes to get them to grow up and not out.  He pulled it out and we were hopeful that the rest of plants would survive.  We didn’t think it was bore worms at the time, we thought the base had rotted because it was being watered at the base in addition to several big rain storms that had come through that week.  I noticed during the rest of the week that the rest of my squash plants seem to have fallen prey to the same thing.  Here is a picture of my once beautiful squash bed.

I have lost all of my yellow squash – the one thing I was most excited about.  I am not sure if the butternut squash are going to make it or not either.  I am keeping an eye on them, but I noticed that the leaves are starting to yellow when I was taking the pictures.

 

My strawberries are producing well about every two to three weeks. It looks like this may be a good strawberry week coming up with all the green berries on the bushes. I am hopeful that we get some of the berries this time and not the critters.

 

The zucchini plants that I thought were goners seem to still be holding on.  I still haven’t seen any blooms, but they are getting bigger and their color is improving. 

The pot next to this bed is a complete goner.  I didn’t even take a picture of it, I figure you know what a pot of dirt looks like.

 

The cucumber vines are doing well. We have our first real cucumber growing on a vine. In case you can’t see it, our cucumber is against the stake behind the leaf.  (The baby one that I had in my last post never got any bigger.)

 

My tomato plants and my pepper plants are both thriving.  The grape tomato plants are growing like crazy and we joke that we don’t just have tomato plants, we have tomato trees.  We have been picking about 20 grape tomatoes twice a week.

 

We have our first tomatoes growing on our tomato plant.   (People who really know me will find it ironic that the one thing that is growing well in my garden is the tomatoes.  I don’t like tomatoes.)

 

My pepper plants.  We have our first banana pepper growing.  It is hard to see in the picture, but trust me it is there.  I can’t wait to have these on hand in the freezer for chili this winter. 

Please keep checking back for my gardening progress (or defeats). I am also linking this post to Frugal Gardening 101 series hosted by Phoebe, Connie and Amy. Check out what other gardeners are accomplishing!

~Ann

Update on my Summer Project–A Container Garden

Here is a link to my post last Saturday if you want to see the improvement and failure that has happened over the past week. 

This week was a big week for our little garden – we were able to pick lots of grape tomatoes and our first squash.  We also have our first few cucumbers beginning to grow.  The zucchini are starting to look a little better, but I still haven’t seen the the tiniest of zucchini starting to grow.  I am going to continue to watch them – and not give up. 

I wanted to start off with a picture that my baby sitter, Sarah, took of Natalie & Michael checking out the garden this past week.  Megan was still taking a nap when we walked out to pick out a few tomatoes. 

Michael is 10 months old.  Natalie just turned 5&1/2 this week – and lost her first tooth!

Now onto my plants’  progress:

My pepper plants – they look like they are just getting taller.

The grape tomatoes are doing really well.  We picked about 20 off of the two plants this week.  The tomato plant is starting to bloom, so hopefully we will have some tomatoes from that in a few weeks.

The strawberry bushes have been producing what appear to be sweet juicy strawberries.  We haven’t been able to enjoy them, critters are eating them for us.

My squash are doing great.  I think the spray that I used last week has really helped.  I picked two squash this morning, and I see a few small ones that should be ready next week.

The squash I picked this morning, I can’t wait to cook them for dinner tonight!

The zucchini and cucumber bed.  The zucchini seem to be doing better this week after I sprayed them last week.  I still haven’t seen any signs of baby zucchini.  I did find a few baby cucumbers growing on a few of the vines.

 

One of my baby cucumbers (the width of the frame is only 2 inches, so it really is small)

The pot that isn’t doing well.  The cucumber plant is the only thing still alive in the pot.  The squash and the zucchini have both died.  I don’t think they “play well with each other”  I probably should have planted them separately. 

 

Please keep checking back for my gardening progress (or defeat).  I am also linking this post to Frugal Gardening 101 series hosted by Phoebe, Connie and Amy.   Check out what other gardeners are accomplishing!

~Ann

Update on my Summer Project–A Container Garden

We were out of town for a week, but I came home to a thriving garden.  I couldn’t believe how big my squash plants had grown!   This post has pictures of what my garden looked like two weeks ago (the day we left for vacation) if you want to see how far I have come. 

My butternut squash (on the left) and my yellow squash!

Update on My Summer Project– A Container Garden

I took some pictures this past Saturday when my garden was 2 weeks old.  I went to use the digital cameras but I couldn’t find one Steve had them both packed up.  So, please excuse the quality of the pictures they were taken with my iPhone. 

My yellow squash are looking really good and my butternut squash have sprouted.  We added a sprinkler to keep them watered because of the high temperatures we had last week.

My “leftovers” pot.  These are the single plants that didn’t fit in the boxes Steve built so I am trying them in a pot.  There is one yellow squash, one cucumber, and one zucchini.

My cucumbers on the left and zucchini are on the right.  They look like they are doing well.

My strawberry plants.  I think it is actually chipmunks eating all of our fruit.  I have given up on the thought of eating only our homegrown strawberries this summer.

My banana pepper plants in the front and my two grape tomato plants are on the left and my single tomato plant is on the right.  The grape tomato plants has small green tomatoes on it, so hopefully in the next week or so we will have our first harvest. 

I am planning on trying to take pictures once a week, so keep checking back for the progress or struggles of my first attempt at gardening.

~Ann

PS – I found a gardening series that I have linked this post to -  Frugal Gardening 101 series hosted by Phoebe, Connie and Amy. Check it out!

My Summer Project–A Container Garden

Last summer I decided that it would be fun to have a small container garden.  I thankfully realized it was not the right time for me to try it out since I was expecting Michael to arrive in the middle of August.  I kept the thought planted in my mind (pun intended) and talked about it occasionally during the winter with Steve. 

I have never considered myself to have a green thumb or to really enjoy digging in the dirt.  However, I decided to try a garden for a few reasons.  The first is that I do think it is important that my children understand how we really get our food.  It doesn’t just magically appear in a grocery store.  I wanted to see if it would be more economical for me to grow some of my favorite summer produce like yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumbers.  I don’t like tomatoes, but I do have a tomato plant and two grape tomato plants for Steve and the girls to enjoy.  I also thought it would be a fun project for the girls and I to have this summer.  The girls love the PBS Show Sid the Science Kid and are always talking about making scientific observations.  What better way to make observations than to watch our seeds grow, our plants produce fruits and vegetables, and to harvest them ourselves.

I did some on-line research and talked to several people about what I should try to plant and the best approach.  We decided on three 3X3X12 planters.  We went to Lowe’s and had them cut the wood.  Steve put them together for me.  We bought the soil at Lowe’s because they had a special on it that weekend and the plants at Strange’s, a local greenhouse and garden center. We also bought two large pots to place on our patio. 

This is what it looked like when we planted everything last Saturday (with a special thanks to my photographer Natalie):

One of our planter boxes.  The area that they are in has a slope so we made an attempt to level the ground out underneath them as much as possible.

We filled them about 3/4 of the way with topsoil then covered them with landscape cloth to try to keep “critters” from coming up and getting our plants.  (We probably should have used a layer of wire mesh at the bottom but we didn’t.  I think the squirrels are going to be more of a problem.  Any tips?)

I cut out areas to plant the plants through the landscape cloth.  This bed has yellow squash and the holes are where I planted seeds for butternut squash. We did cover the cloth with a very light layer of soil.  (My photographer had gotten bored at that point and I didn’t get a picture.)

My strawberry plants in a pot.  They have produced a few berries, but I think either squirrels or birds are eating them.  Any advice?

The final census of what we planted in our garden are 7 cucumber plants, 8 zucchini plants, 8 yellow squash plants, 4 banana pepper plants, 1 tomato plant, 2 grape tomato plants, 2 strawberry plants, and seeds for at least 3 butternut squash.

I’ll try my best to keep you posted on my progress and the trial and error of attempting my first garden. 

~Ann

More backyard progress

The transformation is almost complete! We are going to get sod installed soon so we will actually have grass. I asked Steve if thought he was going to need a riding lawn mower now that we had a big back yard. He said he thinks he can still handle it with a push mower.

They are still working to even out the backyard some, it will still have some slope, but not as drastic as it was.
The driveway is going to get gravel brought back in for now, until we can decide exactly what we want to do with it and how wide we need it to be. It is so much easier to get the car in the garage now with some of the slope evened out.

The view from the edge of the street. The yard looks huge without the overgrown beds and the drainage ditch.

A view looking towards the street - again it looks so big now that we don't have the overgrown flower beds.

One of the many loads of topsoil that have been brought in. I was told that we probably have about 300 tons of topsoil and 35-40 tons of gravel in the backyard now.

Tuesday's backyard happenings

Here are some pictures from today's progress:

They cleared out the brush and pavers that were around the deck. Steve finished taking out the steps to the deck.

Natalie checking out how big the backyard is now. The trash pile and the plants are now gone. The plants to her left still need to be taken out.

They still need to take out the bush and finish cleaning out the bed. What a difference!

More progress in the backyard

It has been really neat and exciting to watch the progress on the backyard. I feel like I am in my own episode of an HGTV show. Today before they got started they had to pump out the remaining water from the rain last week and Saturday. Then they finished building the forms around the pipe. This afternoon the cement truck came in and they poured the cement. I was shocked when I looked outside late this afternoon and saw the majority of the pipe covered with gravel and sand. We were actually able to walk across our backyard without going over a bridge! The trench with the pipe installed is now covered!

The shrubs and plants that are going to get taken out tomorrow. Our property line ends right about where you see our neighbor's shed. The trees are going to stay.

More plants and planters that are going to get removed tomorrow.

A view from the street - the white fence is our neighbors yard. Everything to the left of the fence (except the tree) is going to get taken out.

The county wouldn't allow us to completely cover the drainage ditch. We had to leave a 6 foot area. The drain area where Steve and the girls are standing will remain. The plants are going tomorrow.

What happened in the backyard on Thursday

I took these pictures this afternoon. The guys came to the house this morning and realized they were not going to be doing any work today. We had a storm last night and all of the water from the neighborhood seemed to have drained in our backyard. They have a temporary dam there - I don't really know why. The guy working on the project told me to check it again on Sunday morning to make sure it is still in place because it is suppose to rain really heavy again Saturday night.

The standing water that kept them from pouring cement today.

All of the pipe - it isn't finished. They still need to seal the joints.

The deck got demolished - the only thing left is the few steps that led to the deck. Steve ran out of light to finish taking them out. Don't worry we set the dead bolt lock on the main door and the storm door so no one will forget and walk out the door.