hey little garden, why you so sad?????

my poor little garden. it's so sad. the hubby, champion for all things underdog, said it's never gonna improve if i don't stop talking crap about it and to give it a chance. i, of course, am ready to yank it all out and get ready for fall. but then he screams that it is only july and i should stop being so negative. so, i gave the little bugger some fish emulsion yesterday to see if it could bounce back from the terrible soil i planted it in and the retched heatwave we're having. only time will tell. i give it to mid august before i tear it up.

third round of the littlest harvest.  
the two cherokee purple tomatoes that we ate were awesome!!!!

the tomato and pepper plot.

peppers on the right.... soooo small and only two tiny peppers so far. 

thank goodness the juliet tomatoes are doing something.

waiting for the third cherokee purple to ripen.

very small green zebra.... waiting, waiting, waiting for them to also ripen.

plot #2: squash, one pepper, two eggplants.

one tiny little eggplant is a coming!!!!!!

hey, here's another one!!!!!!

the littlest harvest

like i said before, this year's backyard garden it a bit of a bust. but it's trying. it really is. as not to get to depressed about the situation, i am not weighing the produce this year (except that from the community garden plot, cause we are supposed to record it in the notebook down there). so here is the evidence from what i like to call the littlest harvest......

2 overly mature eggplants, 1 juliet tomato, 1 cherokee purple tomato.

i should note here, that this is my first year doing eggplant. the hubby loves them, i find them barely  tolerable, although the plants are pretty. which explains why i unknowingly took to long to harvest them and the bottoms started to turn yellow. i read that they may be to mature to eat at that point and very bitter. and boy they were right.... yuck!! so folks, take my word for it. if your white eggplant has started to turn yellow on the bottom, toss it into the compost. as for the cherokee purple tomato, i really wanted to let it ripen further on the vine, but it was my ONLY sizable tomato out there, and i was terribly concerned that the squirrels would get it. so, after standing in front of the tomato plant for about 10 minutes, rocking back and forth, debating should i pick it or shouldn't i, i went for it. i'll slice it later and let you know how it tasted. assuming that the neighbors haven't called the law in regards to the crazy lady outside in her rob hovering nervously over a tomato plant. 

a few days later.......

two, yes two, actual zucchini!!!!! and one small white eggplant.

all delicious!!!!!

today i harvested a handful of juliet tomatoes an another cherokee purple. there is also a one more small eggplant (along with one turning yellow.... sad face), a zucchini, and a yellow squash getting ready to be plucked sometime tomorrow (picture to follow soon). i'm thinking i will try to make some veggie chips with a yogurt or white bean dip..... we'll see.

backyard bonanza

mexican sour gherkins.

oh cheese and crackers y'all, the garden is producing pretty good today. 

luckily i got everything harvested and watered before it got really, really, really hot out there. 

now i just gotta start cooking, eating, and canning all the garden loot.

red chinese long beans, lemon cucumbers, and four kinds of tomatoes....

clockwise: green zebra, amish paste, juliet, and sweet 100.

and when they say long bean....

they ain't kidding.

(sorry about the focusing issue. 

but you get the idea.)



oops....
i almost forgot to post this picture of the goodies i harvested last thursday....

garden salsa and banana peppers, juliet tomatoes, and lemon cucumbers.

2011 Garden Harvest: a new blog page

(drying onions outback on my sun ministries picnic table.)

hello dear folks. i have added yet another page to this here blog. you can now look back at what i have harvested from the garden so far this year (well, at least, most of it). in the future i want to set up a weighting station in the garden to get a better, and more accurate, measure of how much food is being produced out there. till then, you can follow the harvest on the new 2011 Garden Harvest page.

enjoy,

and thanks for reading.

tomato troubles, going from bad to worst.....

it's like a regular daytime soap opera here in the garden. just when the tomatoes are in the dirt and seem to be doing ok, i receive one pouch in the stomach after another. first, some critter dug up and destroyed one of the hillbilly potato leafs, and then one of the only two surviving violet jaspers dies. now, one by one, each of the little babies aren't looking so good. i just might have to bite the bullet and buy tomato starts this year and re-work my method for next season. hopefully i can find some interesting heirloom starts at the farmer's market tomorrow that will work out. boo hoo me.

at first their little home in the garden was so safe and promising. 

i made them milk jug cloches to keep off the evening chill.

now the jugs are being used as over night critter protectors.

the tiniest tomato plant ever.

i though they looked small in the yogurt containers.

they looked absolutely minuscule out in the garden next to the 6 foot stakes.

gone, but not forgotten. 

the HBPL on the left fell victim to the critters.

come on little guy, you can do it. 

grow, tomato, grow!!!!

garden note to self: plan for next year next year. rework the potting mix, start the tomatoes inside in little individual newspaper pots, give them worm castings on an earlier and regular basis, 1-3 weeks after transferring to bigger containers, move plants outside into a mini greenhouse to get warmer temps and more direct sunlight.

tomato day!!!!!!

good morning folks!!!

garden at 8 am on tomato day 2011.

finally, after weeks and weeks of waiting, today is the day!! the tomatoes are going in the garden!! can you tell i'm just a little bit excited. and yet, i'm still worrying about the tiny size of my little babies. although, i have seen a remarkable difference in their growth over the last few days out in the sunshine. plus i read this website about tomatoes where the author clearly states that, "smaller transplants that are healthy and in the proper growth phase will outproduce larger transplants 2 to 1 or even more."

say what??!!??

"Tomatoes go through several phases of growth from the initial soft stem seedling to a rapid growth phase and then to a reproductive phase. If you set out transplants that are already in the reproductive phase, they don't grow as large or set as many flowers as the smaller plants. By comparison, the smaller plants will go through a rapid growth phase where the plant produces vigorous leaves and stems before it sets blossoms. The result is a much bigger plant that keeps expanding as it supports an increasing fruit load."

"The tomato growers mantra should be Small But Healthy!"

oh, thank goodness!!! there is still hope or my tomatoes. not to mention, i've peeked at the surrounding backyards, and everyone's tomatoes clearly have a head start over mine (i saw one with a small green tomato on it already!!). so, i'm still hoping that my theory of the squirrels congregating in their yards for early tomato feasting will render them bored of tomatoes long before mine start producing. one can only hope.

tomato area ready for the transplants!!

in other garden news, the foliage on the potatoes are growing like mad. even if they don't produce many potatoes (or even any at all), i must say they are nice to look at and add a pretty cool flair to the  garden.

so now this morning, i'm just waiting for the sun to finish coming out, and the temperature to warm up a bit before heading out for a full day in the garden. happy planting everyone!!!

tomatoes babies, are you cold??

here in the land of tornadoes and rain, the stunted tomato seedling saga continues. i have been reading and researching tomato growth all over the internet, and yesterday i hit the library for books specifically about tomatoes.

 a little light tomato reading and some vintage tunes.

what i've come to learn is that my little babies just might be to cold. the other day, i noticed that some of the stems and underneath of the leaves seemed a little purple. this could be a natural discoloration depending on the variety, or it could mean that they are suffering from a lack of phosphorus, either from the mineral lacking in the soil or the soil being to cold for the tomatoes to properly uptake the nutrients. i figure that the cooler temperatures of this house, as compared to the house in greenville, might be a big factor in the stunted growth. even though the temperature inside ranges from 65-70 degrees, which is ideal for tomato seedlings, i definitely see a difference in their growth after they spend a day outside in the near 70 degree sunshine. unfortunately, here in st. louis, that has been a rarity this spring, as gray rainy days have become the norm. this has not been the case in years passed at the greenville house, where the tomatoes had fairly consistent warm and sunny window to grow in. also, i might have leached out some of the nitrogen and other nutrients from the soil on the super soak days. next time i will follow up these days with some food for the little guys, and/or save the water run off to reuse. so finally, the other day all the seedlings got a dose of worm castings and a few hours in the sun and seem to be doing better today. unfortunately, the next sunny (and not windy) day in the forcast is not until friday, and that is followed by yet another weekend of rain and thunderstorms. all in all, what this means is that i need to start feeding them sooner, AND i seriously need to work out a plan to build a mini tomato greenhouse for next year's seedlings. till then, the little guys need to hang in there just a little longer before they can safely go out into the garden.

little guys trying their best to grow during the indoor rainy days.

 hang in there. you can do it!!

i guess you could say the silver lining to all this rain is, i haven't had to go out and hand water my garden for about two and a half weeks. the peas, potatoes, and onions don't seem to mind the excess moisture and are growing really well. i took advantage of the little bit of sun we had yesterday to grab a few shots, and discovered the most exciting thing...... 

 flowers on the pea plants!!!!!!

we'll have little pea pods in no time!!!!

let's hope the coffee sacks are doing a good job at draining all this rain,

and the potatoes aren't just sitting in there rotting away.

tomato trauma

can you say oops!! here is a hard lesson learned. when setting your tomatoes outside for a full day of direct sun, don't set them in a reflective metal pan. they will pretty much cook.

at least i'm pretty sure that's what happened here. at first, i though it was the variety of tomato, the yellow beam pear, and maybe my seeds were to old. but then i noticed one of the tomatoes in the small containers was a violet jasper, and it to was pretty much a goner. so they must have literally cooked in the pan. oops. i guess i could have tried to revive them, but since the yellow beam pear are my least favorite, and i'm working with limited space, i chalked it up to a lesson learned. luckily, the rest of the tomatoes seem to be doing fine. i just gave them a layer of compost as to create more roots along the stem. if they're not gonna be big guys when i put them in the ground, they better have a nice developed root system.

(f.y.i these guys are 9-10 weeks old, and still so tiny.)

i must say the jury is still out on my new soiless seedling starting mix of compost and sand. the seeds seem to germinate okay, but the plants don't seem to thrive as i think they should. it also could be the lack of worm castings this year. maybe that worm poo works as well as "they" say it does. so, after the holiday, hunting down worm poo goes straight to the top of the garden to do list.

last week, i also transplanted some of the pepper starts from the second round. these pepper plants are about 5 weeks old and just as big as the seedlings that survived from the first round started a month before them.

all in all, i'm just itching to get everything in the ground. and if all else fails, i can always throw in the towel and go buy starts from the demo garden, knowing that the sale of those plants go to support the local community gardens. until then, there's more research to be done on what to feed my babies once they hit the dirt, and lots of beer to be consumed to calm my nerves.

garden note to self: not sure about the new soiless mixture. at 5 weeks transplanted the pepper starts into bigger containers, which from the looks of it, did well in the newspaper pots and had healthy white roots. at around 9-10 weeks the tomato starts are still pretty small and i may need to feed them something soon.