Right in My Own Backyard A Cornwall gardening experience: Right in My Own Backyard

I’ve looked over the garden a few times since I shot the video I’ll be attaching to this post, and a lot of flowers have started to come out on quite a few of the plants. The cucumbers, peas, radish, & broccoli all have flowers now, and I think the green beans in the square foot garden are starting to show signs of flower buds. I’m seeing the bell peppers are really starting to take shape, and   I’ve counted five cherry tomatoes on the tallest of the 3 plants.    I’m not sure about the other two tomato plants in the garden – The 2nd cherry and the beefsteak – they’re still so small. I still didn’t get any stakes for the peas, but we removed some of the wire scalloped fencing we were using to keep Kiti away from the new grass seed, so I used that in the pea squares.

I have to say that I’m really starting to get confused about what the heck I actually planted in some of the sections of the square foot garden. Initially, I thought I just messed up with the square to the south of the broccoli which should have had peppers in it but looks like it’s another broccoli plant. Well, now I’m starting to wonder about the radish and turnip squares which look suspiciously similar. I think I’m going to add more carrots to the mix. What’s coming up looks nice, but they’re appearing sporadically. The squares aren’t full. I’m not sure what’s going on with the spinach either. Again it’s a matter of confusion on my part. When I touch the centre though, it looks like it gives off some kind of smoke or powder or something. And the onions look like they’re disappearing.   I have four squares that I believe need to be replanted, and I’m sure what’s in a couple of those are weeds, but I’m nervous to take them out just in case they actually turn out to be something I planted. Anyway, I read somewhere that a weed is only a weed if it’s growing somewhere you don’t want it to be. Well, for now I want them to be there.

There’s a total of 15 yellow bean plants and the green bean patch at the south end now has 9 good sized sprouts, and I think I saw another one starting to poke through. I’m really quite surprised by that one because I really thought I’d have to start that over again. Oh, and there’s 5 fennel sprouts too. The four cantaloupe seeds that had started out nicely looked like they were going to die there for a minute. I think something got at them, because I was seeing the roots exposed and they looked quite sickly. I decided to just poke them back down a little deeper, and it looks like they are starting to perk up. All of the cantaloupe I have going look really well; especially that one I thought wasn’t going anywhere. It’s quite tall now. Not anywhere near flowering or anything, but still, a lot better than I had even hoped for.   The herb sections are starting to fill in nicely and I’m sure I’ll soon be able to fluff it out properly.

I think maybe the tomatoes I have in the buckets are diseased. Crying

They’ve got really purple looking leaves and some have yellow spots on them. As far as the bucket herbs go, The dill looks like it’s going to be good and so does the basil. I really want the basil to do well. My Mother says it’s working wonders at keeping the flies away from her house. We’ve got a trash can out back and so do our neighbours to the west and the flies are everywhere. Nothing spectacular is going on with the spearmint or the tarragon; I ‘m hoping it’s just because it’s their nature to be slow starters.

We had planned to have a barbecue and a fire on Saturday, so I thought I’d take some night video of the garden lights, but it rained all day, so we called it off. Still, like I’ve said before, I’m not gonna complain about the rain. The less I have to drag that hose out, the better. Well maybe next weekend. In the meantime, enjoy the new pics and video.