9.6.11

Right in My Own Backyard - The fruit of my labour

A couple of days ago I noticed that one beefsteak and one of the sweet million tomato plants had started to show the very beginnings of actual tomatoes.  Today, the sweet million has two teeny tiny tomatoes and now, I can see the beefsteak tomato from outside the garden.  I also found a little pepper starting to grow on one of the bell pepper plants, and the strawberry plants are showing no less than ten berries; one of them red.  I’m starting to wonder if I’m actually going to get anything from the blue jay pepper plants I got.  They don’t seem to be doing anything and haven’t advanced any in terms of growth since I got them. 

The pear tomato actually has me worried.  It was pretty sickly looking for a while, and I actually had someone tell me that it looks like it has a virus.  The bumps on the main stem were pretty disgusting looking and I wondered if it was actually going to live.  I’m still concerned that it might not make it, but I feel a little more hopeful because the flowers look as though they’re pretty healthy even though the leaves are still dying off.  I don’t know if a sick plant can still produce anything, and if it does, will it be any good?  The bumps look as though they’re starting to go down and the flowers have opened up.  Last year I didn’t get any tomatoes at all from my hanging buckets.  I don’t know if certain varieties are better suited to this type of planting.  I think next time I’ll try tumblers.

The herbs I planted in the peat pots to replace what Kiti destroyed are starting to spring up, but again, the rosemary is taking it’s time.  Is rosemary always so hard to grow?  When I had it in the planter box, I thought maybe it was poor potting soil that was causing such slow growth, then I thought maybe it was too low down in the box because I didn’t put enough soil in.  Now, I’m wondering if maybe I got a bad batch of seeds.  Or is rosemary just difficult?

Thankfully, the cucumbers seem to have made a comeback.  I started some new cucumber seeds just in case I lost my original plants, and they have started to sprout.  Since it looks like I’ll only be replacing one cucumber, I think I’m gonna try hanging a couple.  I also started some cantaloupe seeds when I saw my seedlings weren’t doing well.  They’ve all come up and I might transplant one of those to a hanging bucket too.  Last year it took forever to actually get a cantaloupe though.  And even then, it never got ripe enough to actually eat.  I just hope this year I got an early enough start to produce something worth while this year. 

On the back yard project front:  I finished restoring the donkey cart for dear MIL, I set up the tipsy plant pots I made her for her
birthday.  That poor donkey cart is so old that even with primer on it, it just sucked the paint right up.  Still, it didn’t turn out too bad considering everything that was going against this project.  I got my tipsy pots up too, and I think I’d like to make another set or two and station them at different points in the garden. 
                 Restoration Project Donkey Cart_1 Restoration Project Donkey Cart_3 Donkey Cart June 6

Donkey Cart - Original Condition
Primed & Ready to Paint
Shaping Up
                                Donkey Cart Finished June 9_3 Donkey Cart Back Home June 9_2

Finished Product
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous10/6/11 22:13

    Glad you finished your donkey project, don`t have much grass left,,,lol...Your garden looks great keep up the good work,,,,,,,

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