Garden Update 1

I know it hasnt even been a full week yet, but it's time for an update on the status of my garden.

I last mentioned that I was only waiting on sprouts from the potatoes, carrots, and strawberries. Well, they have begun sprouting! I have a few potatoes sprouting up (though at first I wasnt even sure they were potato sprouts until my husband confirmed it), I have a whole bunch of tiny little carrot sprouts (which were hard to see since carrot sprouts are so tiny at first), and I have 2 hanging strawberry baskets, one of which has a tiny strawberry sprout right in the center of it. And if I didnt mention before, both of my big blueberry bushes (bought at Walmart) are planted by the vineyard and are doing fantastic (with hints of blueberries already!). Hubby also bought me 3 more grape vines, which are planted and complete the spaces I had in my vineyard. Now I just have to hope they all grow well!!!

However, there is still work to be done. I guess I'm watering it pretty well, since the weeds have come out in full force. We skipped watering yesterday so that my husband could go in between each row with some special weed killer. However he had to be very careful and make sure to ONLY go in between the rows, because this killer will zap any living plant. (Just a note: we have some garden weed killer, that will leave the veggies unharmed, but my sprouts are so young and not every one has come up yet, so we are waiting on that stuff just to be sure the sprouts all pop up first.) So now that I know my aisles that I walk down will be cleared, the rows of sprouts and about 8 inches to either side of them need to be weeded. Now I get to really get my hands dirty... I need to pull these weeds by hand, so I know the sprouts themselves will be safe. It will take a while since, if you remember, each row is 80 feet long. Not to mention, being 8 months pregnant kind of makes it hard to get a comfortable position while weeding.

A few days ago, while meandering through the rows, I stopped to admire my squash sprouts (the first real sprouts I had) and ended up weeding them out. That row still has the lettuce in it, and a space at the end for my eggplants, but all I did was the squash (at that time, the lettuce was still too small for me to weed comfortably without fear of pulling the lettuce). Today, I weeded out the sunflower row, a small section of garlic bulbs at the end of my carrot and potato row, and the pepper row. Of course, there is a small 10 foot section at the end of the pepper rows that will be for my banana peppers, but they are being grown indoors with the eggplant until they are bigger. That's 2 full rows down, and the squash. I wanted so badly to do the onion row today, but it just got way too hot and the garden really needed to be watered. So I plan on weeding out the onion row tomorrow, and quite possibly the lettuce as well. That will complete 2 rows tomorrow, giving me a total of 4 completed rows-- half of the garden!

Just in case you are confused at this point, here is what I have:
Row 1: Sunflowers (weeded)
Row 2: Corn
Row 3: Squash (weeded), lettuce, space for eggplant (being grown indoors at the moment)
Row 4: Peppers (weeded), space for banana peppers (being grown indoors at the moment)
Row 5: Onions
Row 6: Tomatoes
Row 7: Potatoes, carrots, garlic (weeded)
Row 8: Cantelope, cucumbers, watermelon, pumpkin

Hopefully I can be patient enough to wait at least another week before posting the next garden update. By then, I expect the rest of the sprouts to have all come up. I expect what's already up to have grown their first (or second) set of true leaves, and I expect to have the rest of the garden all weeded out so that I can plant the tomato seeds. I also expect to see my eggplant and banana peppers get a bit bigger (though I dont think they will go outside for a few more weeks at least).

I am so impatient to have these things grow! I can already imagine looking out over the garden and seeing all the plants, filled up and out, producing veggies left and right. I can just see myself walking down the aisles between the rows, collecting my veggies. I can't wait for my first watermelon! That's the one I'm most looking forward to. Until then, we will just have to settle for our weekly updates and watch them grow. Maybe I'll even be able to get some pictures of the sprouts up by next week! :)