Garden Update 2

Time for another update on the status of my garden! I know you have all been looking forward to seeing pictures of everything I have, and I'm excited to finally post them. I plan on posting new pictures each week as I give you the weekly Garden Updates.

First of all, you need to see what I have to work with. For those of you just joining us, my garden is 80 feet by 40 feet. Here is a picture from one corner across. I began planting directly in front of my feet, and you can see the fence in the distance:

Here is a picture looking straight down the garden, between two rows. The row on the right is my sunflower row, and the row on the left is my corn row. Not that you can tell them apart just yet:
As you can see, I have weeded down the rows around the veggies, but I haven't weeded the aisles between them. So it's a bit funny, but the brightest green in the overall views is actually the aisles of weeds! But that will only last until my veggies get bigger.

I know I have been listing the rows starting with the sunflowers, but for ease of organization I have to switch it around backwards. Starting with the upper left hand corner of the garden, let's go down the rows and see how the sprouts are progressing!

Row 1:
Cantelope:
Cucumber (I was a bit worried that these were killed after spraying for weeds, but other than some white spots on the leaves, they are still growing new leaves):
Watermelon:
Pumpkin (These are my pride and joy in the garden. The leaves are so big!):
Row 2:
Potato:
Carrots (The carrots still aren't weeded out yet, since they are still so small, I'm afraid I'll mistake them for grass and pull them out.):
Row 3:
Tomato (I still haven't weeded the tomatoes yet either, although this morning I did manage to thin the weeds around the few tomato plants I do have. I still need to plant new tomato seeds, but I just didn't have the energy this week.):
Row 4:
Onions:
Row 5:
Peppers (This one is a green bell pepper, but I have 7 different types already in the ground.):
Banana Peppers (These are the sprouts that I've been growing indoors. Once their leaves are bigger, they will be transitioned outdoors. I have them listed here because this is where they will eventually be.):
Row 6:
Squash:
Salad Bowl Mix Lettuce:
Caesar Mix Lettuce:
Eggplant (These are the sprouts that I've been growing indoors. Once their leaves are bigger, they will be transitioned outdoors. I have them listed here because this is where they will eventually be.):
Row 7:
Corn (Yesterday I planted a second row of corn directly beside my first row. Maybe next week they will begin popping up!):
Row 8:
Sunflowers:
Unfortunately for my poor sunflowers, it's grasshopper season. Almost a full third of my sunflowers look like this:
I'm still working on finding a veggie-safe way to get rid of the grasshoppers. I know my chickens and guineas will eat them, if only they would stay in my garden! They just sort of pass through once or twice a day, and they dont spend enough time on the end row where the sunflowers are. Even if they did, there is a whole field of grasshoppers just beyond the fence, and a little bit of wire isn't going to keep them out. But my sunflowers are fighting back! You can see the new leaves in the center... but grasshoppers eat so much, and there are so many... it's only a matter of time before they devour the last of my sunflowers. Hope my sunflowers can survive another week or so, until I can get out there and save them!

Now let's head on over to the Vineyard. Just beside the rows for the grapes, I have my blueberry bushes:
And look! I already have loads of blueberries all over them!
I was very surprised that they would be blooming and producing so soon, but I think I'm only shocked because the rest of my garden is growing from tiny sprouts and these were bought as grown bushes from Walmart. I have to say, seeing the blueberries gives me hope for the rest of the garden. Like, a little taste of what's to come :)

And now over to the grapes:
I've been growing these from sticks. Here's a view of one where you can see a lot more of the stick, to give you an idea of how it looked when we got them:
Just picture that without the leaves on the top. It was depressing. We tried to grow them from sticks last year too, but they never grew. I have a lot of hope for them this year, especially since they are actually growing. And a lot of gardening from year to year is through trial and error, and I've learned that grapes are very fragile things. They can't miss a day of water, and almost every living creature out there seems to think the leaves are delicious. We fenced off the vineyard to keep out the cows and wrapped each plant in a wire cage to keep the rabbits away. I found one of them with a few leaves eaten down this morning though, and I have NO clue what could have done it. I'll have to keep a closer watch.

Last year I also planted a lemon tree. It was only about 3 feet tall, and too young to produce any lemons. I was expecting to see it bud back to life this year, but so far it hasn't. I'm not sure if it's going to be a late bloomer, or if for some reason it died, but I water it every day anyways just in case. Of course, it might not bud out at all. Especially since I weeded out the grass around the base of the tree and discovered this:
So my lemon tree is growing, but not where I wanted it to grow from. It has new sprouts all around the base, and they are getting taller each week. I want to cut them off in an effort to direct the tree to work at growing back the original branches, but I'm afraid that if I do it will just die. So I will allow the sprouts to continue, and I guess I'll just have to wait an extra year or so and just grow the tree from the smaller sprout.

Last of all, we come to my strawberry baskets. I have 2 coconut fiber-lined hanging baskets on the back porch that I planted strawberry seeds in. It has taken them over a week, but I finally have sprouts!
Hard to see, aren't they? I had to look pretty closely to see them when they first popped up. Here's a close up:
I am so proud of my garden! Even throughout the hardships, it continues to grow each day. I know I'm expecting to have a baby any day now, but my garden is like a whole nursery of babies. They need my love and attention too, and I will not neglect them. I look forward to next week, with the next Garden Update. From this post onward I will be sure to include pictures to document our garden growing experience, and show our progress. Stay tuned! :)