Is everyone ready? This is my most amazing week yet! Even more veggies are growing and producing, and I can actually see a lot of them! Things that were growing, are growing bigger; things that weren't producing yet, are now producing. As a matter of fact, EVERYTHING I have is producing right now. The only exception is the things not in the garden area (grapes, strawberries, blueberries, and the lemon tree). I have to warn you though: I went all out with pictures this week! There is so much to show you, that there are 41 pictures in this post. So be prepared for a long post with lots of greenery. I'm sure you wont mind the length, however, because you will be enjoying this little stroll through the garden, and you will be amazed at what is growing.
Oh! And a quick sidenote on today's pictures: My camera lens was foggy and I thought it was the screen... so all the pictures have the air about them as if they were taken in a dream. Sorry 'bout that!
Cantelope: you can see the pretty rows of yellow flowers. And when I looked closely, some of the flowers were different.
Here's what I'm talking about. The flower on the left here is just a flower. But the thing in the center of the picture? That was a flower, before it fell off. It left behind a small bulge, that is slowly becoming more round. Yes, you guessed it! It's the beginning of a cantelope!
Cucumber: as I showed you last week, my cucumber plants are beginning to produce.
Here's the cucumber I showed you last week! It's bigger! I'm not sure how much longer this one will get, since it's the first one of the season, it might stay small. But I have a few others already growing big, and more flowers appearing, so I have faith that I will have many more cucumbers that will get much larger.
Watermelon: the vines are all running together now. And what's better than growing vines?
Growing melons! This here is one of the many young watermelons I've discovered! This is the one thing I have been waiting for these past 8 weeks; the one thing I want the most from this garden (I have had such a craving for watermelon lately).
And of course, the pumpkin. It's so large, and the leaves are so huge... and it's spreading out so quickly, I hardly have time to teach it which direction to grow! It's grown over the aisle and is about to run over the carrots, and as you can see in the picture, it's slowly curving around a small watermelon plant. Soon, if I dont do something about it, it will engulf that poor watermelon.
Here is the potato section from the end of the potatoes down to the end of the row. There are many of them, and they are all a beautiful green and very bushy. I am curious to see what is going on under the soil, but not impatient enough to dig any of them up, even though I have tens of them.
The carrots: not much looks different from last week. There is a section that is huge, and a section that is small, and all kinds of sizes in between.
Tomatoes: The tomato plants have exploded! See how many tomatoes are covering this ONE plant? Remember, I have 7 of these.
Big, and beautiful. I can't wait until they are ripe enough to pick. Last year, this is the biggest any tomatoes ever got for me for some reason. But the fact that they are still green and growing larger gives me hope that I will have regular sized tomatoes this year, if not larger ones!
Here's a picture of some of my largest onion plants together. They are very tall and very thick.
I zoomed in on the base of one of the larger onion plants. As you can see, this particular onion is a Red (or Purple) Onion. Great for salads!
Here is a picture of the onion blossoms in full bloom. It almost looks like super large dandelions, doesnt it? They smell amazing too (just like fresh onion). My garden is home to a million bugs, most of which I've never seen before. This beetle was enjoying an afternoon nap on top of an onion flower.
Here we have some Red Bell Peppers. Three on one little plant, and all growing healthy and strong! Really can't wait to harvest these, because I cook a lot with bell peppers.
Some Green Bell Peppers. They are getting pretty big; I give it another two weeks before they are large enough to be picked!
Santa Fe Grande Peppers: I showed you last week that we were already able to harvest one of these, and the pepper on the right is actually ready to be harvest now as well!
This is awesome: my Cayenne Peppers. There are four in this picture, one of which is in the back and harder to see. The largest of these is longer than my fingers.
This is Mike's favorite of the peppers: Sweet Banana Pepper. This one in particular is three inches long, and is still only halfway grown. There are multiple ones on the plant finally.
Salad Bowl Mix Lettuce: You can see three different types of lettuce in the mix right here in this picture.
Caesar Mix Lettuce: I liked this picture, because it is showing a perfectly forming head of lettuce. It's the little things in life that you have to treasure. I treasure this head of lettuce. Just beautiful.
The squash plants. They dont seem to look much different from last week, maybe a few more leaves. But I believe the plants are at their size limit. Now it's the veggies that are growing larger by the day!
Here's some more squash growing under the leaves. The big one here is almost as long as my arm and just as thick at the larger part. I have been harvesting 3-4 squash a week these past 2 weeks. Anyone want some?
The corn: Amazing, isn't it? I thought that the pictures I took last week were tiny corn popping up; but in fact, it was the flowering part on the top of the plant! They have all blossomed out and the row looks amazing. If I had an ornamental garden, I would have to plant corn in it just for the way it looks right now. Of course, the tops of the corn have attracted a million bugs, and no matter how good they are for the garden, they are not all good for me. I have millions of ladybugs (and I'm not sure I'm exaggerating), hundreds of different types of beetles, grasshoppers and crickets, and my worst enemies: every species known to Texas of Mud wasps (Dirt Dobbers), Guinea wasps, Red wasps, and even *shudder*... HORNETS. I'm terrified to get too close to my corn or sunflowers, because that is where they all gather. Yet I know exactly why they are there, and as much as I hate them, I have to give them credit for the job they are doing. The tops of the corn are swarming with aphids, placed there by their good friends, the ants. All the wasps are there to eat the aphids. But that doesnt make me feel any more comfortable about going near them! I dont want to get stung by a hungry (and territorial) hornet. I had never even SEEN a hornet until this year.
Oh, this part makes up for the slight disappointment I felt when I realized the tops of the corn were actually a flowering thing. This picture here is of ACTUAL corn growing off the stalks of the plants, and you can see the husks and the stringy stuff that's around corn, too. So even though it turns out that last week's "corn" wasnt actual corn, this week shows me that I really do have corn after all!
The sunflowers: they are almost all producing flower buds now. You can see these two right next to each other, and how big the flowers are getting.
***PICTURE OF THE WEEK***
This is a close up of a sunflower forming. The camera's "foggy" effect this week, combined with the light from the flash, has made this picture look more bright, more green, and just more amazing than ever.
This is a picture of the sunflower row, standing near the center of the garden. All of the plants are about as tall as me, so close to 5 feet tall, and there is one that rises above the rest; that one is over 5 1/2 feet tall!
Here is a picture of the lemon tree. It is almost to the second ring on the metal stake, which means it's almost 3 feet tall. It's still just one tall stem though. At least the part of it at the bottom is thickening up and becoming much harder; that means that it should become the new trunk of the tree.
This tiny branch, with very few leaves and even fewer blueberries, was all that was left after my goat got past the fence and ate both of my blueberry bushes. The only reason this small section was left was because it was too tall for him to reach.
This is my garden telling me that it loves me as much as I love it: every leaf you see here is new. The blueberry bushes are growing back, and in full force. Take that, goat!
For those of you who dont know, my grapes were eaten down by first a cow, then my goat. I was so devastated, that last week I didnt even bother taking pictures of the grapes or blueberries. This picture here is my second "picture of the week" because in this picture, nature is talking to me. The stick on the left is a bare grapevine. You can't tell in the picture, but at the joints in the stick, where branches used to come off, there are tiny red buds where new growth is beginning to appear. The flower on the right is the only flower nearby, and it has grown right up inside the cage for the grape. It is beautiful; it is like nature is encouraging the grape to grow back. I love it.
This was the grape vine the cow demolished. It is now covered in bright new leaves. The amazing thing is that I haven't watered the grapes or blueberries since last week; I was about to give up on them. But I decided to check on them this morning, and I was so proud of them.
This is the grape the goat destroyed. Tiny new bright green heart-shaped leaves. I love how nature never gives up.
This little grape stick was having a bit of trouble getting itself started off growing to begin with... but see all those tiny green balls all over it? It almost looks like moss... but that is bunches of new buds... within a week or two, that will be replaced with lots of leaves!
The one grape that has never been eaten or destroyed. Still going strong... however it looks like growth has slowed to a near halt. Perhaps it is waiting for it's fellow grape vines to catch up?
My strawberry baskets have finally been moved outdoors. For now, to help transition them, they are on the front porch. I love this picture, not for the strawberries, but for the way the tractor looks in the background.
This is the second strawberry basket, hanging directly below the first one. They are still very small, but surprisingly I think they look a bit bigger than before. Right now they are not in direct sunlight, only morning light and filtered light throughout the day. But they seem much more content outdoors than in the kitchen window.
This last picture is new to the Garden Updates. But since I have been watching a lot of P. Allen Smith and The Victory Garden, I have widened my view of what the term "garden" means. For Valentine's Day/my wedding anniversary, my husband bought me a very expensive flower arrangement. Last year, he bought me one that had this very curly vine throughout it, that I called "my viney thing", that grew roots and leaves right in the vase. We couldn't tell what it was, so I wasn't able to give it the exact care it needed, and it died. This year, he specifically asked for "my viney thing" and once again, it grew roots and leaves. This time I was not letting it go to waste; for the price of that flower arrangement, I was determined to get something out of it that would last (besides the memory). I researched using Google images and eventually discovered that "my viney thing" was actually branches from a Curly Willow tree. I learned what it needed to survive, and planted 3 branches in a large pot. Over a week ago, my horse got into the front yard and ate ALL the leaves. It even pulled the third and smaller branch right out of the pot (and luckily I was able to find it before the roots dried out completely). I replanted the small one, and brought them all indoors for a few days of Intensive Care (lots of love, water, and afternoon sunlight in a warm house free of hungry hungry horses). By the time they were ready to go back outside, they were covered in beautiful leaves again, and were even more filled out than they had been originally! So here they are, my gorgeous willows, 2 in the large pot and the one smaller one in the tiny glass bowl on the left hand side. Once again, nature has taught me to never give up, and just keep rebuilding when you get torn down. ♥
Fabulous! I am so jealous.
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