Garden Update 4

Another week has come and gone, and it's time for the next update! This week is exciting, because I have made some neat discoveries and survived a battle against yet another hardship.

A quick recap from last week: My biggest problem was the weeds, which were taking over the garden. My second issue was my son, who couldnt take one step into the garden without walking all over my veggies. Well this week, the weeds are still my biggest problem. They are so tall, it's hard for my sprinklers to get the water over them. There wasnt much I could do about it this week though. This late in my pregnancy, the only sleep I can really get is in the early hours of the morning, just as the sun comes up. By the time I've had enough sleep to survive the day, my son is already awake and I can't sneak out to the garden to weed in peace. The only time I have to really get any work done out here is on the weekends or when my husband is home. I considered taking the lawn mower down the center aisles to chop down those pesky weeds, but then I thought about how careful I would have to be not to mow down my veggies, and on top of that, the weeds would just be harder to pull up and would grow back thicker. So all I managed to get done this week was that I finished completely weeding one entire aisle (only 6 to go!).
It's going to be slow goings on the rest of the aisles, since I will be having my baby this week (Friday at the absolute latest) which means that next week's update may not show any weeding progress at all! Luckily, the plants dont need my constant supervision in order for them to grow :)

My second issue this week was my llama and goat. Somehow, they managed to push down a section of fence by their barn and they strolled on into my garden! I caught it soon enough that I didn't notice any immediate damage, however upon later inspection during that evening's watering, I was disappointed to discover that they had actually stomped over a cantelope and 3 squash, and ate down all the corn and the tops of the sunflowers on the far end of the garden. My husband fixed the fence (actually, he made it much better) and I gave my destroyed veggies a good long pep talk (they know now that they are strong enough to survive this, and they can grow back). My sunflowers took the motivational speech well, and are already full of new leaves in the centers with hardly a sign that they were llama lunch. My corn is harder to tell, since it's all curled up in a roll on the inside of the stalk, but I do believe they are growing back as well. Not that I'm TOO concerned... I do have full rows of each, after all. The last 10 feet being eaten really wouldnt put much of a dent in what we'll harvest this year... but dont tell that to the plants! Unfortunately, the stomped down plants are dying. Nothing I can do about a broken stem. :(

Well, let's go ahead and get into our pictures!

Row 1:
Cantelope:
Cucumber:
Watermelon:
Pumpkin (These are my biggest 2 pumpkins. Unfortunately over the last 2 weeks, I lost at least 3 if not 4 of my 11 pumpkin plants. Another week should show me how many I still have living.):
Row 2:
Potatoes:
Carrots (Interesting discovery this week: I had to thin out the carrots a bit, and when I pulled one out of the ground, I was excited to see that there is only one tap root that goes straight down (a mini carrot, hehe). I also--out of curiosity-- nibbled a bit on the root, and was shocked to discover that even as barely an inch long, not even orange yet, roots... it already tastes like carrot!):
Row 3:
Tomatoes (Look at the top of the plant. See the yellow flowers? Those will soon become tiny tomatoes.):
Row 4:
Onions (They are developing little bulbs on the tops of a lot of them!):
Row 5:
Peppers (Notice the little white flower. That will become a tiny pepper.):
Banana Peppers (They are growing very slowly, and unfortunately the tray in which the pots were on took an unfortunate spill this morning, but I managed to scoop them all back up. Starting them on their transfer to the outdoors this week so they will grow faster.):
Row 6:
Squash (They have gotten HUGE this week. And a neat surprise? I took a closer look underneath the giant leaves and discovered a big orange flower coming out!):
Salad Bowl Mix Lettuce (I also had to thin out the lettuce a bit this week--both types-- and so I took the baby lettuce I had to pull up, washed it off, and cut off the bottoms and TaDa! My husband and I had baby-lettuce salads straight from the garden.):
Caesar Mix Lettuce:
Eggplant (The eggplant has been growing very slowly, and so this week I will begin it's transfer to the outdoors so they will grow faster.):
Row 7:
Corn (It's getting big enough to show a picture of the row rather than just one plant):
Row 8:
Sunflower:
Over by the vineyard, my lemon tree has shot up yet another few inches in just seven short days. It has now grown taller than all the pieces of green tape that were holding the original trunk to a metal stake, which was how I was keeping track of it's height progress. So I took a round 3 tier hoop stake thing (like I have on my tomatoes) and put one around the lemon tree, so now I can keep track of it's growth by where it is in relation to the hoops.
In the vineyard, the blueberry bushes dont seem to look too different, other than having some new leaves on them (which you can't see in the pictures, lol):
The blueberries themselves, however, are all darkening up. I'm going to have to look online this week to see when exactly you know a blueberry is ready to be picked.

The grapes are still growing well, this one is my favorite because I remember when it was nothing but a stick, and now you can hardly see the stick at all:
Look closer at it, and you can see it is even starting to grow little vines on it, that it will soon stretch out to grab the wire surrounding it:
And of course, indoors, I have my strawberries. Both strawberry baskets have three or four tiny sprouts. They are growing very slowly. I think they may need more sunlight than they are getting at the back porch window, so I plan to move them to the kitchen window (once I figure out how they are going to hang...)
And a new addition this week: I have finally planted seeds for my herb garden! I have planted Oregano, Mint, Catnip, Chives, Italian Parsley, Lemon Basil, Sweet Basil, and Spicy Basil. They are going to be started indoors. Last year I had some herbs and grew them inside on the back porch for months before moving them outside. I think I might be able to do that again this year, but with a better place to put them once outside. I ended up losing them last year, due to not enough space, too many weeds, and not enough attention from me. I am going to take much better care of these ones so that I can actually benefit from them this year :)
Well, that's what I've got going on this week. As I said earlier, I will be having my baby sometime in the next 6 days (by next Friday at the latest) so I'm not sure how much progress will actually get made when it comes to weeding, but I hope to at least get started on the next row. I need to skip over to the aisle between the sunflowers and corn, since that is a major weed infestation and that is where I put the sprinklers when watering that side of the garden. No matter what actually gets done, I know my veggies will continue to grow happily (as long as no other issues arise this week) and I look forward to seeing how things have progressed next week. :)