Vegetable Garden

The planning has officially begun!

I have seeds saved from last year to look through, I'll also have to wait for sweet potatoes, potatoes, garlic, and onions to purchase locally. I ordered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds last year for the first time and had great luck with their product.

Last night's order consisted of the following:
Jujube cherry tomato
German red strawberry tomato
San Juanito tomatillo
Amarillo carrot
Bleu de solaise leek
Purple top white globe turnip
Kuroda long 8 carrot
Butternut rogosa violin "Gioia" squash
Boston pickling cucumber
Rocky top lettuce mix
Ground cherry
Amsterdam prickly seeded spinach
 

Tiiiiiiiiiiiimber!

Nothing compared to the east coast and Hurricane Irene, but man was it windy on Friday!

I lost a favorite focal point in the yard because of the wind. I decided when we bought the house 2 years ago that this dead tree would not be cut down. I loved the character, coloring and shape of this old guy.  The wind had a different idea and thought it would be great if this tree was pushed over onto my garden, namely my lettuce and dill. So good bye old tree, we will be enjoying you in our campfire for the remainder of the summer and into the fall.

 Sorry to all the displaced ants (thousands were crawling around and inside the tree!!), bugs, and other critters who lost their home in this terribly tragic wind-accident...

The Tree

Ate dinner outside and didn't notice this until we were done. Opps!

Bent my fencing and landed into the garden.

The critters seized the opportunity and nibbled at a zucchini while the fence was down. So I threw it into the woods to let them finish their snack. The fence bounced back and was set back up on Friday night.

Poor, poor lettuce. Some survived, just covered in saw dust!

The crime scene.

All cleaned up!

Campfire wood! Note the huge hole in the one piece! That was the bottom chunk, no wonder it didn't fall over sooner! I am grateful that no one was out there when it fell, dangerous...

Crazy!

Beer for my Lettuce

Friday I picked lettuce out of the garden and stored it in the fridge and guess what I found stuck to the inside of the container?! A little pinkish slug. Ick!!  Blech!! Yuck!! I washed it down the sink and the proceeded to carefully wash my pre-washed lettuce. I picked a big bowl of lettuce last night to try to thin out my lettuce (planted too close, my fault) and also very carefully washed the new batch. Found one more slug. That went with its little slug-friend to slug heaven down the drain. 



Um... ick!
(Photo: http://www.thegazette.com/)

I hadn't even had time to look up home remedies for this when it was recommended to me by a friend to put a cup of beer out by the lettuce. Supposedly the slugs are attracted to the beer (much like the human bar fly) and will drown. I figured I'd give it a shot!

It is raining out so I didn't get a picture, but what I did was so simple. I reused a whipped cream container and lid. I cut a hole along the side (approx. 3 inches long), filled it with almost a full beer, Summer Shandy for anyone curious, put the lid on and set it out by the lettuce. I don't know how much rain we are supposed to get so I figured the lid was needed.

I'll re-post about this if it works! 

Garden Happenings

So not including the zucchini wilt, I had a great night exploring the vegetable garden and one of the flower gardens. I don't get out there every night so when I do I'm out for a while fixing, weeding, pruning and peeking at everything.  I was happy with almost everything and even brought in some lettuce and onions for the next couple days. The lettuce leaves are smallish but perfect for my lunch sandwiches.

Grape vine in flower garden. These vines are so heavy they needed extra twine. Last year we didn't even realize this was a vine plant it was so small. I cut it back in the fall and here is what we got!

Two plants worth of these to look at tonight ~ Beautiful

I am not sure what these little guys are but they are so bright against all of the green in the yard, love it!

Large potted Roma tomato plants (3)

I tied these back from the metal rings, they were leaning against it too much.

Smaller tomato plant, Roma.

Peppers. Not sure how these will end up. Something was eating them when they were very small. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

So very excited about the potatoes!

Lettuce. Slowly thinning it. This was my first year planting lettuce so they are a little too close but tastes amazing.

Nightly harvest!

Crab apples. We only have 6... darn deer at all of the lower buds!