Organic Garden Update 5th Week

Here we are in our fifth week of our organic garden. 

The corn is now taller than the fence. It's flowering & has sprouted the beginning of their ears of corn in between the larger leaves. It's pretty cool to show the kids where the ears of corn will be. I wondered why do you call it an “ear” of corn? So of course i had to Google It....“Ear” comes from the ancient word “ahs,” which meant “husk of corn.” In English, sometimes the ear also is referred to as a “cob” or a “pole.”
More on it & a cute video...Wonderopolis

Now on to the Cantaloupe plant. I found on the top of one vine two melons emerging, but one already split. What is up with that?

 Here is the pride of the garden. This is the third melon still growing strong. The stocking is doing a great job of stretching to accommodate the melon.

Roma tomatoes are showing themselves all over the plant now.

The Earthbox tomato plant, even after a heavy trimming is looking very bushy. It has over a dozen or so fruit on it.

The Eggplants are finally thriving. Aphids ate the leaves extensively but it's trucking along. Both plants are finally showing signs of flowering.

The poor Pole Beans. I can't be sure if they'll recover from root rot. Perhaps I caught it in time before they all suffocated. Poor drainage from these poly bags. Won't use these next season for beans, may try it out for herbs.

Ahhh the Earthbox with all the drama. We've had to deal with a Squash Vine Borer, Aphids, White Powdery Mildew on the leaves, and now big brown Squash Bugs & their eggs. Errrrr. I thought zucchini is supposed to be easy to grow.
The cucumbers aren't as much trouble as their neighbor. They are our prolific producers, I've already harvested four foot long Burpless cucumbers, and about six of the Bush Pickles.

Here is a shot of the Roma Tomato bush demonstrating why I don't want to use these Topsy Turvy planters for tomatoes ever again. The water runs out onto the plant's leaves, making the plant more susceptible to disease. If water sits on plant foliage for hours, it can encourage fungal diseases to attack leaves, buds, flowers, and fruit. The water washes dirt onto the leaves also. They sure don't tell you that in those tv commercials do they?
Gardening 101: Avoid wetting the leaves of the plants, and especially pay careful attention to water gently so you don't sling dirt onto the leaves. (Unavoidable in a Topsy Turvy planter)

So it's been weeks (nearly a month) since I harvested the first of the Banana Peppers. They were actually already on the plant when we bought them at the PTC Farmer's Market. I now have close to a dozen peppers on the plant now.  Plants are so funny.

As for the Karma Bell Pepper...about a dozen coming in right now, but only about 3 are the same size. The plant has been self pruning itself. I find a few, would be peppers on the ground just about everyday.

Gypsy Peppers have been at it for a while now, the difference in size is very subtle soI am thinking they just have to ripen up & change colors before they are ready to be harvested. Meanwhile it is showing new peppers developing.

I forget what this Earthbox tomato is called, but it's making my mouth water as I wait for it to ripen it's fruits. Or should I make us some good ol' Fried Green Tomatoes?!

Hmmmm these baby carrots sure are boring to watch grow, nearly 5 inches tall.  Steve doesn't want to grow carrots again, he finds them boring also. Their slow growth could be due to the fact that they really are more of a cool weather plant. I did remove the weed that was growing alongside them. I identified the weed to be a Fat Hen weed...this is a great website to help you identify common garden weeds...http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/weedlf.htm

Since we reconfigured the garden last weekend I am now able to acces the plants from all sides now. I wanted to show y'all the look of the Zucchini plant after being damaged & recovered from being attacked by a Squash Vine Borer. The damage was mainly on the right stem.
The Zucchini has been trimmed a lot. We did some research & found that the plant can take having it's leaves pruned off so to allow the plant to focus it's energy on developing the vegetables. Also the flowers are edible. Just one male flower is needed to be used to polinate the female flowers. The flowers are very delicate & is best harvested early in the morning when the flowers are in full bloom. I grew up eating squash blossoms in Pinakbet or a bogoong salad of tomatoes, fern shoots & squash blossom. (Bagoong is a Philippine condiment made of partially or completely fermented fish or shrimps and salt.) I think my family would rather I lightly batter & fry them instead.

More Bush Pickles.

 

The lone Sunflower that didn't get eaten by the birds.

 The largest of the Watermelons planted about 2 weeks ago.

Organic Garden'ing'

June 5th 2011
We've got our Earth Boxes, & fabric pots, the beginnings of our organic garden. Wahooo my husband must surely love me to do all this for the family. This is way more than I was expecting to start out with. We're growing fruits, vegetables, and herbs. I'm gonna try to chronicle our gardening adventure.

This is a pano picture of our back yard viewed from our back patio.

Click on picture to see a larger view.

 We set up the garden to the far left up against our shared fence with the neighbor. We chose that spot because it is the sunniest area in our backyard. We did start out with two Topsy Turvy planters that are seen hanging from one of the rafters of our patio.

Earth Box info can be found here: Earthbox.com
We purchased our boxes, along with many of the plants and all the dirt from Pike's Nursery.

Fabric Pots are a store generic brand and info can be found here: Atlantis Hydroponics

Daddy showing the kids how to work.

What we planted...
One Zucchini, and two different kind of Cucumber plants. In an Earth Box.

Zucchini, Burpless Cucumber, Bush Pickle Cucumber

One tomato and three peppers in the Earthbox.

Mountain Pride (indeterminate) Tomato, a Sweet Banana Pepper, Karma Bell Pepper, and Gypsy Pepper

 Started from seed, two asian eggplants.

Two Asian Eggplant in the Earth Box.

Started from seed, sweet corn.

This has 8 Sweet Corn seedlings in the Earth Box.

We have green beans in the large poly pot with the cascading trellis.

Kentucky Pole Beans

These are the collapsible fabric & poly bags. We are growing red potatoes, fingerling potatoes, and carrots in these pots.

 For the time being we have 6 Strawberry plants in a strawberry poly pot.

Ozark Beauty Strawberries

Cateloupe in a fabric pot.

Hale's Best Jumbo Muskmelon

This garden is a stretch for me out of my comfort zone. I'm not much of an outdoor kind of gal who likes to commune with nature. I really hate bugs. Despite those reasons there is just something about growing food that is connecting me to my roots. My grandparents farmed in the Philippines & back home in Hawaii there was always something growing in the yard that was edible, literally the entire island was an edible wonderland. My mother cultivated edible weeds. My grandmother landscaped with peanut plants under the mailbox. There was always those staple plants of Kalamansi, Marunguy, Pias in many of our yards.

Gardening is in my blood. I believe one of my uncles still manages the farm in the Philippines. Since migrating to the U.S. we’ve become very suburban. I don't think as a young girl I thought...when I grow up I will garden, as an adult I hope to connect to my ancestors & Hawaii in this way.  It is very exciting to me. What's not exciting are the pests. I hate bugs, all of them good or bad, but I've decided I am going to work through my fear one bug at a time.  

There are a lot of benefits to having a garden that I am hoping will outweigh my fears, the expense & the work.  Eating healthy, teaching my kids where food comes from, lessening our carbon footprint, and enjoying a new hobby as a family.

So here we go.