Okra is starting to come in better!

These cherry tomatoes are a much sweeter variety than the sweet 100's I have in the back. These tomatoes were labeled san marzano's. Mislabeled. They're cherry tomatoes which are a bit bigger than my sweet 100's. But oh well they're totally tasty! I'm tickled my okra is starting to have pods popping out all over :D  We'll just eat as they come off since I only have about 12 plants. Next summer there will be 3 times that many okra plants for sure! I totally bombed with banana peppers this year. I bombed with those peppers just because I had no space for them and they outgrew their pots and just had no where to put them. Poor little guys there was no room at the inn this year :*(

Wow is the front yard going to go through a major over haul this winter! I'm talking bye bye to the last 7 trees in the front yard! I'll leave the 2 fully grown crepe myrtle trees only for two reasons: #1 will attract bees #2 I don't think I could afford the divorce that would mostly likely quickly follow the removal of those two trees! But the dogwood is as good as gone! It doesn't even make sense and the growth is stunted.

End of Sept - 1st of October those trees are coming down! And during the winter loads of topsoil & compost will be brought in to level out the side of the yard I'll be growing on! Hey it's less to mow! And if someone would let go of that not so tasty grass I would eliminate all need to mow! I'd be the best wife ever, right?

Start planning for next spring now. Be thinking of how you can eliminate some boring yard work and exchanging that space for a spot to grow healthy, organic, and chemically free veggies for your family! You'll never regret it!

ijustwannagrow



We got watered more than the garden this morning!

I took my beautiful 2yr old daughter out to water the garden with me this morning. And of course in her unique way to experience everything in the absolute funnest way possible she watered us more right along with the vegetables. I fixed her a bowl of apple cinnamon oatmeal this morning and while she ate and watched one of her learning dvd's I ran around and got my shoes on and put her shoes on. When she was finished she asked, "go bye bye momma"? I said, no ma'am the garden has got to be watered this morning. And two little hands were thrown in the air with such excitement. The little wrinkled nose and smile look she gives should have been a prior indicator as to how much fun the veggies were going to have getting watered by mom & Savi.
As we went outside I held her hand and watered by one hand and held her hand in my other. At first I answered mostly questions of "what's that" or "I touch it"? Then the BIG question came, "I water"? I grinned and said, "sure you can water"! I knew we'd get wet, but didn't know she was gonna have that much fun watering with the hose. I pulled up a patio chair (not that I have a patio, just have patio chairs) and sat down closer to her height, tucked her tight in between my legs, and then helped her hold the hose to water the vegetables. We started at the pole bean & squash bed and she was squealing as usual. Of course ever so often she had to reach out her hand to feel the cold water and then would yell, "wow water cold cold cold". Then we'd go back to watering. She'd periodically yell, "I water you green beans" or "I water you can lopes". I told her don't forget about the cucumbers, "I water you coo cumners". At times she'd point the hose straight up and then yell, "it rainin momma". I didn't see the pressure washer to the face, but after almost drowning herself under my supervision we headed back to our one lonely watermelon. As we watered the one watermelon, she yelled " I water you wah melon". "Wah melon duh wishous momma"! Yes Savannah Watermelon is delicious.
After we wrapped up our outdoor shower & garden watering duties we headed to the mailbox. She sang the blues clues version of mail time all the way down the driveway: here's the mail it never fails...it makes me want to wag my tail.....when it comes I want to wail - Mail! She carried her mail ( a new learning dvd) and I had the pleasure of carrying the stack of mom and dad's mail (bills) back up the driveway.
Needless to say a very fun start to our day so far.

Moral of this story: watering the garden can be surprisingly fun especially with a 2yr old!

ijustwanngrow

Squash buggies everywhere! ICK!

I spent the evening watering my lifeless garden after todays 105+ degree weather! While watering my poor little garden I noticed squash beetle eggs everywhere! I hadn't had a problem until NOW! So while I was watering I had to supress my girlish tendency to be squeemish around bugs and suck it up to scrape off all the squash beetle eggs! I still have more to scrape off tomorrow evening! I also took note of the little buggers that were laying those egg bombs! But I just couldn't pull my girlish tendency to be squeemish self together to touch those ugly things, so I'll have to wait until I can go out with a can or jar tomorrow with soapy water to drown them in! It really can get to you watching those ugly menesing bugs try to destroy all your hard work! I've not been able to be out there too much in the last two weeks because I've hurt my achilles tendon, so when I was out there I realized that wearing flipflops to garden is NOT a good idea! May have found the source to what is causing the extenuating circumstances of pain/discomfort!

Anyway, I digress, whilst I was out there I noticed that my crookneck actually gained some size. I decided for heaven's sake I was picking now instead of waiting about three days for a little more size gain because there is no telling what could have happened and I lost that first crook neck! I should have crooknecks weeks ago, but bi-gones! Anyway, there are more zucchini popping out everywhere. I have a huge patty pan squash that I just picked! I've never grown one before and sure enough it looks like the photo on the package of seeds! LOL  I read you have to pick those before they're larger than your hand, so I caught it right in time! I read they have a buttery flavor and are prolific producers. Now that I know I can grow them organically & chemically free then next year I'll have several of those plants for sure! My 2nd round of crookneck squash plants are all up and about 9-10inches tall now! I will always start squash in both ipeapots & seeds every year. NEVER again will I ever transplant just out of a tray! The roots do not like to be disturbed!  Here are the results:
           



Also, DRUM ROLL PLEASE! I have my 1st slicing cucumber! And it is about 2 1/2 inches in diameter and about 4 inches long so I should be slicing that sucker by this weekend for sure! Will post pictures soon!

Okay, my parting words tonight is TRY and stay cool! And make sure to water extra because it is HOT!

,ijustwannagrow

SUPRISE SATURDAY!

Great organic harvest day at home

 Today's harvest! My purple hull peas that actually grew to harvest are starting to turn purple! There were four today. Again only regret, was not planting 4 times what I actually planted :(  To have sustained so much leaf damage from the chewing and to still get a harvest is thrilling. Yay to diatamaceous earth! Other than every ant in NC running over the plants I still am going to get a harvest! So thrilled. Whoops I said that already.

Close up of my prize possession! A little background toward all the excitement of this harvest. My husband's grandaddy is a "professional" farm. I'll call him Farmer Floyd! He was a tobacco farmer in TN. Now he grows what he calls a garden. Many of us would call it farming by the acres! LOL  His garden is small to him, but not so small. One of the family favorites? Yep you guessed it, Purple Hull Peas. Purple hull peas are also known as cow peas. Well I've never attempted to grow them because really I just could never find the seeds; however, I did find them this year. And since it was our family of 3's first garden together I decided Savannah needed to learn how to grow the family's favorite pea early on to make Great Grandpa proud. The most exciting part of this harvest will be to dry a pod and mail her Great Grandpa and Grandma our first Purple Hull Pea pod and peas ever for their professional reviews!

On a side note, I have to go and pick up a dehydrator tonight to start drying jalepeno peppers. I'm getting handfulls every few days and so I'll dry most to use during the winter time. Also those two zucchini's make a total of 3 now. I have about 8 more coming in really well. I'm tickled pink with my zucchini this year. I've 8 more squash plants coming in and am really hoping I still have enough really warm weather to get some of them? If not more green to throw in the compost pile :D

Moral of this story is don't give up too soon, because you may be shocked that you get to harvest with something new that you know little about!

,ijustwannagrow

Pole Beans.....

I'm going to go ahead and plant another round of pole beans this evening since I have the open space to do so and I think I've got the hang of them now. Not that they're hard to grow, but now I've read up more on them I think the 2nd round will be more successful than the first round. Although the 1st round is definitely growing and blooming out, I'd like to see what the next round can do. I also noticed that my bush beans that have surfaced have a bunny munch on one of them! Will take care of that little bunnies tale tonight before they wipe out this crop too!

I just harvested lunch moments ago! I had a small salad plate full of yellow pear tomatoes, red sweet 100's, torn basil, diced mozzarella, tossed in salt/pepper & roasted garlic balsamic vinaigrette...it's lunches like these that make me glad I put the hard work into the garden this year! YUM!

I've been eyeballing a BIG space in the front yard to start to develop a front garden for next year. So this year lots of organic matter, manure, sea weed, and leaves to prepare that bed for an amazingly productive Spring 2012!

,ijustwannagrow

PM Garden Walkthrough:
While the hubs was mowing the grass Savannah and I sat in the living room floor and built a bamboo & jute twine pole bean tp trellis support! Now that was fun with a 2 year old! She started off very helpful, well until she grabbed one end of the jute twine roll and took off running across the living and then around the tp and then around to the other side. That was a counterproductive mess there, but it was so cute and wish I'd gotten her "helping me" on video! I hope she remembers atleast a smidgen of our gardening adventures this year, because I sure will! But our gardening diary is on the internet, so no matter what she should be able to find it again one day :D
After Clint came in from mowing and took over and switched to Daddy Daycare I ran out and positioned our tp trellis in which I will take pictures of tomorrow and upload just for memories sake! I plopped right in the middle of 3 squash plants! I read where the beans will give the squash a continuous supply of nitrogen, which that's kinda handy since squash is such a heavy feeder!
I also planted another row of pole beans in one of the empty raised beds, and dropped 8 more squash seeds (last of that pack) on the front and back of those pole beans. I think have just enough time to get squash off of those plants if they make it in that bed? Time will only tell!
So I just got back in from my evening walk through and watering festivities and I unexpectedly ran across (are you sitting down?) a 3 1/2 inch green bean just chillin and hanging around on the vine! I yelled OMG I'm SO happy to see you! I had to contain myself since there were neighbor's out eating pizza in their backyard, but I was SO screaming with excitement on the inside!
And as I walked backwards to my cowpeas (purple hull peas) I noticed these huge, thick, and long feelers that have shot out of the plants. Keep in mind I've never grown these myself, so I came into the Internet to find out what those are and realized that pretty soon the pea shoots will be at the end of those feeler looking things. I could not be more tickled right now! Of course I do not expect to get an amazing amount of any of the beans this year, because I didn't plant a lot of them, because I planted all kinds of stuff in small quantities as a test garden this year.