Pole Beans have BLOOMS!

WOW am I excited and was so proud to add the next piece of net trellising for them to continue to climb on! Tomorrow I'll add the net trellising to the other side of the swing set tomorrow, in case they wanna keep on climbing down the other side?


I added the trellis netting to the cantaloupe bed and started to train the cantaloupe plants up the trellis! Will build my cucumber trellis tomorrow so that I can start training those vines up in hopes of eventually getting cucumbers?


I'm still cleaning out my very first bed in preparing for mid july's planting of my turnips, collards, and kale! I'm looking for additional items around the garage and house to recycle into another 2 4x4 raised beds for my lettuce, radish, and swiss chard beds. I've got a stack of extra bricks, but don't know if I have quite enough to finish out one bed or not?


Gardening tomorrow in between sets of laundry!


Okay I wasn't going to say anything, but don't expect corn this year! It's like 99% chance not going to happen! It is tasseling out and it's only rib high! And my rib height isn't tall! But that's okay I'll have corn for sure next year now that I've went through this experiment and have learned a lot more about corn!


Keep those text photos and facebook tags sharing your gardening experiences, 'cause I'm loving them! My mom has 5 watermelons the size of her hand and she's pretty excited! I would be too, but the birds got mine right off the bat!


,ijustwannagrow

Well Pickles. As my daughter says!

I couldn't stand it I had to go outside and see if any of my girl squashes had awakened? And nope, still ALL boys. So, as I made Savannah's lunch and stared out my kitchen window at my squashless garden land I wondered what am I going to do? Well I went and grabbed my packet of crook necks and went straight out to the garden and dropped 15 more seeds through the remaining gardening spaces! There's got to be a female squash out there looking for a place to call home for this season! I'm determined to see squash this year!

Corn is looking alot better since I side dressed with chicken manure! I may get corn yet?

Got my crazy overgrown romaine lettuce pulled and tossed into my compost bin. Will finish cleaning out that 1/2 of that 4x10x8 bed in preps for brussel sprouts. Never grown them. I hope to harvest some! 

Figured out what I'm going to do for my mid summer greens bed, i.e. collards, kale, mustard greens, and more swiss chard. Had no idea I'd enjoy the swiss chard so much! And Savi and the hubs loved it too! So it's a keeper!

Oh and this just in: I have 3 cantaloupe blooms on my 1st cantaloupe vine that I thought was all but lost when the birds demolished my water melon & melon starts several weeks ago! Yay! I love melon! Hope to get atleast one this growing season :D

Do be afraid, throw some seeds out and see what happens! The worst that can happen is they won't grow.

I hope to get some time outside in the garden rain or NOT this weekend!


,ijustwannagrow

Scored a salad for lunch this morning. Yay!

Embarassingly enough I can't remember what type of lettuce I planted in that bed, but it is lettuce. Harvested a couple of pieces of swiss chard. Two more heirloom cherokee purple tomatoes, and 3 sweet 100's. A good day :D

I'm already looking forward to planting enough lettuce for the end of summer/fall season that I can share with many! I'm also designing and preparing to build a 4x20x8 cold frame to attempt to grow & harvest lettuce, spinach, kale, and some other greens throughout the winter months. I've been reading and researching and am excited to attempt this experiment! I bought a book called 4 Season Harvest and the guy who wrote it lives really close to Canada so if he can grow all 4 seasons then we should be able to here in NC!

PS: still NO female squash blooms  :*(

You can grow fresh salad in any pot, barrel, raised bed, garden, etc. It is so unexpectedly easy to grow!

,ijustwannagrow

Garden Parooz

She said, "I eat it momma". I said, yes Savannah you can eat it because it's safe!

Growing a chemical free & non GMO vegetable for my daughter is like hitting the lottery. When she reached over and grabbed that tomato I felt like I had made my best effort to give her a healthy vegetable. It was a small victory in the grand scheme of things, but I plan on working harder as the days move forward to learn as much as I can about organic, chemical free, and non GMO growing. By doing so not only can I feed my family healthy food but possibly help feed others and teach others to do the same.

You know I didn't give nature (God's creation) enough credit that my pole beans would have made it, but although sparce, my pole beans have surpassed the first trellis. This morning the tallest of them is now hanging over trying to find somewhere to climb. Will HAVE to add trellising tonight no matter what! I'd love to just harvest one bean this year! It would really make it all worth it! I've never grown beans myself, so just one would be a victory! I'll hold my faith that there will be some sort of harvest whether big or small!

I built my 3 bin composting system myself. I've got to add the finishing touches as this is just the rough skeleton, but atleast now I have somewhere to start throwing my compost! I plant on attaching trellising around the outside as to dress it up a bit to keep it pleasing to the eye for the neighbor's. For me it would be fine as it is, but would like to continue the good relationship and support of my neighbors because chickens and possibly a few ducks are in the Taylor's near future! And no Cory & Caleb you can't harvest my ducks! LOL

I got 26 jalepenos today on 6-22. Yes I planted atleast 9 jalepeno plants! LOL  I've already got people lined up to take them which thrills me.

Still ALL male squash blooms. Now I've even got my husband calling me from work telling me he ran out and checked on his way to work and he's as disappointed as I am that still only male blooms. They're beautiful golden yellow blooms with no ladies to hook up with yet. This is so sad! I would have had a bucket load of squash already if I would have had atleast 1 female per male to this point! I'll hold my faith that someday the lady's will wake up and smell those sexy available male squash blooms hanging out waiting on them! I told a friend I'm going to start pulling out Barry White and letting it play out in the squash bed until someone gets happy and produces some fruit! Get busy squashes! It's okay it's biblical!

Again, another first time growing cataloupe. These vines are growing out of the bed now. I've got the 6 foot trellising structure put up, but still have to attach the netting. Will do this tomorrow evening and go ahead and start training up the trellising. Again, just happy to get this far!

                      

When I left for KY these cucumbers were fried to a crisp and laying lifeless. So interesting story they were dead on the surface the entire time I was gone and when I got back; however, I made a worm casting compost tea just to see if they'd come back. I kid you not they even have bloom on them now! Can you believe that? The power of the worm is amazing!

Okay, I hate giving up so I decided to try bush beans 1 more time this season! And we're off to a good start! Last crop the beetles destroyed the entire bed, so I'm going to row cover these this weekend to avoid that problem again! We'll see?

If something fails, don't give up until you get it just right. May take a couple of tries, but you'll get it!

,ijustwannagrow

Brazen Rabbit!

So I come home from Vacation Bible School tonight and the hubs points and says, look over there in your pole beans you've been struggling to save. What is over there now? A very brazen rabbit sitting there minding my bean vines and his own business chomping away with little or no worry that I've caught him! I'll fix his little tale tomorrow! No matter how late it is I'm putting another bunny fence up for sure! I'm gonna post a sign that says if you don't leave me fresh fertilizer in exchange for the bean buffet then hop a long PETER! Won't hurt him, but will definitely close him out of the buffet!

I think I'll grow a bed just for the bunnies next time, so they'll be so busy there I can push forward in other areas with fewer bunny interruptions!

I want bunnies, but not this way! Make sure you have your rabbit fencing up, 'cause their out and hopping down the veggie trail looking for your vegetables!

ijustwannagrow

My first heirloom tomato EVER!

If you've wondered why I labeled my blog, "ijustwannagrow" well here is the answer! I felt like an unsuspecting passerby that stumbled upon winning a small lottery of some sort! Stopped me dead in my tracks when I saw all that ripening rockin out in my tomato and pepper bed! Only regret? I didn't have enough faith to have planted 20 tomato plants rather than just 8. Serves me right, huh? It just makes you wanna jump up and kick your heels to the side! And it is awesome to reaffirm for myself that is absolutely possibly and easier than expected to grow healthy fruits and vegetables WITHOUT the use of chemicals. Sadly,it was sorta like trying to learn a foreign language embarrassingly enough! We've become so programmed by man to spray, dust, and ingest so many chemicals we forgot how much healthier the world was before we started to get money hungry as a society and threw caution to the wind to make a quick buck! The victory here is all the Lord's as he blessed me with the opportunity and the desire to learn to grow chemical free! Don't feel like you can't do it, because there are books, free online resources like youtube or monkeysee where you can actually visually see step by steps, online discussion forums, and of course organic friends that have gone before you! Don't be afraid!

Go ahead and dispose of those chemicals (the correct way please) and then get out there and grow something amazingly healthy!

,ijustwannagrow

Garden Update June 16-11

Ran outside quickly while the hubs was getting ready for work so that I could water my garden. I was too tired to last night, so had to do it first thing this morning before the morning shade cleared and the temps raised. My okra is doing well! The ONLY plant to survive the middle tank bed thus far this season! I did throw in some plain top soil and mix the top 1/3 and maybe that cooled that ph level a bit? Squash is getting huge and blooming again with huge blooms. I hope to start seeing squash here in the next week! Zucchini that I through in the ground as seed three weeks ago is HUGE probably a few weeks away on zucchini as I don't see any flowering yet. My 4 cucumber plants have made it now 5 entire days! I think these plants may make it this time! I hate I wasted so much time before I figured out I had bad seed on the other two rounds! My 4 cantaloupe look like they've tripled in size since I first put them in that raised bed 3 nights ago! Pole Beans & Purple Hulls are still growing and STILL getting eatin on! I'm going to by some organic NEET and spray on them because I"d like to get at least 1 green bean this year on my first attempt, but I can tell you I've figured out that next year I'll be growing my beans & cow peas under row covers for the first 30 days and I won't have this problem. Vacationing when they were young tender plants were a mistake as that is a very crucial time in the plants life! I knew better! But I hope to plant more pole beans this week and see if planting them later doesn't help them avoid the beetles any better?

I'm enjoying the text photos of friends 1st time gardens, keep growing girls ;)

Oh and my purple cherokees are finally starting to ripen on the vine! And I'm seeing other larger tomatoes start to surface now! I'm excited to get that mr. stripey ripened. One of my favorites!
,ijustwannagrow