Green as She Grows

The garden is almost in full bloom and production mode. Some plants have already begun, I suspect within the week we will begin harvesting zucchini and green beans.

Potatoes sprouted from the pantry. If they make anything I will be thrilled. Learning about how the plant operates here is valuable for years to come. Bell pepper is at least green this year, though still not very tall or looking very vigorous. One of these years I will figure it out. I've been feeding with blood meal every other week and fish emulsion on the opposite weeks. I will be happy if the plant produces anything. I expect better results next year once the soil is happier.

Watermelon and Sunflower. The watermelon this year is already much happier than last year. I've been feeding both of these plants abundantly with blood meal, which is high in nitrogen, to encourage their leafy growth, when it is time for flower and fruit, I will apply bone meal, which is high in potassium. The mulch is proving to be an excellent addition to the garden, the soil is staying damp and the plants are really happy about it.

Same story for the cantaloupes. Much more vigorous than last year, though not growing aggressively fast.

I had some concerns that I didn't plant enough field peas around the corn, but they are finally ramping up and generating biomass. The peas really seem to appreciate the shade from the corn. The corn really seems to need to be mounded up again as they get taller they are leaning a bit. I may add some mulch in soon to help this if the peas don't go to flower soon. I am feeding the corn heavily on blood meal and fish emulsion. I can tell where I haven't fertilized as heavily, the stalks are light green instead of rich deep green.

Green beans have already started flowering, the tiny little fruits will start expanding soon. I have only fed these plants an occasional feeding of fish emulsion. They seem to do great on their own.

The first flowers of the zucchini opened just a day after our Relief Society gardening class. The two flowers at the bottom are females and the one just above is a male. Zucchini grows super fast. I expect to eat some on Friday. Last year i had issues with the fruit only developing on the plant end, the blossom end wouldn't expand and grow, but instead, shrunk and shriveled. I spread a little bone meal and cottonseed meal hoping this might help with more even fruit development.

The tomatoes are well on their way. I've made it a point to NOT point out where the green tomatoes are on the plant to DS as last year he kept picking them all before they had even started to blush. Pollination rate has been exceptional this year. I just spread some bone meal here to encourage good fruit development. Smashed two stink bugs today. I didn't see any nymphs so they must have flown in from the neighbors to lay their eggs. I hope I destroyed them before they laid, but only time will tell.

The cucumbers have been pretty unhappy about the cold snaps, but I think that is good because I usually have so many cucumbers ready well before the tomatoes and I love to eat them together. Some of the plants have just started flowering but I hope they will come on fully at about the same time as the tomatoes. One of my happiest memories is eating tomato and cucumber salad with Italian dressing at my grandparent's home as a kid. You just can't beat that fresh home grown, sun ripened taste.

Thanks to the Thyme flowering at just the right time, there have been tons of bees in the garden. In the fall I always let some broccoli go to flower because the bees love those bright yellow flowers. It seems they have quite the preference for the tiny abundant flowers. Bees always welcome here so I don't have to hand pollinate.

The Enemy has Arrived

I have been pretty pleasantly surprised at the lack of stink bugs in the garden this year so far. I attributed it that to the unusual cold weather we've had this spring and the rain. I decided to take my daily walk around the garden and check on the progress the plants have made. the squash, zucchini, and cucumbers are starting their first blooms. But then.....I looked and beheld the enemy!

For your benefit only did I take pictures first and smash later. The biggest pest I have encountered in my garden in the last 4 years are these critters, the stink bug. Actually the top one is called a Leaf Footed Bug (Leptoglossus phyllopus) the bottom one may be a not quite mature LFB or another species, still within the same family. They are both stink bugs (and yes they stink when you smash them). They have piercing mouth parts, which means they poke your fruits (I've had the most issue with tomatoes and corn) and suck out the juice and leave a pithy white hard spot where they've eaten. The damage is ugly and it reduces the palate-ability, juiciness, and flavor of the fruit, though it is harmless to consume where they have eaten, it just makes me sad :-(

The juveniles are red and black and can't fly yet, so smash them the moment you see them because they are much harder to control once they are adults and can fly!

Back to Eden Film Photo Contest

Back to Eden Film Photo Contest

Six weeks ago the soil was barren, and now it finds renewed fertility in a bed of compost and wood chips. My kids are particularly thrilled to see the plants grow so big this year.

Mulch to Do about Mulch

I ran across this film by mention from a friend and was totally inspired because I knew this is what I had been doing wrong for the last four years.

My first year gardening, I had mulched my beds with 2 inches wood mulch over a topsoil/mushroom compost mixture and I had OK results. The second year I turned by beds over and decided I wouldn't mulch again because the chips didn't turn into the soil well and it was chunky and I didn't like the appearance of the tilled in wood chips. I had a great year of produce! The next year all the mulch was gone and I noticed a decline in my garden results. I attributed it to the particularly hot summer and lots of stink bugs. Last year I only made minimal amendment to the soil and hoped for the best. The output was nothing short of a disappointment, by the time fall gardening came around, nothing grew save lots and lots of mustard greens, which would probably find a crack in cement and flourish. I examined the soil, found it hard and crusty, no earth worms, even the weeds refused to grow there. I had depleted the growing capacity of my soil and downgraded it to nothing more than dirt.

So I went looking for answers, I came to cover crops and worm towers. I've felt somewhat optimistic about my new prospects for this year until I came upon Back to Eden and knew it was the mulch that I had been missing. It was the constant feed that the soil yearned for to thrive and flourish. The protection from our incredibly intense summer sun and the pounding rains. I wasted no time and found a source of free wood chips and now I've gone "Back to Eden"

 A few days before adding the mulch. This is bare manure/humus compost about 4 inches on top of the depleted soil.

This is just a week later after adding the wood chips, about 3 or so inches. Despite the unusual cold we've been experiencing the plants are insulated and happy, especially the tomatoes are feeling the love.


The plants are no longer wilting in the afternoon. I no longer am cautiously optimistic about the results this year, but eager to harvest the abundance I'm sure will come

Mushroom Madness

It seems like every spring I get a plague of mushrooms pop up in my garden. Usually they are pretty evenly spaced around the garden and there's not too many. I see them for about a week and then they die off and I don't seem em again. I'm pretty sure they come from the compost that I buy and add to the garden. In previous years I've bought a garden mix which is mostly topsoil and some mushroom compost. Mushrooms coming from that makes sense. This year I bought manure compost and humus compost. I wasn't really surprised to see mushrooms, but for some reason they decided to inhabit only one bed.

It seems like it would make sense if ALL the beds had mushrooms in them, but nope, only this one sans a stray mushroom or two in the bed next to this one. There are so many coming up I'm a little concerned they are going to push some of the seeds that haven't sprouted out of the ground.

I used to be a pretty concerned about mushrooms being in my garden and I used to pick them, but I decided they grow and die so fast that it probably doesn't matter. They may even be beneficial due to the fact they are breaking down organic matter and that's a good sign there is organic matter there. Since I don't know if this particular variety is poisonous or not, I just caution my kids not to touch, pick, or eat them. They'll go away in a week or so and my garden bed will look normal again.

Mushrooms: no worries, just don't eat em.