Garden Progress Journal 5/18/11

The potager (which I refer to as bed #1) is looking a lot more green these days. Everything in there seems to grow SO SLOW though. We've already had a few 100 degree days so far this year (although today is really nice and in the low 70's) so I'm wondering if the heat is keeping things from growing. Also, I really must feed/fertilize. I keep meaning to do it and forgetting.

There are lots of parsley and cilantro plants, but they're still too small to use.

I think the basil was in that batch of bum seeds I got. I did NOT sow them that far apart!

The tomato plants are alive still, which is good, but I pretty much have lost hope of getting tomatoes from them. Next year I start those suckers inside right after New Years!

I thought I was done with strawberries too, but yesterday there was a new bloom on the plant, so we'll see if I get one last berry or not.

The pumpkins are starting to take off. See that one vine poking out to the left of the bed? That's from a plant all the way to the right! There are lots of little curly vines everywhere. It's so cute!

Also, two new pumpkin plants have come up. This is so weird because I planted these months ago and I just figured they were bum seeds like the herbs. To show up so long after I planted them and after the others have grown so much seems strange to me.

The stuff in the pots is doing okay. Garlic chives are starting to come up and the zinnias have a good start. There are teeny tiny baby thyme plants too. There were some teeny ones in the oregano but I can't see them anymore. I hope the heat didn't kill them!

Speaking of oregano... IS this oregano? This plant doesn't look like what I remember the plants in the nursery looking like. It's kind of huge, for starters. It's pretty, but I'm not sure that I grew what I was trying to grow. Does anyone know?

The mint and geraniums are flourishing. There are more garlic chives in the other pot.

The marigolds in my big raised bed are taunting me by taking their sweet time to bloom.

I have a ton of arugula.

As you can tell, we've been eating the spinach. The carrots are getting nice and full too. The zucchini seemed to have slowed down a bit with their vertical growth. They come up to about my hips!

I was able to harvest my first zucchini this week. I made Baked Zucchini Sticks with them and even my zucchini loathing friend and husband liked them. Getting up at 6:30 to hand pollinate these due to a severe lack of bees in this area has paid off.

When my friend was here, we were sitting out in the back yard chatting after dinner when I noticed that the back wall was COVERED in freaking caterpillars. It was so gross! Now I go out there at night with a jar and tweezers to collect them. After a bit of discussion with my husband, we decided that squishing a dozen caterpillars at a time would be disgusting and messy, so instead I flush them down the toilet. I know, I know, no one call Peta, okay?

I did pick this guy off my zucchini plants a couple of days ago. I set the jar on the counter and forgot about it. When I went to go give him his burial at sea, I noticed he had started to spin himself a cocoon! How cool is that? He got a temporary pardon from the queen governor (me) so we can watch his metamorphosis.