May 2004

The above picture is of the crook neck squash. There is one fruit about 2 inches long and about 2 dozen flowers now.

Below is of the cucumber vines. There are lots of blooms but usually the first don't make fruit so I will be watching them. See the row of milk jugs on the far side of the trellis fence. They have the bottoms cut off and turned with the open tops down to where the water will go down to their roots and not get the leaves and stems wet. Empty jugs tend to float out and let the water pool around the jug rather than go down deep. So, I half filled each jug with compost. They get a nice fertilizing with each watering and it provides enough weight to keep the jug in place.

Above are the foot long beans Randy found in the catalog and wanted to try. They are doing very well but not starting to make vines yet. In the background is a bed of bush beans. The seem to be growing much faster but they have had none of the colder temps the bigger ones did. The tomato plants are so scrawny, I won't take their picture yet.

This is a well protected corner filled with Larkspur and Hollyhocks. I am starting another bed of just the Larkspur in my experiment to attract and kill the dreaded grasshoppers. I went to take a picture of my beautiful sweet pepper plants for this collection and found most the plants were stripped of all their leaves, nothing left.

The delicate vine above is Asarina. Any of the different color bloom varieties is breathtakingly beautiful. There are two vines planted here with the coffee can around them both for protection. They are just beginning to attach vines to the chicken wire in the background.

Above and below are Kohlrabi bulbs still small and not quite ready.

Center and to the right are the beets with the 5 Cold Set tomatoes on the right end. Squash in the foreground.

This is the Brussel sprouts bed with carrots scattered along the first row.

Most of the Basil has been planted among the other plants, did you spot the one in the midst of the Brussel Sprouts? Basil smells so sweet, I enjoy just taking a second to touch a leaf.

This is the only bed that has a soaker hose. It is buried 2 feet deep and is the only way to keep them safe from the stupid little moles. They will chew one up just to get the water. Plants grow very well here but this bed is in immediate need of my cutting down the weeds and adding a nice layer of alfalfa hay. We used wheat hay as a mulch on the mints by the front door and guess what? we had a wonderful crop of wheat.

Down the left side, see the line? is pumpkin. Down the right is a variety of melons. Something ate all the melons that had been on the left before I could put up a fence to keep them out. Whew, almost out of seeds just all of the sudden!