April 2013

April was incredibly busy for me, so I had no time to post an update. Now that I'm a month overdue, I thought I'd better get busy!!


This is a little of what we harvested out of the garden at the beginning of April. Our cabbage heads ended up being 2.5-4 pounds each. Next time, I think I'll plant a couple every week instead of harvesting almost 10 at one time! 

The following photos show an experiment we tried. On New Year's Day, I harvested the main cabbage head and split the stump remaining in the ground. Four months later, I harvested the four smaller heads you see.

These are our three newest beds. This on is furthest south and contains 5 tomato plants, basil, bell pepper and a lemon cucumber plant. We just added the tomato cages and trellises, which took a couple of hours and 3 people to build, but I love them. I won't have to be buying tomato cages for the next 10 years or so!
 
In this bed there are 3 indeterminate tomatoes and 2 determinates.

This is the center bed. It has 3 determinate tomatoes (one which had to be replanted and is much smaller than the rest), including Papa's Homestead tomato. There is also eggplant, butternut and acorn squash planted here.

And in the bed the furthest to the north are our poor squash and zucchini plants. The poor things can't catch a break from the powdery mildew! I keep spraying and cutting off any leaves I find it on, so they get regular haircuts every 3-4 days!
You'll notice the large empty area- I jerked 2 zucchini and 2 squash plants out of the ground that were beginning to lose their battle with the mildew. I refuse to let that stuff take over my garden this year!!

Our potatoes are doing so well!! On the left are the Yukon Golds with new potatoes on the right.

Ah, our Sugar Baby Watermelon! I've never seen a plant look this weak before, but no amount of water, fertilizer, nutrients seem to change that at all. It does have a pretty good little melon growing, though!

These are cucumber (top) and cantaloupe (bottom) vines, along with swiss chard and carrots. The cucumber and cantaloupe will eventually be trained up the fence.

Two more varieties of cucumbers, along with flowers to attract the bees and beneficial insects.

And, finally, Leah's strawberry patch. Dean didn't exactly plant this using the square foot method, as you can tell from the sporatic placement of the plants!