The Backyard

The Backyard

Saturday, July 5, 2008

How Well Does Your Garden Grow

Zucchini season is here. We are about to be invaded with a gazillion zucchini. Luckily, there's just as many people who like zucchini and varied recipes to try this magnificent plant. I planted yellow zucchini last year and mother had a fit. So this year I was sure to get the green kind and its totally organic. She'll love it. I had thought my pepper plants looked weak -- that maybe the roots were stunted by the coco fiber pots they were grown and planted in. NOT. There's baby peppers on them! So in my haste a couple weeks ago, I threw down some pepper plant seeds just to make sure we had peppers this summer, and all of them sprouted too! I'm lucky we freeze a bunch, my mom freezes a bunch, my sister in law likes peppers, AND I have a bunch of friends at work that will surely take a couple peppers if offered. The tomatoes are interesting too. I'm calling them my surprise tomatoes this year cause I have no idea what I'm getting. All I know is I have 10 plants that are starting to bear fruit and have consumed their cages. They were a variety pack of organic heirloom seeds with no description of what each seed was. So I picked 10 seeds that appeared to be from a variety of plants, and we'll see what we have in a couple weeks. They certainly are healthy, vibrant plants. All the beets were pulled and pickled, and the compost is getting fed to the pepper plants this weekend. A 2nd batch of compost was started and I hope to get a 3rd started shortly so I have one last batch finished before fall comes. The Eggplant is doing its thing and we may have fried eggplant next weekend at the rate it's growing. The Butternut Squash plants are a healthy crop too. They were planted in an unusual spot -- in the center of the rose garden. My mom thinks they will take over -- they might! And lastly, the cantelope plants are vining like crazy. I had to laugh at my mom last year. She was growing some canning tomato plants, and when I planted the cantelope next to them, and the vines started growing into her tomato plants, she was concerned the vines would kill her maters. She was funny. Cantelope vines can be viscious... they ended up growing up and over the fence that surrounds them. But the lopes were delightful tasting so it didn't matter what a mess they made.



2 comments:

Roberta said...

Hi,

I really like your blog. Your garden looks great! My son's grandmother found your site and sent me the link since I just started a similar blog. I am in PA too, in Cambria county. My zuchinni is taking over my garden. I wasn't thinking about how big the plants can get when I planted them.
Here is my blog address in case you may be interested.
www.gogreenninja.com
If you don't mind, I would like to put a link to your blog on my sidebar as one of my favorites.

Chili said...

Nice meeting you roberta! I'll link your blog too...thanks! Some other green people I know may be interested in your blog -- nice! I call them Zuchinni monsters -- geez!