Now that's a courgette!

I'm fairly obsessive about my garden; that's probably obvious. I check for ripe veggies, prune leaves, and water at LEAST once a day, often in the morning and in the evening.

That said, look what was hiding in the recesses of my zucchini patch?

Can you see it?

What about now?

There it is!

 

Check back...more to come in this blog :0)

THE Tomato

This season, I planted beefsteak tomatoes, brandywine tomatoes, plum tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. I began them all inside. Once I moved them outside to my garden, we had some bad weather, and I had to replant some of them from seed, directly into the soil.

Before the weather got too hot, I only managed to get one of the two larger varieties to fruit and only ONE at that. I watched it constantly to make sure that nothing bothered it, put extra fencing around it, and generally fretted over its existance for the past six or so weeks.

Finally, it was red enough to pick. I gave it a special place in the house while I allowed it to ripen a bit more.

Have I gone too far?

I warned the men to leave it alone, worried that one of the midnight kitchen raids might leave me with one less tomato.

Tonight, we are going to see how THE tomato is. I'll serve it sliced with basil from my garden and crumbled feta (storebought...did you know that you can fairly easily make homemade feta???). I hope it is as yummy as it is beautiful :0)



Japanese Water Garden

This past Mother's Day, JC did something very special. He created a Japanese water garden for me. He picked out a huge planter and several beautiful water plants, and then put it all together to create the garden. In addition, he added several beta fish. All but one, unfortunately, were lost due to a storm and the garden overflowing.

Bluey, as Poppy and I call him, is still swimming strong! I go out in the evening, sit on the swing, and wait for him to come munch on the food I put in his home. (During the day, he hides at the bottom of the planter as the top of the water becomes too warm.)

 

 

This evening, Bluey was very cooperative and even let me take some pictures and a movie of him!

That wasn't, but this is!

I posted the other day that I thought I had my first watermelon. Well, it apparently wasn't pollinated enough. But...I think this one is!

And hopefully this one will get pollinated tomorrow :0)



Soy

Soybean baby in our Throw-it-all-out-on-the-ground Garden.

Could it be...my first watermelon...!

I'm so hoping that this little bulb is going to be my first watermelon! I realize that it is really still too small to assume that it has been fertilized. Anyone with any hints on making watermelon blossoms more attractice to bees and other insects, please add your comments :0)

Can you see it?



New Surprise!

It's probably obvious that I spend a fair amount of time in my garden, looking at my garden, searching through my garden...

Well, somehow I missed this growing cantaloupe!

Update on Giant Unpollinated Zucchini

I was hoping that somehow this zucchini plant had decided it no longer needed pollination to produce edible adult veggies. I even joined and then posted in a forum for gardening research. ...no answer.

Anyway, it turns out that this was just an overgrown, unpollinated female bud. Poo.



Hidden Treasures

I love peeking into the hidden nooks of my garden to find new edible life growing :0)

 future yellow squash

 future zucchini

 little Roma (plum) tomatoes

more camouflaged than hidden...one little okra



Cantaloupe

I have had these beautiful watermelon and cantaloupe plants for a couple of months. They have had ooodles of blossoms but no fruit.

The vines spread out over an entire six foot by three foot bed as well as along the wire fencing for that bed and the zucchini bed too. (You may notice a tomatillo plant in the middle of the vines...This one just showed up as well as three others in the tomato bed. I had them last year but did not plant them this year. Made a good salad the other day with watermelon (store-bought), my tomatillos, onion, feta, and lemon. It was delicious!)

Anyway... the good news is that I finally have some viable cantaloupes!!!!

Just FYI...I started all my plants this year from Martha Stewart organic seeds :0)



Can you say parthenocarpy?

Bees have been scarce in my backyard. In fact, this problem is nation wide. The little bit of research that I have done points to pesticides as the reason.

This year, I have quite a few bees, and so I have had abundant pollination of my squash and zucchini plants.

A few days ago, I noticed a peculiar-looking zucchini. Besides its overtly phalic appearance, something else about it seemed abnormal. While almost six inches long (yeah...right...), it has a blossom that has never opened!

After some research, I learned that there is something called a parthenocarpic variety of zucchini. The plant does not require pollination to produce. It did not create itself, however. Veggieologists created it, without the means of artificial chemicals or anything else detrimental to our health. See this website for more info: http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/westchester/Homeowner%20Newsletter%20Links/PARTHENOCARPY.html

What I haven't verified yet is the presence of a non-pollinated zucchini on a standard plant, which is what I've got!!!!

Success at Last!

I've always enjoyed vegetable gardening, but until three years ago, when we moved to Weston Lakes, I didn't really have enough room to properly indulge my passion for growing edibles. Now, we live on half an acre, not a lot to some but a piece of paradise to me.

This is actually my fourth summer to have a garden here. However, my first year, I only had two six by three foot raised garden beds. Jim graciously built them for. Year two, JC added two more, one on either side of the originals. Year three, I added no new beds. This year, year four, JC has built me two new beds, which I have not yet finished readying to house new plants.

During the past three summers, I have had very sporatic, if not pityful, results. This year, however, I turned all the soil (organic only!) and added vermiculite, organic bone meal, organic blood meal, and organic food, in addition to more organic soil and some organic compost. I'm not sure if I have everything in the right proportions, but I do know that I have had more vegetables than ever before.

I have harvested beets, turnips, cherry tomatoes, tomatillas, basil, and tons of yellow squash and zucchini. We have had...

     grilled squash and zucchini

     savory squash pie

     zucchini bread

     soup with squash

     squash and chicken casserole

     zucchini rice

     zucchini and steak meatloaf (awesome!!!!)

     zucchini and artichoke squares