July 2009 Archives

The squash are squished. :(  I'm not certain what killed them.  I noticed that they started looking a bit droopy, so I started watering them.  One of them perked up for a little while, but it eventually succumbed as well. 

The first of the Lolipop tomatoes might be ripe now.  They weren't quite ripe yesterday, and I haven't been out to check on them yet today.

The zucchini plants are blooming, but I haven't seen a zucchini yet. 

I think one of the cucumbers died.  I thought it had revived itself, but it looks pretty brown again.  The other one is not climbing up the bamboo pole.  It is latching on to the grass that's growing around it, but I think that maybe its little tendrils are too small to wrap around the bamboo.

The watermelon is about the size of a volleyball now.

I pulled one of the Kyoto Red carrots yesterday.  It's tiny.  I think there are two problems: The dirt is too full of clay for the carrots to grow through, and I didn't thin them out so they're growing too close together.  I hated the idea of killing some of the seedlings, so I didn't do it.  I could try moving the seedlings like I did with the mustard, but that still doesn't solve the dirt problem.  I think I might have to grow my root veggies in containers until I improve my garden soil to the point where it's not so full of clay.

The volunteer tulsi is growing along in the front flower bed and it smells wonderful. ^_^  I also discovered another re-seeded dill seedling in that bed, so there are two now.

I think it's time to harvest the garlic - it has bloomed, and it's starting to dry out, so I guess that means it's done. (I hope so, anyway!)

A quick update because I realize that it's been a while:

The Lolipop tomato has little tomatoes and is blooming.  Some of the other tomatoes are also blooming, but I can't remember which ones!  I'll be able to tell once they start to ripen. 

My mom hooked us up with a lot of zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes. (Hi, Mom!)  She also gave me two cucumber plants and two tomato plants.  One tomato is dwelling happily in a bucket on the front porch, the other is in the ground with the other tomatoes.  One of the cucumbers didn't make it. :(

I have at least one watermelon in the works.  It's about the size of a tennis ball.

Now, about the volunteers ...

I had to do an intervention on the front of my house.  Muscadine vines were literally curling around the front door.  While I was out there making the front yard less wild, I yanked some weeds out of the herb bed.  I kept thinking that I smelled tulsi.  I smelled a handful of the weeds I was holding, then compared one to the one tulsi plant I have this year.  Apparently last year's glorious hedge of tulsi reseeded itself.  The little dudes are only about three inches tall.  Unfortunately they're right at the front edge of the bed, so they have to be moved.  While mowing grass a few days ago I thought I kept smelling tulsi, now I'm certain that I did.  It's probably growing in my front yard.

While looking around, I also found a volunteer dill plant. Yay! I love dill!  And I seem to have very little luck growing it.

I dug my potatoes yesterday.  It was a bit depressing since plants that looked so hearty a month ago came to such a puny end.

I'm sure there are worse things you can dig out of the ground than little blobs of stinky jelly that used to be a potato, but none immediately spring to mind. Eew! 

I found at least one skin from an All Blue potato that indicated that it was a good-sized potato before its insides turned to goo.  I encountered a few more pockets of goo where the purple potatoes were supposed to be and then moved on to the Rose Gold potatoes.

The Rose Gold potatoes were small, but not rotten.  I saw how tiny the potatoes were on the first plant and considered stopping right there.  But then I realized that the plants were dying, so I decided that I'd better just go ahead and dig them up. While I was digging, I found one of the missing potato berries! 



Here's a closer look at the potato berry:




And then I cut it in half.  Now if you didn't know better, wouldn't you think that is a green tomato? 



If I remember, I think I'll dig up the tomato plants in the fall and examine the roots to see if they make little tuber-looking things.  It seems possible - potatoes and tomatoes are both members of the Solanaceae family - and who thought potatoes would grow these little berry things?!?  *shrug*