Garden Fail 2009

One would think that with a year that started out extremely wet, our garden's would have been fabulous this year. Not true. What started as a delay in planting due to time constraints and bad weather became a battle against humidity, squash bugs, mildew, blossom rot and black stalkage that I have no clue about.

I finally gave up. I had two or three weeks of excellence and I finally got tired of the battle. I have put up 9 quarts of green beans, 5 quarts of tomatoes (which I had to buy at the farmer's market), 20 bags of zuchini/squash stirfry, and we had an abundance of cucumbers that I didn't do anything with.

My garden is embarrassing. It came in fast and hard before anyone else had the goods...but it also died fast and hard. I'm ready to rip it all out and put in a fall garden but the heat and humidity are wearing me down. I don't have the energy or desire to fight this again this year. I need to step it up though.

I'm in the cooking mood. My yard is horrid. My favorite season is around the corner.

Review

Due to all this rain, being late getting things planted, etc. I feel like I haven't followed the steps closely as planned. I did take some updated pictures last night so you can see how much everything has grown though. I'll post them later. Right now I wanted to do a quick review of the steps up to this point.

Tilled Lettuce bed (late start didn't get prepared)
Planted lettuce, cabbage and early tomatoes
Removed weeds
Added manure (let sit for a few days)
Tilled manure and soil to mix
Added 10-10-10 fertilizer just for fun
Planted
Two weeks later, deweeded, added more fertilizer and mulched Beans, squash, eggplant.
Planted petunia's around Beans
Four weeks after planting-deweeded, hoed, fertilized cucumbers and peppers and corn.
Staked tomatoes
Picking and eating lettuce at this point.

Updates: Weeds are taking over lettuce bed because it was not properly prepared. Due to the massive amounts of rain we have had, much of my lettuce is already bolting and the bugs and rabbits are destroying my cabbage. I can't keep 7 Dust on it because of the rain.

My cucumbers and squash/zuchini have had to be seperated as they were planted double (by the nursery)and the second plants did not die off. I have lost ONE pepper plant and ONE eggplant due to forces unknown. (My guess is trampling by dogs, rabbits or cats that like to plow through my garden beds willy nilly. RIP little planties.

Pretty things

Just because, I wanted to share my "pretty plantings" from this weekend as well.

PROGRESS!!

Tomato Blooms! WOOT WOOT!

Looking out from my garden.

My crazy lettuce bed that desperately needs to be weeded! (I'm so far behind still but its getting better!)

Squash and Zuchini in the front box. In the back box are cucumbers, corn, and peppers.

Greenbeans, eggplants, petunia's (they make the greenbeans taste better).

Our Visitor

Yesterday while enjoying a perfect southern day, I kept hearing this odd whirring sound. I didn't pay much attention as I was busy planting my greenbeans and eggplants. My dogs were lazily lying on the porch and my horses were grazing in the pasture as the sun glinted off my the sparkling water in my pool. It was a perfect afternoon!

Then armegeddon happened. My dogs went apeshitbatty cowering down and barking. My horses started screaming and bucking and running, the roar grew louder and a shadow fell across the ground. OMG there are lunatics in a hot air balloon trying to crash into my house and they are WAVING at me? Are you kidding? The Roar ofcourse was them laying on the gas (or whatever it is they do) to keep the ballon aloft. I gathered they were specifically trying to keep it low so that the neighborhooods could read the giant LUBRANO's PIZZA sign on the side.

Don't get me wrong, it was a neat advertising ploy and one I'm sure the kids in the area enjoyed but did you have to scare the ever loving crap out of my animals? I enjoy a hot air balloon siting and all, but pretty please keep it a little higher next time. kthxbai

BTW: I really do love Lubrano's. I loved you more when you delivered. Since you can afford a hot air balloon ride over my house does that mean you will deliver to it again?

Laughs Hysterically

Just because, I haven't had a lot of updates, I decided to atleast amuse you. We have had so much rain, its not funny, my garden is not planted. I've been working liking crazy. DH did get two of the boxes rebuilt and three of them have manure and just need to be tilled and planted. So there is progress but I am resigned to not only having a late garden but having a small variety this year. Fortunately, my parents planted an abundance.

But back to posting..this picture made me laugh outloud. Love it.

Who needs scaffolding when you have enough hay bales?

RAIN

Today is the fourth day of Rain. Everything is soaked. Tomorrow will bring a chance of severe storms on top of more rain. No gardening for me.