Funny how I didn't realize that it has been 11 days since I updated my garden blog! Wow...I've eaten a couple of vining cukes already. Somehow I eat them before I remember to take their photos...so I thought today BEFORE I harvested I'd snap some photos to share :)

Above are the left and right beds. Growing like mad...the zuchini plants in the right bed are about as tall as my 5year old son. I'm still waiting on lemon cukes but have plenty of lemon cuke flowers going now so it shouldn't be too much longer. The bush cukes are coming in now...I've harvested 4 in 2 days with about 20 more soon to be ready. You can see how long the vining cukes are...they are a burpless hybrid (I dug out the tag from under the foilage today to find that info.) The bushmaster cukes are more of a pickling cuke (they look like pickles on the vine...Morgan got excited when he first saw them until I explained that dilling pickles was a long process...months long.)














My pumpkins are growing really well...vines spilling over the sides of the right bed now. I moved some watermelon plants over last week since the corner they are in gets too much shade and they aren't growing. I'm not sure if they'll make it or not. I'm hoping so.













Daniel, my 5yo, loves to help me in my garden. Today he was wearing his favorite silk cape and helping me harvest. He is most excited by the plethora of cucumbers I'm growing :) He also loves eating peas fresh from the vine, raw out of the pod. I hope gardening together will help the boys come to appreciate their food more and learn to enjoy more veggies. I can only hope...

Remember how concerned I was about my tomatoes and peppers? Two days ago I harvested our first sweet pepper and today I found the first Roma tomato of the season!

The long awaited jalapeno peppers growing! I also have a few mexibells, yellow and red sweet bells and more sweet peppers growing. I may have too many peppers pretty soon...thank goodness they cook up fast and freeze well ;)

The zukes are trying to grow. So far I've had a couple small ones rot on the vine. I'm not really sure why...but this is about as big as they get. Then the flower drops off and the fruit rots rather than getting bigger. Are they not getting fertilized? I've got plenty growing in there...





The peas are about done. They've grown all the way up my trellis (so pretty!) and are barely producing anything now. I got enough peas from the many plants I grew to have a couple handfuls of off-the-vine snacking...beans on the other hand have been much more productive. Every day I go out there and grab a bowlful more. I'll be starting some more soon of each for fall...





My cilantro bolted and is flowering. It's pretty! I realize I can't eat it now and that's ok. The peppers weren't ready when it was so no big deal. I love the tiny flowers !

My harvest today...I'm including the sweet pepper from 2 days ago but today I got 4 bushmaster cukes, one burpless hybrid, a bunch of beans and a couple pea pods.

.

I'm so bad...couldn't wait until morning to take a photo...

so I just ate the cucumber.

Yep. All by myself. I ate it at 11pm last night...alone, in my office. Muwhaahaaahaaa.....

snicker.

There will be a minimum of 50 more to share with the heathens (the kids) next week...

My backyard jungle is growing well.

A week of rain almost every day (including two hailstorms on June 12) and my garden is growing wonderfully! Everything is HUGE. I counted nearly 20 cucumbers (or baby cukes/female flowers) tonight, some on the vining burpless I bought (which is where I had the first baby cuke flower) and several on the bushmaster cukes. The lemon cuke plants are getting tall and vining up. I see flower buds so they won't be far behind!

Day before yesterday the boys and I harvested our first vegetables! I wanted to take photos but we ate them too quickly. 3 entire pea pods and a BIG salad of mesclun and spinach. Even Charlie ate raw peas once they were washed! I brought more in yesterday and will have even more peas tomorrow. I think later in the week I'll be planting more seeds for another harvest.

The beans were blooming well earlier this week and this morning I couldn't find any...but tonight the boys found some baby green beans! They'll be harvestable in the next couple days and I'll plant more seeds...since the two varieties I planted turned out to be bush beans I'll plant a mixture for our second harvest so we'll have beans going up my trellis :)

I've got a number of zucchini growing now...I think I counted six?
Still waiting on the peppers and tomatoes to flower or *something* but I understand in our zone it may still be a couple weeks. The watermelon may be in too much shade to produce but our pumpkin plants are getting BIG. I have two varieties growing.

I think the most exciting thing about this for me has been watching the boys get excited this week about the coming harvest. They were all about planting seeds and building the beds...but I don't think they got it until they saw the baby veggies. Eating the peas I grew was too fun for them! I bet I'll get them to eat grilled zucchini too ;) They love zucchini bread so at least I know we'll eat the zukes somehow.

Playing in my garden and tending it as it grows has been peaceful for me. I'm working a lot right now and the time I spend each day sitting out there, weeding and tending to the plants, has really helped keep me calm and relaxed. It's a lot more fun than I thought and this is something I've wanted for years if that tells you anything.

(the last photo shows the hail damage on my zuke leaves...they look like philodendrons!)

(may i add here that the garden is growing like this mostly on it's own with the fabulous soil conditions created by the lasagna garden method? i did use miracle grow ONE time...and some of the seeds were planted in miracle grow brand soil when i sprouted them, i don't even recall which now...but besides some added epsom salts this is ALL manure and compostable vegetable *stuff* down in those beds! no pest control has been needed since the only problem i had was on the eggplant and it is gone...the vegetables are so dense i don't see anything really having much of a chance of getting in there...weeds or pests.)

June 12th...update on the first cuke and zuke!

Remember that first cucumber...the first female flower? It's growing! And it looks like more are coming...

I've also got a zucchini growing! The size of the zucchini flowers startled me...it's been since childhood since I've seen one.




















And...ironically I got photos of the garden before the hailstorm (late on the 12th...)

rainy day in georgia...

can you see what i see? it's RAINING!!!!

that is all.

wait...i lied. i don't have a photo of it due to the rain and it not being so good for the camera and all...but i have another female flower coming ;) and the first one looks like it is growing!!!

We have a FEMALE cucumber flower...and the eggplant has finally died.

After several days of watching the cucumber plant that I bought flower like mad...I have FINALLY seen the difference between a male and female cucumber flower! Today my first female cucumber flower opened!!! It's very obviously different than the other flowers with a baby cucumber behind the blossom.

I gave up on the eggplant. It was nearly dead anyways so I just removed it from the garden. Oh well. I guess I'll stick to Provino's if I want to eat eggplant this year ;)

The peas have flowered now! This is exciting...my garden is starting to produce! It's getting so big (and I know this is still just the beginning!) The zucchini plants *may* have blooms starting, we'll see soon enough and it won't be long until all the cukes I sprouted will be ready to bloom (bushmaster and lemon.) I'm most excited about the lemon cukes...

Since adding the epsom salts it seems the entire thing has just gone nuts. The pepper plants are deep green again, and they are growing like crazy (up.) Still blooming but not so much fruiting...I still see baby peppers on there but they aren't doing much. I'll have to read some more about that...I may need to pollinate them (I hand pollinated my female cuke today with a paintbrush JIC.)

The beans are growing well too but don't seem to have runners that will grab my trellis. Maybe I accidentally planted all bush beans? LOL...that would not surprise me.

Left Bed:

Right Bed:

A few days back I planted 2 varieties of pumpkins in the right bed, around the outer edge. I now have sprouted seedlings from every seed planted! We're going to have pumpkins!! Once they get leggy I'll lean them over the edge of the beds so they can grow on the grass,

towards the watermelon plants.

Mutant coreopsis? The front gardens...

I apparently have mutant coreopsis plants. One is almost 7' tall! I planted 2 when we bought the house just over 2 years ago. The first year they barely bloomed...pretty unexciting. About 8" of scruffy, ferny foilage and little solid yellow flowers. They were supposed to be about 18" tall at mature height...

Second year I split one to share with a friend. Killed that one...doh. So I split the remaining one and planted it in the place of the one I divided/killed...they were really unexciting last year too. Maybe 12" of scruffy, ferny foilage and maybe a couple flowers.

This year? I've got one that is nearly 7' tall. I had to cut one down because it fell over (this was the end of May so it may well come back again.)

Interestingly I also discovered that I had one growing in the front of my bed...I'd only planted them on either side of my front bed...none in front. Somehow it propagated itself and grew a new plant SIX feet from the nearest relative! I moved that one today because it was over 5' tall and way out of place up front.

The flowers this year are different...yellow with brown centers.

Here is my oldest son, who comes up to my mouth & I am 5'4", as comparison for the tallest plant.

For giggles, here is my main front bed:

Around the mailbox (still need to sink the edgers and I am waiting for Round-up to help with the crabgrass that managed to edge around my fabric):

To the right of the front door if you are looking at the house (there are yarrow, salvia, day lillies, calla lillies and lirope over there...the callas are not blooming yet):