Starting My Fall Garden

Yesterday my seeds from Park Seed in SC arrived as well as the garlic I ordered from www.thegarlicstore.com. I planted a few containers each of carrots, onions, broccoli, and garlic.

I put the carrots in my two largest containers and did my best to spread out the seeds, but as tiny as they are it was tough. Keeping them moist might turn out to be a full-time activity since right now I'm watering (more like misting) them with a spray bottle.

I have three containers each of onions and broccoli and am planning on one piece of produce for each container. Finally, I did a window box with three cloves of garlic that I bought and then another container in which I stuck a clove from Trader Joe's just to see if it would sprout. I stuck some of the other cloves I purchased in the fridge as the tip on the instructions that came with them suggested, and I'll plant those in a couple weeks. There's still a little space in my reinvented garden cage, so perhaps I'll do another couple containers of broccoli then too or perhaps the lettuce. I'm considering waiting until Spring for the lettuce. Right now I think it would be too hot for the seeds to germinate.

And yes, you read that right, the garden cage has risen again from the tangled mess of bent screen I found when we got back from vacation due to a storm that hit while we were gone. I picked the three straightest screens of those remaining and turned them on their sides and attached them together to create a tunnel of sorts. Then I closed the ends with some chicken wire-type material. I didn't have enough to full enclose one end so there's a gap at the top. I haven't decided yet if I should worry about that. I also haven't staked the new structure down, which I'll need to do before the first wind comes along. When I do that though I'll lose all physical access to the plants since I don't have a door like I did with last season's taller garden cage. All issues to be worked out in the future...

Composting Death Star

I just got an early birthday present- a composter! It's an Ecomposter and looks kinda like a big hamster ball. Just as I finished putting it together (no small task) a couple that lives down the street pulled up on the corner. They stared out at it a minute and then rolled down the window and the wife asked what it was because they couldn't guess. I'm excited to give it a try, although I'm not sure how long it'll take to get some usable compost since we don't generate a lot of fruit and vegetable scraps. It took a couple hours to put together and cost $100 on woot.com, so I hope it turns out to be a good investment. If nothing else it's sort of an interesting lawn ornament...

Goodbye Summer

My summer garden has met its demise. I pulled up everything but the tomato plants and two gnawed on butternut squash plants. I left those in the cage and asked the neighbor to water them and help herself to whatever grew. While we were gone a storm took out the cage, leaving it a tangled mess of screening. The neighbor said she got some tomatoes off the plants though. The butternut squash plants look like they never recovered from their encounters with the deer.

Ugh

Just found a squash borer larvae on one of my zucchini plants. I must have gotten him soon after he hatched since he hadn't bored into the stem yet. I didn't see any others obviously, but I didn't do a thorough search either. I have a bad feeling with going on vacation this is going to be the end of my garden.

Again

I think the deer may have been back. I only have two zucchini plants out in the open now and I just noticed that it looked like one of them had been munched on. It hasn't been looking that great for awhile, but I'm pretty sure this was fresh munching. The pieces of leaves still left were green. On the plus side that means the netting over the butternut squash and the screen around the rest of the zucchini served their protective purpose. On the downside, if I leave the butternuts uncovered when we're on vacation I might lose the whole thing. Or if I leave them covered the bees can't access for pollination purposes. I'm already a little concerned I may have been abandoned by the bees. They can still access the zucchini but it doesn't look like they have recently when I've checked in the mornings.

Another Butternut

A second female butternut blossom was open this morning along with a number of males. I've been tossing netting over the plants at night to keep out the deer, but that means the bees can't pollinate so I have to do it by hand.

Baby Butternut!

I had a female flower open this morning on the butternut squash plant along with a lot of guys. Finally! It's on one of the plants that the deer nearly stripped of leaves, so I hope it makes it.

The zucchini plants are looking a little better now that it's not 100 degrees out there. They're also in a slightly shadier spot now that I moved them to try to protect them from the hungry deer. Hopefully they start producing zucchini again.

The bean plants on the other hand are looking sad. They never perked back up after their experience with the deer and although they've all flowered again and have little beans growing, they are dropping leaves like crazy.

There are a couple tomatoes now on each of the tomato plants that were stripped clean by the deer, but they're too small yet to guess how they'll turn out. Those were the plants that I had trouble with the rot. The other plant continues to do well considering I've cut off a lot of the branches because the leaves had turned yellow.

The basil has little white flowers on it. We made homemade tomato sauce using the homegrown tomatoes and basil last week and it was delicious! The mint plant is also happier in its new spot on the front porch where it gets more shade and I'm going to pull off some leaves and try to make some mint extract soon.