Thursday, March 24, 2011

Progress

I will trust my instincts and wait for rain this weekend, hoping nature's water will suffice my needs. Here is how everything is looking so far:




The above bed contains peppers, tomatoes, onions and garlic, mainly because they all need and return the same materials to the soil.

I have 6 tomatillo plants. I've never planted them before and upon doing a little research discovered that in warm climates they can reach up to 12' tall! And that they reseed vigorously like weeds...they may get moved!! However, they have beautiful yellow flowers that attract lots of bees which aid in pollination which is necessary for a successful harvest. The tomatillo plant has become a staple in many gardens for that fact alone!


Did you know it takes YEARS for an onion to go from seed to approximately 1 lb size? This onion was planted last year and forgotten about. Its leaves this year are HUGE compared to last year. It currently looks like a green squid wriggling from the earth:


My husband works for a beverage plant and I was fortunate to score these liquid containers for free! He converted them into rain harvesting barrels for me. See how hippie-ish I am?




BTW, the very rudimentary chicken wire fencing around my garden beds was my first attempt at fence building. I don't think I did that bad of a job!

This bed (that looks empty) is just corn. It's between 1 and 4 inches tall right now. As I mentioned in my last post I haven't had luck with corn in the past. Pollination is a concern for producing kernels. For each silk on an ear you will yield one kernel of corn. The only way to produce said kernel is to transfer pollen from the tassel atop the stalk to the silks. Wind normally takes care of this easily in large fields, but in a smaller bed like mine I will have to make sure this gets done by shaking the stalks myself once pollen is visible. I've got some time to prepare myself!




A note on fertilizer: you can use manure from any animal as long as it doesn't eat animal products. That would exclude most domestic animals like dogs and cats. Any animals that consumes a plant based diet will provide excellent fertilizer.


And those flowers I mentioned? Here's how they're looking after 2 weeks of nail-biting:


Again, they don't look like much now but FINGERS CROSSED!!!!

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