2010 Spring Garden
I can’t wait for Spring. Last year (2010) I had a wonderful time starting a vegetable garden, and flower garden in May. I learned a few things about a few plants, and got really tired of cucumbers.
One big thing I learned, cucumber plants look a lot like zucchini plants when they are small. Another thing I learned, tomatoes are picky about turning red. Also, when starting school, all hobbies and fun seems to disappear.
I went to a local Farm, I wanted to buy local and see what they had to offer, as well as the plants were less expensive. When I found them online, I e-mailed to reserve the plants I wanted—1 eggplant, 1 cucumber, 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, and 1 tomato plant. When I got to the farm to pick up, all the plants were tagged, they had different prices, and they had additional plants. So I picked up a sugar snap pea plant as well, and a free-range chicken. I started seeds for herbs including thyme, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, basil.
Seedlings for herbs: rosemary, basil, thyme, cilantro, parsley
Tomato, Eggplant, Zucchinin (so I thought), Yellow Squash (so I thought), Cucumber
_____________________________________________________________
June 2010
They grew up and I put them in larger pots! A day or two after I planted them in the big pots, my dog, Stacey, decided she did not like one of the plants and tore it out of the pot and tossed it. It happened to be the cucumber plant. Silly dog! I then purchased another cucumber plant to replace it.
I read throughout the internet about natural pesticides and ideas to keep pests away. I used crushed eggshells to ward of the snails and slugs, and foil around the edge of the pot to ward off birds. The birds still came around and loved my tomatoes. Also, I planted garlic in the pots with the tomatoes, the cucumbers and the eggplants—this is supposed to ward off bugs. 
All in large pots, from left to right: yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber, sugar snap peas, eggplant, tomato
___________________________________________________________________
July 2010
Finally Some Color!!! But this was the surprise…I came back from Vacation to find I had 3 cucumber plants instead of one, that’s right, the zucchini and yellow squash I was expecting were actually cucumber plants. So with 3 cucumber plants, and a tomato plant starting to give me some food, it was a battle. The cucumbers wouldn’t stop growing, we had cucumber salad, cucumber dip, I made pickles, stuffed cucumbers, and more and more cucumbers.
The tomatoes took forever to turn red. I read up on that, and apparently they are picky little buggers. Tomatoes have to have the right temperature, no warmer than 86 degrees and there cannot be too much wind. The chemicals that make the tomato red can’t handle the heat, and they do not want to be blown away. As you can guess, the temperature was really high in June and the wind came here and there.
Look how much they’ve grown—oh, and here’s the flowers.___________________________________________________________________
July 2010
The plants were crazy in July. This was an awesome cucumber growing, it made it’s own little hammock in the vine. By then the heat was almost unbearable, the flowers were growing like crazy, I was fighting the birds for tomatoes, we couldn’t figure out what other recipes or who to give the cucumbers to, we had our 2nd eggplant still growing, the sugar snap peas gave up, we had so much basil, it was great.
___________________________________________________________________January 2011
Well, it’s January, and everything is dead and frozen. When is going to warm up? I am ready this year. I want to grow some potatoes, ONE cucumber plant, tomatoes again, maybe some peppers, flowers, some more herbs and something more, just not sure what yet.
