Weak Spots

Fencing Weak Spots...

When I was out in the garden yesterday I shuffled through the raised bed with melons in it because I wanted to see if we had any signs of watermelon growth and we did. Sadly, they had been bitten into so I decided to find the weak spots in the fence allowing something small in to bite them. I think I found it. It was the start of the fence where I used a insertion poll rather than staples and the wooden polls Mr. S installed. That was the weak spot I found and seems like the only weak spot. When I came out today none of the tomatoes close to the ground had bites taken out of them nor did anything else. Either the animals weren't out last night, not likely because the items on the ground have had bites everyday since ripening started, or the weak spot I chose to reinforce was the "weak spot." I hope by picking the bad melons the plant will put energy into growing new ones and do it soon because watermelons need long hot days and we only have 6 weeks left of summer. 

Harvesting...

I harvested a couple of onions, yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomato-berries, and a cantaloupe. The cantaloupe wasn't so much a harvest as a picked from the ground. The larger of the two container cantaloupes finally made its plunge to the ground. I haven't cut it open to see what it looks like yet but my guess is it fell because it was too big and/or as big as it was going to get. I transferred the container melon into the Patch raised bed. Transferred both trellises as well. I forgot to get a picture but ill get one after the rain. Things were wilting and since it was going to rain or was supposed to rain, and did, I didn't want to water or over water. So glad to get some rain, funny how things change. I'm hoping the extra space keeps e container loupe alive. It may not produce but it was so pretty and all of the sudden it wasn't. I'd like to keep it pretty at least for another 6 weeks. 

Today's harvest. B-E-A-utiful!

Cucumbies

Cucs ready for eating...

I've been busy the last couple of days so I haven't been able to sit down and write an entry but I did get in quite a bit of gardening and harvesting. I harvested 2 delicious cucumbers in the last 2 days, a handful of tomatoes, and a couple squash. All of which have either been delicious or I've been told were delicious. I went out to lunch with my Mom yesterday and then gave her a tour of the garden. She was absolutely shocked by the transformation, by how big and successful everything was. I picked a few beans and a squash for her. 

Later that day I put up the rest of the fencing because I noticed a ripe cherry tomato in the low tomato/onion bed with a bite taken out. I found the entrance or probable entrance and blocked it off. I hope it keeps either the squirrels or the chipmunks away. I want more than 1 or 2 or a handful here and there. 

Our largest watermelon to date. About the size of a cherry tomato.

The first ripe and delicious cucumber. I ate the whole thing with a sprinkle of salt. It was truly amazing! Pick Friday. 

The interior of the first cuc.

The yellow squash I picked for my Mom during her tour. She hasn't eaten it yet but Mike's mom said hers was delicious.

Cherry tomato and cucumber salad made with the 2nd ripe cucumber and handful of cherry tomatoes picked today. This time I added salt, pepper, olive oil, and red wine vinegar to make a salad. It was one of the best tomato cucumber salads I've ever had, it could only have been made better by a little red onion. 

So glad to be eating my freshly grown fruits and veggies! 

Chipmunk Fence

Bunnies, Chipmunks, or Rats?

Up until now we've been pretty lucky as far as pests go. I've had some personal invasions in Patch Market on my strawberry containers and on the Topsy Turvy but after I moved the containers and wrapped up the Topsy all of that ended. I have had some berries get eaten by the birds but that has been few and far between. Otherwise, we've had a bunny go for the lettuce in Potagar, once, and that's it. Those few times things did go missing we blamed it on rats. There was a storm of rats in this neighborhood last year due to the recently, more, mild winters but we actually haven't seen any rats we just assumed that was the case because they ate every single tomato in the small container garden Mr. S. fashioned last year. Anyway, so we blamed the rats, not the bunnies, because of the bite size but the rats. I was worried we were going to see another swarm of them this year, even though they were killed off by our poison and a few of the neighbors. Yesterday, when I was out put some of the fencing up I saw a tomato, a small cherry one, on the ground with a bite mark in it. I thought, again, a rat and that I needed to hurry up and finish getting the fencing up. I didn't because I ran out and needed to get the rest out of the car but I basically finished today. Anyway, I told Mr. S. about the tomato and he said something that I completely agree with "I haven't really seen even one rat but I've seen a bunch of chipmunks. They have to eat too." He is absolutely correct. I've seen at least 6 or 7 in our area alone and a few running across the street in the neighborhood. The bite marks are so small that it makes sense that they are the thieves not the nonexistent rats. So I made sure to get almost all of the rest of the fencing up to protect against them and hope that we get to enjoy some of the fruits of our labor, literally.  Mr. S. thought that we might not get many pests because we'd been lucky so far but I think I was correct when I said that was because things haven't ripened yet. Now that they're ripening the aroma will attract pests from afar and around. 

Fencing we purchased at home depot for $5 a roll. A good deal and it is not unattractive when up. I used a staple gun to hold it in place on the wooden poles Mr. S. put in but we could have bought metal hook poles that you did into the ground for $3 a piece. Next time we'll know.

The cucumber plant was close to reaching the cement drive so I put a trellis in the container and weave the long stems through the trellis just like I did with the cantaloupe plants. Cucumbers are in the same family so there vines should happily attach to accommodate vertical growth.

Vine of a cantaloupe working its way to attaching to the newly placed trellis and a very young cantaloupe melon forming (the yellow fuzzy globe). 

Magic Juice

Arrived...

This morning my order finally arrived. I had placed the order for Sea Magic and a Predalure on April 29 and April 30th they said the "order shipped" but there was no tracking number or estimated delivery date so I just kept checking for it everyday. I didn't check today because I really didn't expect it and, of course, it came. I immediately opened it and look through all the instructions. At first, I was extremely confused by the Sea Magic directions. It said to pour the contents of the package into a 1 gallon bucket or bottle and that was it. I said to Mike "what is going on? Burpee advertised 60 gallons." What I didn't realize was that after you dissolve the contents you use that as your concentrate and mix 3 tablespoons of concentrate with every quart of water. Obviously, they weren't going to expect people to have a 60 gallon container to mix the contents into. So I mix half of the contents into 2 liters and zip locked the rest. I didn't even have a gallon bucket/container. Then I put it in a cool spot, as recommended, and went outside to hang the predalure. It actually came with 2 so I hung them both. One in patch and one on the Shephard hook in Potagar. We have a major earwig infestation in one of the empty beds so I figured we'd need all the help we could get. 

Sea Magic...

A few hours later after Mike left for his weekend trip I went upstairs to mix up a bottle of Sea Magic. I put 1.5 tbsp into 1.5 cups of water in a spray bottle. I sprayed all the plants, liberally, and watered the ones that needed it. I am so excited to see if this stuff works. I had to make 3 spray bottles but I finally got everything sprayed and watered. To be honest, I thought the plants were responding pretty instantly to the spray. They looked perkier after there spray down. The last bottle had about 1/2 a cup left when I was done so I poured it into the Topsy Turvy. You can water the plants and spray them with sea magic. Its up to you. The product is 100% organic so it doesn't matter how you use it, it's supposed to work.

Thinning...

After I finished spraying everything down I thinned a few of the plots. I thinned the green beans down to about 30 plants. I know I still need to thin them down to 18 plants but I want to figure out the trellis issue before I do so I thin the ones that aren't in prime placement for the second twine trellis, we'll need 2. I moved on to thinning the spinach. It's 4 plants per plot and 4 plots. At the moment, even after thinning, we have about 30 plants so I need to thin a little more there too but they are still in early stages so I want to give them time to show me there strength. 

Fencing...

Mr. S. built the first furry pest barrier today and I helped him staple gun the netting on before heading inside. 

Green beans I thinned today.

Roots of the thinned beans. I thought it was pretty amazing that the root system was already so big.

Fencing, its pretty amazing that you can hardly see a double layer of black netting around the bed. All you can really see are the posts and the corners of the netting.

Container spinach in progress.

Lemon Balm in progress.

All the watermelon seedlings I have so far. The count is 7 and they were all planted at different times in different forms.

Building Completed

I spent the afternoon in the rain finishing the building and filling portion of my garden. It was wet and cold but I was determined. I started by adding the cinder blocks in place of the bricks on the right & back wall. Then because the garden is on a narrow-ish flat that leads to a hill I started sledge hammering stakes into the concrete block holes. One for every block. That didn't go smoothly at all. I slammed my middle finger with the sledge hammer and slid down the hill in what were now soaked and slick garden boots. After hammering 2 stakes in I decided to try a medal rod on the 3rd. That was quick and easy but wasn't going to hold. So, I went looking for something more & found some black plastic fencing (the type you click together) in the shed and put that up for looks and blockage.

The snaps broke as I was trying to hook them together and a piece of the fencing lanced me in the face. I was fine but immediately decided they looked just as good without being snapped together. I hammered the pieces in and moved on to adding the rest of the soil to my raised bed.

I was under the impression that I would have an overload of soil. As I dumped bags 1, 2, & 3 into the bed I realized that the soil I'd bought wasn't going to be enough. I then had a DUH! Moment. The backside was sloping because of the hill and in turn deeper. The only plant I plan on growing that needs any real depth is the sweet potato. So I made a quick decision that I wasn't going to buy another 6 bags @ $3.33/bag. I was going to move the back row up so that it was flatter and the bed would be smaller. That bummed me out because instead of having 9 sq. feet in my square foot garden now I'd only have six. It was worth it though because I wasn't wasting an enormous amount of soil on filling in a hill and I had 1 full bag left over with the same depth all the way around. Moving the blocks meant scooping all of the soil from the back to the front of the bed and removing the stakes I had just busted my fingers to get in... It was disappointing to say the least but overall a much better way of going about my raised bed. The fear of the back wall toppling down the hill was gone and my bed would be completed, today (although my original intention was to get my container of spinach planted which I didn't).

Finally, I mulched the right side of the bed, repositioned the black plastic fencing further in, and placed my shepherd hook a few inches off to the right. Patch Market is ready for the plants!

I grabbed the tools that did not fare well outdoors, took my muddy boots off and washed up. My hair was dripping my nail was throbbing and I was exhausted but I was proud of the work I had done. Hopefully my plants flourish and all of the days and days of hard work aren't for nothing.