Here are the tomato plants...not too pretty...
Major lessons:
1. Definitley shoved too much in there this year, next time will be much less and
2. I need to fertilize more frequently- my new theory is that a well nourished plant won't succumb to diseases.
We also planted the new garden on the right with 5... yes F.I.V.E new tomato plants (I'm determined to get to the point of canning leftover tomatoes!), and more strawberries. I already had planted broccoli, chard, bush beans, artichokes, peppers, arugula, and carrots like 2 months ago. I gave up on any of it growing but in the last two weeks it has all sprouted up. Hmm. It's still a little sad looking - I think it is just super hot in that spot. I am so excited the two artichokes I planted have sprouted - my goal is to have one on the end of each row b/c they last for years and get pretty big. We may not see any actual artichokes this season but they say they get more prolific each year. Big hopes for those guys! They are a very pretty plant to so we may just plant a bunch around the whole yard. Wouldn't that be fun? Even Kaelyn loves artichokes!
Here are the broccoli. Or as I call them, HOLY BROCCOLI! Kaelyn LOVES her brocci. So does daddy. I really hoped to grow our own but was warned against the aphid infestations. I noticed whenever we get fresh organic broccoli it is always infested (beware - they just look like some innocent pepper before you realize you didn't put any pepper on your broccoli). I am not so hopeful that these will make it to our dinner plates...
And finally, I have a shout out to two fellow mom's. Our new garden has special permanent residents, two butterflies, to commemorate two little babies who didn't make it. The yellow one (first photo) is for baby Ella, my friend Bre's baby. The green one (second photo) is for a good friend who recently suffered a miscarriage - she knows who she is. I am wishing, for both of you, a successful addition to your families very soon - and an end to this difficult journey.
Thank you both for all of your support.
Oh my, I love the butterflies. I can't believe how big and beautiful they are. And, I can't believe you were able to get such good pictures of them. I love Ella's butterfly. Thank you! Thank you! I needed that tonight. I'm definately going to have to come hang in your garden soon! Hoping all 3 of us have additions to our families soon.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think Kingston would like more strawberries next year. Hehe. :)
Okay, Now I feel silly. :) I still love it just the same. I love that you are thinking of Ella. It means so much to me.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, I feel incredibly guilty about my garden now. Well mostly my mom's garden because my time here so far has been busy and sucky and stressful and I've hardly been over there. Ugh. But yeah, our only failures were that quinoa didn't do anything past sprouting, rabbits ate all of the peas and all but two of the green bean plants, and we had to battle chipmunks who kept digging up and eating pumpkin and sunflower seeds. But we have upwards of thirty tomato plants. Not kidding. Mom said to plant a lot in each pot because only a few ever come up and they pretty much ALL did. Yay organic seeds. So wanna come can some tomatoes? Lol. Looks like we'll have some in about 3 weeks. I planted everything from seed in June (which is a no... but it worked) and we had great radishes, spring mix, baby carrots, spinach, broccoli is coming along, squash and cucumbers are awesome, beets are almost ready, leeks, eggplant and pumpkins coming along, and chamomile, basil, dill, cilantro, lemon balm and wheatgrass doing fine. We didn't have bug issues really, just rabbits. The spring mix worked great, I'm going to try to grow it in flower boxes on the porch over winter.
ReplyDeleteMan... again, I'm sorry it was a battle out there. Want me to mail you some dirt? Haha. If you have any canning recipes (salsa, spaghetti sauce or whatever) you really wanted to try, feel free to share, because I'm going to be canning an ASS TON of tomatoes ;) And freezing a lot of stuff too.