Friday, July 2, 2010

Another garden update so soon?

I had to show everyone that my garden is actually going to produce some produce... and I am so excited!

John usually waters for me in the afternoons so I've kind of been slacking letting the plants "breathe" in the evenings and since I'm not an "outside" person, I don't usually check on the progress beyond taking a quick phone pic to share here.  So, imagine my surprise when I looked - really looked - at these plants.

And I saw tiny little baby cucumbers!  I don't know what I expected them to look like.  I mean, I had never grown something like this before (and when I say "like this", I mean something that actually flourished) so this whole flower-equals-actual-food amazes me! 

And now, without further ado, here are pictures of the cucumber and pepper plants that yours truly planted...  and I threw in pics of some other stuff that John can take the credit for, since he planted them or something like that.

My cucumbers!



My peppers!  

I was getting worried about the growth, or lack of growth.  Looking at these now, well, I don't think I need to worry about them growing, I need to worry about them growing too much!

Just some pretty flowers around the yard.  (We didn't plant these... my mom did this some years ago, so I guess I can only take credit for keeping them alive by not doing anything with them.  No, really.  I've never touched these plants.  I don't remember them looking so pretty in past years though so maybe the veggie plants agree with them.)

I always catch my breath when I open the curtains in Katie's room and see these in the yard.

Just some pretty shrubs on the side of the deck.

Now back to John's stuff...

Pumpkin plants (John put in two of these back in May while I was sitting on the deck drinking my water and blogging about him planting our stuff.  Oh, and ranting about the SyFy channel not having anything on that is actually representative of SyFy.  That was annoying.):


I think I assumed that pumpkins produced one pumpkin per plant.  I'm starting to rethink that.  

Tomato plant (John planted 3 and they are all doing great):



Oh, here are the grapes that were already here... but a couple of years ago John put up a trellis for them that runs along the whole section of fencing.  It's nice because our kitchen window looks out into the back yard and right into the patio of the neighbor in back of us.  Who likes to sit on his patio.  A whole lot.  All summer. The grapes block the view *just enough* and they are also edible.  Bonus, and bonus!



I didn't take pictures of the strawberry plant or the watermelon plants.  They just weren't that exciting.  We don't think the watermelon will "take" (we planted it right next to the fence with our grapes and the grapes are growing really well so maybe they are sucking all of the nutrients from the soil.  Bummer.  I would rather have had a crop of watermelon than pumpkins) and the strawberry plant was looking good (green) but no flowers.

But I'm still having a great time with this whole gardening thing (or at least my pseudo-garden experience!).

I've decided that I'm going to get out there every day, every couple of days, whenever I have a free minute to check on progress and I'm so glad that I was inspired tonight while the kids were out with Grandma and Grandpa and the house was quiet. 

I moved the slide and pool onto the deck so John didn't have to (you're welcome hon!), then I weeded a little (okay, a lot) and watered my plants all the while enjoying the sun and beautiful weather.  

What a nice evening.

Then the kids came home tired out from dinner, shopping, and the park and the rest of the evening was full of bath time, jammies, playing, and finally peace and quiet.  Now I'm tired.

And on that note, I'm off to bed.

Oh! 

Before I go, I have to ask...

Um...

Does anyone want a couple (pounds) of tomatoes/peppers/cucumbers?  I have this funny feeling that we might be a little overstocked come July...