Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Spring Flowers

Moss Rose

Lime Zinnia

Sweet Potato Vine


I am not exactly sure what this is. The leaves of the plant remind me of lamb's ear, but the flowers are not the same.


My first Cosmos flower of the season.






Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Fruit Trees in the Garden

A little update on how the fruit is growing. The peaches are holding on. A few seemed to have escaped the bugs and are unblemished.



The fig tree has put on quite a few figs. They are delicious fresh. I prefer to eat them off the tree. They make yummy jam as well.


The pears are slowly growing. I am hoping to have enough for some pear preserves or pear honey. I would really like to put up some pear halves as well.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Staking Tomatoes for Less

My container tomato plants are staked with tomato cages. When we were gifted a bunch of tomato plants for the garden, I knew I would not want to buy that many tomato cages. My budget simply would not allow it. The tomatoes still needed to be staked. We used old tobacco sticks, heavy duty twine and twist ties.

First dh buried the tobacco sticks and strung the twine making two to three rows up the sticks.

Next we gently pulled up the plants and used twist ties to loosely secure the stalks to the twine. The stalks will continue to grow so no matter what you use to secure them keep it loose.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Main Garden

Many of my plants are in containers, but I do have a main garden in the backyard. Here are some pictures of what I grow there and how everything is doing.

The first row is a mixture of watermelon and cantaloupe plants. The watermelons are just vines, but we do have several small cantaloupes.


The second and third rows are mostly tomato plants with a few zucchini plants. We have several small tomatoes.





The third row is yellow squash. I prefer the straight neck as opposed to the crookneck squash. We have been eating some squash already.




Row number five is cucumbers. I do not need any dill pickles this year. These are for eating fresh and perhaps some yummy sweet pickle relish.



The last row is okra which is in need of a bit of thinning out. The best way I know to eat okra is fried. I can handle it is soup but not stewed. I am thinking some pickled okra might be a good thing to try this year.


Thursday, June 3, 2010

Up-to-Date Garden Pictures

Here are the pictures of the garden that I took over the weekend. I have more but am saving them to go with other posts.



Eggplant



Tomato



Butterfly Garden



Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Middle of May Garden Progress

As promised here are the pictures from the middle of May to show you the progress the garden has made.



The Butterfly Garden
Sago Palm

Eggplant
Tomato Plant

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

How Fast Does Your Garden Grow?

I have garden pictures spanning the past month. I thought it would be nice to take them one section at a time. First up are pictures from the beginning of May.
Here are the peaches on our peach/plum tree

The butterfly garden

Sago Palm

Cleaned Out Flower Bed