When I wrote my
last post about gardening at the end of May, I was astonished at how fast things were growing and also wondering if I should not be getting so excited since that might have been as good as it got. Well, apparently rainy and cool weather paired with a little tomato food, peat moss, and cow manure does a garden well. I don't think I even hand-watered my garden once in the month of June, because we had so much rain.
Now I'm starting to wonder if I over-planted. I had to invest in some bamboo stakes and sturdy stretch tie to rein in the zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Someone with much more gardening wisdom than I told me that corn should be knee-high by the Fourth of July. Even if I'm standing on the same level, that's more like shoulder-high.
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| July 14, 2013 |
Here are some monsters that we pulled out today. Good thing I decided to water today or I might not have seen them.
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| The Three Amigos |
Among all of the gazillions of green tomatoes, Caden spotted an orange one.
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| Which one of these is not like the other ones? |
Again, really not the problem I thought I'd have in my rookie year. Three lessons I've learned for next year:
- Stake the tomatoes at time of planting (apparently this is common knowledge among the more experienced). I had no idea that bush variety tomatoes would grow this tall.
- A "bush" variety is not the same as a "dwarf" variety.
- Apparently a zucchini plant -- even just one -- needs more than 4 squares. I had to cage it up, because it was shading my peppers and reaching into the corn. Perhaps it warrants its own special container. Same for the cukes.
