New Developments/Garden Updates

This afternoon I spent some time out on the deck and watched a cardinal come hang out beneath our newest bird feeder. He stayed a while, wandering and pecking at seeds on the ground. It was a nice, but brief, visit.

I watered the garden, and while I worked, I thought I’d gather some photos to show off the progress we’ve got going on. There’s so much happening every day!

Our morning glories are starting to come in nicely—and they’re starting to scale our little trellis, too! These winding vines make me so happy. I can’t wait until we have blossoms, too. 

Our squash and zucchini are taking off! We’re so pleased to see blossoms galore, and now we hope that those will yield some delicious fruits, too.

Look at my little babies! They’re all doing quite nicely, though we’re a little perplexed by the white spots on my purple sage leaves might be. Everyone is thriving, and Ginny and I have already done one substantial harvest--it's time for another! I see our dehydrator getting booted up this weekend! 

This amaryllis bloom is starting to peek open--it's so tall! We can't wait to see it fully unfurled. We have another one in a different pot that isn't quite this far along at the moment, but any pops of color in our garden make my heart extra happy.

It's not hard to see who literally stands out from the crowd in our lettuce plants. These two extra tall friends are officially bolting, which means the lettuce we'd harvest from them is likely to taste bitter. They even have some small blooms forming at their tops. When lettuce bolts like this, which happens as the weather warms up, you can either choose to cut it down, pull it out altogether, or you can leave it alone and let the blooms attract friendly pollinators. We've opted for door number 3, and at least they're pretty to look at in the meantime. We've still got an abundance of lettuce that we've been keen to share with neighbors, family--anyone! 

Our tomato plants have been growing a bit slower this year, though they still look good. We're excited to see blossoms, and hopefully those, as with the squash and zucchini, will yield some yummy tomatoes, too! Speaking of yielding tomatoes, Ginny came out later on and we discovered a few wee little grape tomatoes forming on one of our plants! They'll be our first ones of this season, and they have a ways to go before they're ready, but how exciting! Check them out:

These cabbage plants are exploding and I'm so excited about it. Even more exciting is the start of some baby cabbage heads forming in the centers of these guys! Ginny isn't a big fan, but she's said she'll eat it if we grow it, so I'm excited to get her on the cabbage train. Bacon fried cabbage is incredible, and I think I might convert her if she gives me the chance. ;)

So, we bought these red pepper plants, and we've come to realize that they perhaps aren't actually red bell peppers at all. >.< These guys are growing really nicely, and we wish we knew for sure what they are! Our neighbor thinks they might be shishito peppers. They aren't particularly spicy, but apparently they're tasty when roasted. We'll see how these do for us as they continue to produce! 

Potato-palooza! Our potato plants are going strong and refusing to be contained by anything. We have buried them with fresh dirt multiple times, and we're confident that the actual tubers are deep enough in the soil that we don't need to add any more dirt unless we feel like it's getting washed out by the rain. Now we just keep them watered well and wait for yellowing and wilting leaves! Our potatoes were by far our most successful crop last year, and I think this year holds a lot of promise, too. 

We have a new arrival on the scene--because we didn't have enough growing yet, apparently. Ginny picked up some sweet potato starts on a trip to Home Depot a couple of weeks back. We had been hoping to grow them from slips, but that process was more complicated than we had time to figure out. Because we wrote them out of our garden layout, we opted instead for a set of grow bags which I ordered from Amazon. They're 10-gallon capacity, have handles to help with moving them around, are vented, and have a flap on the side that you can open to help with harvesting! You can grab some here if you're interested. We're excited to see how these guys go--we have 3 bags with two plants each in them, and a fourth with a couple of rhubarb crowns which will take some time to really start yielding, too.

Y'all. Can we talk about this broccoli for a second? Despite our constant struggle with cabbage worms, these guys are growing at an incredible rate. As you can see here, we have some heads of broccoli coming in! I think we'll be able to harvest some of this soon, and I'm hopeful that perhaps we can get a few harvests from them this growing season. We'll see! 

Our corn is doing great! We're having so much fun watching these plants grow big and strong, and they've done so much more this season than anything we saw last year. Check out the growth at the tops of these plants! 

How cool is that?!? Ginny keeps checking in to make sure no other pests are trying to take up residence, but I think planting in a grid formation and using a raised bed with good compost has made a world of difference in our success with corn this year. 

She's just a little excited. The girls have been able to yield a few yummy strawberry snacks from their personal plants in their containers. Today, Kenzie picked these two and after we rinsed them off with the hose, she told me that I could have one, too. She's pretty sweet when she wants to be. 

That's a lot of updates! We're so pleased with our progress so far, and I can't wait to see where things go next. If you're friends with any of us on Facebook, keep your eyes open for occasional garden update live videos where we'll share all of our ups and downs as we navigate this urban homesteading adventure we're undertaking. 

Until next time, this is Marlee, signing off!