Okay, so has anyone else considered the irony of the word crop? You crop (cut) your hair, but you grow crops. No wonder our language is so difficult to master. Anyway. here’s my third crop report. Still no “crops” to report, but things are growing.
In the vegetable garden, the okra has popped up:
As have the beans, pumpkins and squash:
The potatoes have sprouted (yes, that’s a joke) and are ready to be mulched again in my experimental “vertical” planting system.
The countdown is on: they should be ready to dig by July.
And I am not sure if this is a cuke or zuke. I planted one at the end of one tomato bed, and the other at the end of the pepper bed.
Ordinarily it wouldn’t matter much but the other one has not sprouted. So do I replant cuke? Or zuke?
This is why we should mark our plants, boys and girls.
In the raised beds, the everbearing strawberries are starting to ripen and I now have little lettuces growing on either side of them.
This bed gets filtered sunlight for most of the morning, which may not be ideal for the berries, but the lettuce will love it.
And last week, we had to imagine the radishes, carrots and onions in this bed. Now if we peer really closely we can see them.
I have a new garden companion. His name is Peter. And he is one fat, furry cottontail.
I watched him waddle through the garden last evening.
Unfortunately, my fat furry dog is too lazy to chase him, so this is what he’s doing to my beans:
Apparently he likes THIS kind of purple bean leaf better than the other purple bean leaf. Hmmm.
So that’s the crop report for this week. In the next week or two we should be seeing bigger plants and maybe even some blooms on the tomatoes and peppers. Maybe.
Happy gardening,
Terry
P.S. After I scheduled this, I stumbled over this blog, which has a side-by-side photo of cuke and zuke seedlings. Guess the sprout is a zuke, and I need to retry the cukes.
OH, those bunnies! We have seen a baby one coming out from under our shed, and I finally got up some chicken wire fencing around my swiss chard before they could get to it, but the tomatoes and beans and everything else are still exposed. My neighbor planted tomatoes in the easement between our two properties, and we think that a rabbit ate one of his tomato plants down to a stalk as well. Do you have anything that works at keeping them away?
Not yet – I wish I did! On a happier note, the rabbits don’t seem to like my rainbow Swiss chard, so there may be hope for yours. The beans are the main target, and I’m not sure if it’s the rabbit or a snapping turtle we found a week ago, loitering in the garden patch. We relocated him, but I’m sure he knows his way back.
It must be turtle season – we just found a snapping turtle in our garage last week – my husband ran over it backing out, but it still survived. We set ours free too, but didn’t think they could come back.
I’m glad you were able to figure out your seedlings. Seed markers are so fun to make, but not always on hand when you are in the thick of planting. I’ll be coming back to see how things progress.
Awww, thanks! I have a bucket of zinc plant markers and a Brothers P-Touch labeler. (Shameful isn’t it?) Do come back – we got a two-inch deluge yesterday and the garden should grow like gangbusters in the next week or two. (As will the weeds, of course
Hi Terry. I am growing okra for the first time this year and my plants are about the same size as yours but I will need to grow mine in the greenhouse. I look forward to following progress!
Oh, I hope it grows well for you! So are you already on okra fan, or are you new to the bliss that is okra? (I started out a fan of pickled okra and okra in gumbo – strangely enough. Couldn’t gag down fried okra to save my mortal soul.) Took a couple decades but now I happily eat okra in any form I can get my hands on.
I’m so pleased my garden is not attacked by bunnies, when they look that cute it is hard to be cross, but truth to tell I’d be heartbroken if they turned my plants into supper.
I learned to see past their cuteness when they decimated my home-grown plants. When it comes to the fate of bunnies in my garden, the dog and I have a strict “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
It makes me all happy inside when things start poking their little heads out of the ground. I love the whole growing process.
We often think bunnies eat everything in the garden, but they do have their favorites.