Tuesday, May 29, 2012

gardening

you can see the actual corn now. It's considered a really healthy corn stalk if it produces 3 corns. Most of mine have 2 with a few stalks having an additional side stalk.
pollen is carried by wind, that's why you plant corn close together.
These are Everbearing strawberries, they produce a smaller berry than the Juneberry. But, what they lack in size they make up in production. These plants have been producing since February. They took a month off April, and have started back up in May. The Juneberry only produces in June, hence the name. Next year I plan on having both varietes.
I thought these tomato vines died during last winter. I was going to rip them out but decided to give them some time and see what they were going to do. Pruned, water, just tied up about a month ago. Manure fertlizer works!
FLowers
Golden Honey Melon, melons love the crap sand I have for soil.
Blue Corn, never had but hear it's good.
Pollen?

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

gardening

corn silk
Found these bugs on corn today. Small knat sized bugs. Hose off and will hope for the best.
One raspberry
This looks great, I'm going to put a bag on my peaches so the birds don't peck them.
The flowers on my watermelon plant are beautiful. I love seeing it grow each day.
Perpective from an ant, reminds me of the movie, "Honey, I shrunk the kids."
The flowers then turn into baby Sugar Babies. Sugar Babies are supposed to produce a lot in a smaller plot than traditional watermelons. We'll see!
This guy is a round squash. Since I have different breeds of squash they will all pollinate each other. The result will be regular squash but the seeds will a cross breed. With my winter squash I'll tape and hand pollinate to prevent cross breeding.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

gardening

Can't wait to eat, I never had the flowers but heard they taste good.
Soy beans and a green bean mixed in with the corn. Soy beans are a great companion for corn since they release nitrogen, which fertilize the corn. They also provide shade to keep the weeds out.
cucumber that I just transplanted from a pot. I just use cut up milk jugs to start my seeds and move into the ground when they get this big. Anything with a thicker stem can handle the move pretty easy however, the tomatoes and eggplant died since they have a really thin stem around this age.
I blocked this guy off but he still gets to my garden from time to time. Rambo knife comes in handy. LOL
Why am I showing you this? Well first off, it's a grape vine. I cut off around a 16" piece back in late March. Mixed some compost into the soil and stuffed it into the ground. This little guy had a leaf on it but the leaf fell off after a few days. I kept watering it and was about to give up on it since it's now May. I now should have some grapes, in about 3 years!!!
onions, now I can spread them out so they have room to grow.
Sugar baby watermelon started in a container on full moon back in February. Now starting to run!
Started in February, runts compared to my other one already producing.
Dwarft Red Delicious apples, said not to grow in southern ca because it doesn't get cold enough. Well I already had one apple a few months ago. We'll see how these turn out. These apples are nasty in the market, mushy with no taste. They do not store well compared to other varieties. All I have to say is these are wonderful fresh. Crisp with a delicious taste, hence the name. My baby is going to love fresh apple sauce! Peach off in the right. My dog loves fruit and caught him taking some off. He knows better but too tempting.
Planted corn seeds on the first full moon in February. Soaked seeds for one day, then planted into the ground. I'm going to try to plant some in a month or two to try and have some fresh corn for Thanksgiving.
Zucchini squash is a summer variety. After about 8" long they start to loose flavor. This guy is fat, I plan on having him tonight, fried up cajan stlye. Hint to wifey, please make tonight.
Winter squash, started from seed April 4th. I have a row of spaghetti and butternut squash. Plant a few seeds a couple of inches away, some will sprout and others will not. When plants get about this big just move to the proper spacing of 18"-24". Not shown is beets, two cucumbers, a row of butterleaf lettuce, and chards.