New Garden Getting There

Looking good so far. Need to get the back half done, but working on it. 4ft rows with 3ft paths in between. You can tell the rows with compost mixed in and cover crop seeds on top. I thought the last rain would start them sprouting, but most didn't. Hopefully the next rain will start them germinating. James has been a trooper with it all. He went twice with me today and I got 3 ditches in the paths put in so we can get good drainage so my compost doesn't wash away or have big wash outs or something. James found lots of worms. Good for the ground and a good distraction for James. Poor worms though, most don't make after being manhandled by James. Oh well, seems like there are lots of them. Yeah!

My Little Gardener Learning How To Save Seeds

Saving Okra seeds.

Being silly while saving seeds. It can't all be that boring.

New Garden Patch

Here is what we started with. 1/2 acre of grass and a 13 horsepower tiller. My friend Paul showed me this post on craigslist about someone in Carmichael that needed someone to garden thier backyard. How lucky am I to have such a good friend keeping an eye out for me. If you see this post Paul, Thanks! The garden is just a couple blocks away from our house. So, for the next 5 years this will be our garden. Yippee!

Mostly tilled.

Almost done. This was at 5 O'clock. Rog finished tilling at 5:30. We did it! Thanks Rog, your the best! Now to make rows so that it will drain properly when it rains next. I saw some worms when I was digging around too. Yeah! This is so exciting! I need to transplant strawberry plants and plant some garlic. Yum!

Pineapple Tomato

So, this is the only tomato I got besides the sungold cherry tomatoes. It's a pineapple tomato. It was green when I picked it and I put it in a bag like my friend Paul recommended. And it worked. Probably doesn't taste as good as it would right off the vine, but I will take what I can get after my soil disaster with my transplant tomatoes this year. Really don't buy Edna's Best Organic soil. It's expensive and its not as good as Peaceful Valley Farm Supplies'.

Isn't it pretty?

Yum!

Paul's a.k.a. Sacratomato's Garden I

James and I met up with one of my local garden internet buddies to take some pictures for him for a couple of idig contests. He had an awesome garden.

Here is his gate upon entering his garden.

Yummy korean watermelon.

A second melon. Beautiful.

Ambrosia cantelope. He let us take it home. Mmmmm.....

Paul's a.k.a. Sacratomato's Garden

Paul's big monster pumpkin James got to pose on. It's over 80 inches around.

Proof you don't have to have a lot of room to grow big pumpkins.

Huge watermelon Paul is letting go to save seeds from.

Smaller watermelon of same variety. I forgot to take a pic of the whole plant. It was huge.

How do you know when a pumpkin has had too much to drink????

My friend sent me this and I thought I'd share it with everyone. I thought it was hilarious.

Garden as of 10/07 and Okra

Here is the big plot in all its glory. It is pretty green. Just took out that front right tomato plant, but everything else will stay until it goes to seed or dies. The half plot we have is just dying pumpkin plants I need to pull out. Will work on that tomorrow or Thursday.
My huge okra. It went crazy this year. Letting a few pods get huge and dry so that I can harvest the seeds.

Luffah's, Luffah's, Everywhere Luffah's

Luffah gourd plant taking over the tepee and the bean trellis. You can see a smaller loofah hanging in the middle.
James and a loofah.
Pretty loofah flowers.
One big loofah. That is our biggest loofah yet.

Tomatoes

Finally one big tomato on the vine. Maybe, just maybe it will ripen on the vine. We'll see. May have to ripen on the counter. From my garden map this is supposed to be a Pineapple tomato.
One sad San Marzano tomato. I don't think it will get full size. Such a shame I had such aspirations for this variety. Will try again next year.
I pulled out my Sungold tomato plant. Look how long the roots are. Amazing!

Sorry its been so long - update on garden.

Sorry its been so long since my last post. Here is James and most of our pumpkin harvest. 4 cinderella pumpkins, 9 Musquee de Provence, and 4 batwing pumpkins. This is all from my half plot which is amazing! It's definately a pumpkin year for us. The batwings which are next to James' hand didn't turn out like they said they would lest I picked them too late, maybe they were darker and turned more orange over time, I don't know. They are supposed to be black on the bottom and orange on the top. Here is a pic of what they are supposed to look like. Oh well. It's supposed to rain this weekend, that is what has prompted me to pick all my pumpkins and squash except for the luffahs, which are just starting to produce. They say they need a long growing season and now I believe it. They didn't start producing until a couple of weeks ago, but they grow fast. Hopefully I will remember to get a picture of them soon. They are taking over the tepee and the bean trellis. They are pretty though. Constantly in bloom.
Here are my New England Pie pumpkins. They will be yummy! Oh, and final thought on direct seed vs. transplant are quite telling. The transplant for the new england pie was a smaller plant and produced only one pumpkin while the direct seeded plant was 3 times the size of the transplant and grew 4 pumpkins. So, next year I will be direct seeding most of my pumpkins and squash and I will start the loofah gourds and Mexican Sour Gherkins inside sooner than I did this year.
Here are my butternuts. There are 3-4 more on the vine still growing too. This is from one plant. Quite prolific. I can't wait to eat one. Will wait until the green goes away on them. They keep forever (atleast until about March), so we have some time before we dig in, well except for the one the stem broke off.

Musquee de Provence

I was trying to flip this one on to its bottom and it snapped off. Not to worry there are so many pumpkins in there I will have more than enough. I'm hoping it will turn orange. We'll see. I've never picked a green one before.

Garden as of 8/5

Large plot. We've been getting tons of beans lately. Add some garlic and butter. Yum! If you click on the pic you can see the tomato plant in front going crazy. Some of the other tomato plants are starting to catch up. Yeah! I hope they produce before it gets too cold.
Pumpkin plants are still going crazy. There are a ton of pumpkins in there lots of pumkin for the freezer. Good for pie and pumpkin cookies all winter long. Yum!

Watermelon. Grow, grow, grow!
Cinderella pumpkin. Big one for Jen.
Musquee de Provence pumpkin for eating. There are like 10-20 in there.
Zucchini. James actually helped me take this picture. He put the flash on and everything.

Garden as of 7/15

Large plot.
Small plot being taken over by the pumpkins. Remind me next year to put in one row of pumpkins in the big plot with LOTS of room to grow.

The vines are taking over. Yeah! Now it will be shaded enough for James.
Beans are going crazy. On the bottom right you can see my okra plants.
Look how cool that is.

Tomatoes finally turning color. Maybe they will be ready for pesto pasta salad on Saturday.
Cinderella pumpkin getting big.
I think this is a Musquee pumpkin, but with how much the pumpkin vines are intertwined I have no idea.
Happy gardener eating yummy strawberries.

New England pie pumpkin hanging in the tepee.
I think I have about 5 of them so far. Yum! Can't wait for Pumpkin pie.
Our first cucumber. At the top of the pic you can see a little guy starting to grow.
Little baby butternut squash. There are a lot of them on the vine. Yeah!