Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings: Garden Update #12

Monday, June 23, 2008

Garden Update #12

There has been a lot of growth in both gardens this week! The sun has finally decided to come out and shine and the plants are taking full advantage.

Our container garden is going nuts. Well, except for the broccoli. To be honest, I'm not sure if it's too hot, or if we underpotted the broccoli, but it isn't really doing anything. It's growing yes, but no broccoli to speak of. And I understand that after a point it gets too hot for broccoli to grow, so I'm not sure it's going to pan out for us this year.The peppers, however, are a different story, they are thriving. I am probably jinxing myself by saying this, but we've never had a container garden go as well as our is now.

Things at the Community Garden are moving along as well, particularly with a couple of the squash plants and one of our tomato plants. Granted, other peoples gardens (OPG) still seem to be doing better than ours, if you just look at the progress made this week, ours are doing better by leaps and bounds. The two original tomato starts we got from the farmer's market just never took off in the ground, I think they might have gotten something. Basically, they are slowly dying, haven't grown at all, and are taking up space. We are hoping to find some more starts (assuming it's not too late), and pull those out of the ground. A couple of our squash plants don't look like they are doing so hot, and the banana peppers we planted in the ground do not seem to be faring as well as the ones we have in a container.

We have a little work to do in the Community Garden next week. The whole idea of using hay to keep weeds down hasn't really worked out so far, though Brett is wondering if we need a thicker layer of hay. So next weekend, we are going to go down to the garden, remove all the hay, weed with a hoe, work some worm poo fertilizer into the soil, and then spread a really thick layer of hay down.

Check out the container garden:









































Don't know if you can tell or not, but there is a little Hungarian Wax pepper peeking out from behind that flower.















Check out all those cayenne peppers.















Chocolate Bell Pepper.















Container banana pepper.















This Hungarian Wax pepper keeps getting bigger. It looks like it is starting to ripen and will probably be ready to pick in a week or two.















Orange bell pepper.




























Apparently we took a few pictures of the banana peppers this weekend.








































A little photo shoot of the serrano pepper plant. This thing is loaded with peppers, I hope these three pictures illustrate that.















This is the Super Chile which was covered with blooms last week. They are now all peppers.

And onto the Community Garden:








































This is one of the squash plants that isn't doing so hot.















Another one not doing so well.




















































This Roma tomato plant has a bunch of little tomatoes on it!




























This squash plant makes the small banana pepper plant next to it look even smaller than it is!















Update:
Kathy took a picture of the CSA she picked up this week in our absence (which was really sweet and awesome of her) so I could put it up on the blog as I usually do. Thanks for picking it up and taking a picture of the veggies Kathy!

I am also happy to report that she and her husband have been enjoying this weeks bounty! They got snow peas!















'Til next time!

12 comments:

Unknown said...

looks good. im incredibly jealous of all of your romas. my plant only has 2. my cauliflower isnt really growing fast but it hasn't been too hot here. its doesnt look dead or anything just still really small. this weekend though is high 80's so i dunno whats gonna happen to it.

Anonymous said...

Your tomatoes look gorgeous :o) And congrats on your container gardening--it looks great! You are going to be making some awesome Mexican treats with your peppers!

Courtney

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

My oh my, those gardens of yours are really blossoming!! Excellent!!

Alicia said...

It's incredible they're so big already. It seems to me that it was yesterday you were worrying about the plants, and now look at them!

jessy said...

i just love your garden updates! and everything looks so green & lush & gorgeous! yay!

oh, and i did see that little hungarian wax pepper behind the flower - it made me smile! it's so wee! :D

John said...

Wow. Your plants look great. The peppers are doing much better than mine. I'm jealous ;)

Vegan_Noodle said...

I like the sound of the chocolate bell pepper :-) Your garden is thriving!

Marisa L. S. said...

Thanks for your comment! I really enjoy your blog too! Beautiful garden! I've been to Columbia a couple times, I used to have friends there. I think it's a great town!

J said...

Selina - Thank you. I was very excited to see the roma's progress, especially since our two other tomato plants are, well, dead.

Our broccoli is sure growing, just not producing fruit, I think heat may be the problem here too.

Courtney - Thanks! I am so pleased with the container garden. In all honesty, the community garden, while I'm excited with it's progress, isn't doing very well, at least not when we compare our plot with others', but the container garden is flourishing.

You bet there will be muchos Mexican in our future.

Veggie Girl - They are moving along nicely.

Alice - I know, I am especially impressed with the peppers! I was so worried about the seeds even sprouting, who would have thought I would have made it this far. I am learning so much!

Jessy - I'm so glad you do, I really thought people would ignore these posts and think they are boring.

Hehehe. I get so excited everytime I see a little pepper, you would figure I would be over it by now! But they are just too cute.

John - Thanks! We are lucky that it doesn't get nearly as hot here as it does where you're from, and we have shade on the porch to keep the plants from really cooking.

Vegan_Noodle - The chocolate bell peppers are one of our 'experimental plants' (as is the "super chile"), as I have never had them before. I was intrigued by their color and the little tag said they were good in stir-fries.

Marissa - No problem, you have a great blog! Thanks! I love Columbia, out of all the places I've lived, it is my favorite.

Anonymous said...

What a great idea to use hay to keep the weeds at bay. Hope it works out.

Brett said...

Claudia,

We're getting more grass than weeds which I take as a good sign that the soil is healthy. It could be better in terms of consistency (lots of clay), but maybe we can address that better next spring.

The hay seems to be working better for those who put a nice thick bed down. Ours, unfortunately, was not so thick. It does, however, also help to keep moisture in the soil. For that, our paltry layer has been sufficient.

Anonymous said...

I've never heard of a chocolate pepper before, but that sure sounds beautiful! I can't believe how well everything is thriving- lucky you!