Green Beans

The results of today's stroll through the garden. A good fistful of beans (I'm trying to get enough to make green bean soup), my first pea pod of eating size, and a green sweetie tomato that I knocked off by accident. I brought it in to see if it will ripen up anyway. I can say the pea pod tasted just as it should... yummy!

Tandem anyone?

This would be my first post generally unrelated to gardening, but still pertaining to the title of this blog. Anyhow, Dierdre and I went on a bike ride with mom the other day. Naturally we opted to ride our sweet 1970ish made in Chicago, Schwinn Deluxe Twinn. The deluxe part means it has a five speed rear sprocket and derailleur, as opposed to most, which are single speed. It is mostly original. The rear seat, front grips, cables, and tires have been changed. It is a cool mettalic emerald green type color, and the chrome on it polished up quite nicely with a little NeverDull considering it is almost 40 years old!

Yesterday I picked more beans, and made my second lettuce harvest. It filled another gallon Ziploc or so. I also picked my first spinach. It definitely grows slower and produces less then the lettuce. Or course, I only ended up with one plant as well. Since I pulled out my nasty buggy cucumbers and zucchini, I seem to be fending off the spider mites on my beans and tomatoes using insectisidal soap. Wish I would've known that sooner.... Also, it is better to sacrifice a few leaves, or even a whole plant early on, and save the rest, then to "wait and see". That definitely doesn't work. Pull the infested stuff right off, and hit the rest with insectisidal soap hard and fast. That will be the strategy next time I plant.

Darn Pests

Due to a nasty infestation of spider mites I had to rip out all my cucumbers yesterday :-( Didn't get to pick a single one. I didn't realize what the mites were until it was too late to control them. Live and learn. Next year if I see signs of them hopefully I will know to address them immediately. The mites have also spread to the zucchini, but I think I can fight them off the rest of the stuff if I take some quick action. I got some insectisidal soap concentrate, so I'll be spraying stuff this evening.

First Fruits!

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Life has been busy. I think I'll give my carrots and beets another week or so, though I did pull up a few beets to see how they were doing. I just made my first harvest of lettuce and filled an entire gallon zip lock till it was stuffed. The zucchini will be quite numerous, the beans have a lot of flowers, and quite a few pods, though I haven't picked any just yet. The cucumbers have a ton of flowers, but so far I haven't spotted any fruit. They also, unfortunately, have a ton of these little brown bugs of no particular shape. Soapy water spray doesn't seem to affect them. They just look like a bunch of little brown dots. I need to do more research to try and find an effective way of dealing with them. I have some nice round green tomatoes coming. The pepper plant is doing fine, but is starting to get crowed out by the tomatoes (note to self, more room between plants). Peas are finally doing a little better, but I haven't seen any flowers or pods yet. Enjoy the pictures!