After being out of town for the weekend, I was really anxious to get back and check on my garden. Did my brother remember to water my seedlings? Did anything succumb to the heat? Did anything change? Once I got home, I decided to wait until sundown to go take a look at things - 114° is not my ideal "play in the dirt" temperature. I grabbed a blank growth chart, a measuring tape and my camera. While digging through the leaves of each plant to measure their heights, I noticed something on one of my green bean plants...
A green bean pod!!!
It was huge! I couldn't believe that this little plant (only about 4" tall) had a green bean pod just as big dangling from one of its limbs! I wasn't sure if I should leave it or harvest it. After taking pictures, BF convinced me to pluck it, after all "the point of planting a vegetable garden is to be able to eat the vegetables." So I pulled it off the plant. My family was really excited; between the radishes and now the solitary green bean, I really was beginning to look like a real gardener! I decided to share my spoils and cut the bean in to four pieces. It was delicious! It was crisp, and full of flavor. I bet I couldn't buy that kind of freshness anywhere, no matter how "organic" or "fresh" the store claims to be.
My mom and Grif didn't get a bite, but I promised them the first of whatever I harvested next. Griffin then started asking about the carrots, "that one plant is about 20" tall, do you think it's ready?" Only one way to find out... My heart broke a little. The carrots took for.ev.er to sprout and begin to grow, and now I was actually going to pull my tallest one. but, I did, and whatdaya know? There were three baby orange surprises! We washed them off, and again shared them. Holy cow, they were so tasty!
I am so excited that I am learning (yes still learning) this skill, and that after a few months of constant attention, I am seeing my work start to pay off. I am also learning that I can wait longer for crops to mature, and that I need to be constantly planting root/tuber crops. Now that I've pulled a carrot, it would be nice to have another seedling to put in its place. I think I need to invest in some indoor growing equipment, so that I can germinate and sprout year round.
In other news...
I have about seven bell pepper plants still in peat pots. Yesterday, they looked about ready to get into the ground. Since I only had five squares available, I transplanted the biggest five into my bed, and gave BF the other two to plant on his balcony garden. I also transplanted three more lettuce plants to an empty square. The rest are still too small, but I'm hoping that with the shade of the green bean plants, they will make it through the summer without going to bolt.
Bell Pepper seedlings ready to be transplanted
A look at their new home
I added about 1 tsp of rock dust minerals to each hole
The finished product of a transplant!
Speaking of bolting... I lost my spinach this weekend. All of it. Including the seedlings still in the peat cups. I'm a little sad, but I know that spinach is a cold weather crop, and I didn't really expect it to make it through the summer. So, I pulled up all 10 spinach plants and threw them into the compost bin.
See how the once large-fluffy-normal spinach leaves (now yellow) have been replaced by smaller-thinner-pointy leaves? Also notice the hard stalks growing up the center of each plant? Sad.
Fails 2: Successes 3
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