Monday, August 13, 2012

Long Over Due Post

Hello,

It's been a really long while since my last post.  Simply put, I work too much.  Anyway, the update on the garden is...  eh.  As a whole the garden is not doing well.  Everything is pretty much surviving, but that's it.  I think my basic problem is my soil is not good enough.  It just doesn't have the good organic goodies everything needs.  I've picked up the fertilizing.  I'm using mainly water soluble fertilizer.  I'm using a 2-2-2 fish fertilizer which i'm spraying on the plants' underside in the evenings or mornings, Botanicare Pure Blend 1-0.5-1 organic compost solution on the plants, and Organicare Humega soil conditioner.  I picked most of this stuff at Worms Way around Bloomington.  Man, that store overwhelmed me!  Cool store, though.

The veggie rundown:

Very few tomatoes this year.  Much like last year, actually.  The difference from this years' to last years' tomatoes it that this year, I have no blooms.  Last year I had lots of blooms, but they didn't turn to fruit.

Peppers are fairly non-existant.  I have one Aji Limon Pepper in a pot that's doing fine.  That's it.  No Green Peppers, no Serranos and the Scotch Bonnet Pepper I thought I ordered wasn't a Scotch Bonnet!  It was a Cherry Pepper.  No biggie, other than I only had one that survived.

The cucumber variety that I planted this year is ok.  Miss 38th Street doesn't really care for it and I'm not too fond of it either, yet.  We've only had a couple.  Boo!  Cucumbers are one of my favorites!

Green Beans.  I got eight.  Eight!  All of the beans were eventually reduced to skeletons and died.  I'm sure a little yellow beetle with four black spots on its back is to blame, but I can't prove it.

I already told you about the Blueberry situation.  None.

Carrots I'm not sure about.  They're still growing, so that's good.

Sugar Baby Watermelons are not giving me much.  I have one melon per plant.  Just like last year.  One day, I will have these watermelons figured out.

The Tomatillos are just starting to fruit.  It took a while, but they are finally coming around.  The plants are getting huge.  I need a picture of the biggest one.  The bees like it, too!

Now, the garlic, which we harvested in June, then let cure for a couple weeks, is pretty awesome.  They are potent!  Very happy with the garlic.


Yesterday, I added some homemade compost, Garden Tone and some Fish Meal to the garden's vacant areas.  I watered it and let it marinate for a day.  Today I planted some more greens for a fall crop.  I think I'll get a fall crop because the all greens did well this year.  I planted Baby Spinach, Red Winter Kale, and Baby Leaf Lettuce (Heirloom Mix).  I planted them where I could.  They're kinda scattered, but it's cool.  Wish me luck!

No picture today.  I'll have more for the next post.

Good luck in the garden!

Good night, everyone!