Veggie Garden Update

I got a lot done in the garden this morning, and finished up by about 2:00pm, right before it started raining.  Yay - it has been pretty dry so I am glad to see some rain.

First, the tomatoes needed some pruning and staking.   The row of tomatoes along the back of the veggie plot are supported by just a rough homemade bamboo frame (made out of bamboo stakes stuck into the ground with a couple of bamboo "cross-beams" running horizontally).  Since there is nothing to attach the frame to the side of the house, the weight of the tomatoes is starting to pull the frame over.  I should have taken a photo of it earlier - you can kind of see in this older photo how the plants are starting to list to the left.

The vines have been growing like crazy in the heat, so I needed to pinch off many of the suckers (which grow in the crooks between the main vine and the leaves).  Some of them had grown quite large, so I felt bad about pruning them but it had to be done.  I needed to figure out some way to support the bamboo stakes so they would sit a bit more upright.  So I tied the right side of the bamboo frame to a pipe that sticks out from the side of the house.

Then I took an old metal stake that I found rusting in the backyard when we  moved in to the house and hammered into the left side of the plot and tied it to the bamboo frame on that side.

So far, this seems to be working.  We will see what happens as the tomatoes continue to grow:

slightly more upright

I also pruned the tomatoes in Tomato Pot Alley and added some fertilizer to each of the plants.

The extra orange bucket you see there is filled with water mixed with the tomato clippings I pruned today.  We read that water steeped with tomato clippings makes a good insect repellant.  After it steeps for a while, we will drain it and put it into spray bottles to spray on the plants to keep bugs away.

While I was pruning and staking the tomatoes, I noticed this:

One of the tomatoes is starting to ripen!

And this:

Another ripening tomato!

Second, I continued my cleaning up of the veggie plot by removing a bunch of the marigold plants.  You may recall that when I first planted the marigolds (which I did to deter insects from eating my veggie plants), they looked like this:

But, before long, they turned into this:

In other words, many of the marigolds have been completely overtaken by the other plants.  I was planning to just pull a bunch of them out and discard them, but for whatever reason, the Moth has developed an affection for them and wanted me to save them - despite the fact that we have more than enough marigolds in containers on our front steps:

The Marigolds are just there to protect the basil plants I have growing in containers

So, I pulled four of the marigold plants out of the veggie plot and transplanted them into a pot, which is now at the corner of our walkway, leading up to the front door:

After clearing out the veggie plot, and harvesting yet more of the basil plants, the peppers are finally getting a little room to breath.  I noticed that some of the hot peppers were bowing over a little, so I hammered a couple of bamboo stakes into the ground and tied them up:

I just use ordinary twine (which I cut into pieces from large ball)
to tie up my tomatoes and peppers

More peppers being staked:

And some new teeny purple peppers on one of my black pearl pepper plants:

Kissed by raindrops (yes, I'm poetic)

Another more disturbing thing I discovered while I was doing all this pruning and cleaning is that the stems of my zucchini plant (closest to the ground) looked as though someone had been chewing on them.  After some internet research, I realized this was probably not a furry pest, but an insect.  Maybe a cucumber beetle or squash vine borer.  There's a lot of different advice on how to combat them, but this is what I decided to do in the end:

I cut into the affected area with a sharp knife.  Any disgusting insects that crawled out (of which there were many) I shmooshed and killed.  Then, I sprinkled the vine with Diamotaceous Earth (which I had purchased on Amazon previously because I read it was a good insect repellant and/or killer).  Then, I sprayed with hot pepper spray, buried the vines with moist soil and then sprinkled again with DE. This is how the area looked after all of my machinations. 

I hope I'm not too late and the evil bugs have not already killed my plant.  We will see.  For good measure, I sprinkled the rest of the veggie plot, including the squash plant, with DE and sprayed some hot pepper spray.  Of course, a couple of hours later it rained, so it may all have to be reapplied.

Finally, I pulled up some very small onions that I have interplanted throughout the garden:

I was hoping they would be a bit bigger by now, but - okay - we will just call them red scallions.  How about that?  They are supposed to cure for a while before using - at least according to the internet.  Although, since I'm not exactly planning to store them for the long cold winter (this about half of the amount of onion I use for one dish) I'm not really sure if that step is necessary.

Vegetable Plot Progress

I thought it was about time to show the progress of my little veggie plot.  I started preparing the plot back in early March, by marking out a 3 foot by 6 foot space on the sunniest side of my house with a spade.
 

I covered the sod with newspaper, watered it, and covered that with layers of dead leaves, compost, soil and manure.  Then I covered all that with black plastic and let it bake for several weeks.

When it began getting warm near the end of May, I decided it was time to start transplanting.  I started by planting with tomatoes (which I had been growing from seeds inside) along the back row.  In front of those, I put a variety of peppers (both hot and sweet) and some basil and parsley.  Here is how it looked after the initial planting.  There is also a pot of greens (lettuce and swiss chard) next to it, which I later moved to a shadier side of the house:

The Veggie Plot on May 23, 2012

Well my poor little veggie plot was inundated with insects, so I read everything I could find on-line and in my gardening books about how to control them organically.  As a result, I learned that interplanting marigolds, geraniums, onions, and certain herbs - such as sage and mint - can deter insects, so I did that.  I added a pot of geraniums on one side and a pot of mint on the other.

Around this time, I also planted a little zucchini plant on the front right corner of the plot:

The Veggie Plot on June 4, 2012

And a little summer squash plant on the front left corner of the plot:

Please make a note of how close the squash plant on the left front corner
is to the white geranium and the yellow marigold ...

 I had quite a few left over tomato plants, so I decided to put those in pots next to the veggie plot, along with a little pot of chives and some parsley:

Tomato plants in pots

Eventually, however, I knew the tomatoes would outgrow those small pots.  But I didn't want to spend a lot of money on large pots.  Then I came up with an idea.  These buckets cost about $2.98 at Home Depot:

Meet Homer

I had bought a couple of them previously to use for various gardening and household tasks.

So, I bought a few more:

Drilled some holes in the bottom:

Instant Tomato Pot!

I spent a weekend transplanting tomatoes into my new Homer Pots:

Tomato Pot Alley, on June 10, 2012

Here is the Veggie plot that same day - I mulched it with some dried leaves:

Veggie Plot - June 10, 2012

Hmm . . . squash plant getting a bit bigger ....

 I took a photo of my first hot peppers that day:

A green one

And a little tiny purple one - supposed to be very hot!

The tomato vines were starting to grow longer, so I started tying them to the bamboo posts with twine:

Also, on June 10, I had a little tiny harvest of greens:

Which I made into a tiny salad for dinner:

So Tiny ...

We had the salad for dinner, along with chicken stir fry made with some fresh herbs from the garden

Here is the Veggie garden, on June 13, just a few days later:

The next big events occurred on or about June 30:

OMG!!!!!  Tomatoes!!!!!

OMG!  The Veggie Plot!

It Lives!!!!!

Pretty blooms on the (now gigantic) squash plant:

The poor white geranium has no chance ....

 More hot peppers (pepper shown in previous photo has now been eaten):

And here is tomato pot row on June 30:

The following day, we had another harvest:

Bunch of cilantro, parsley and other herbs, and a hot pepper

I made some scallion-cilantro sauce, which I've been using to marinate chicken:

I also made some cilantro-lime dressing, which I've used for stir fry, salad dressing, and to make some spicy cilantro scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning:

I also made some fresh salsa:

Finally, a few photos from the garden today:

That little squash plant and that little zucchini plant have taken over,
and the tomatoes are reaching the tops of their bamboo stakes

Some beets I planted from seeds several weeks ago

Tomatoes

Close-up of squash plant

Another tiny purple pepper

More hot green peppers

I am also overrun with basil, so this weekend I will be making pesto sauce and freezing it for future use.

So, just to summarize -

Before:

And After: