Monday, March 21, 2011

The Tomato and Pepper State of Affairs

Ya'll, I'm a proud mama. I have been dutifully caring for our little Spring container garden for 3 weeks now.

If you missed my container gardening intro post, let me put it out there again that I am completely new to growing things, so this is an experiment of sorts. But we're hoping for wild success!

Here's how it's going so far:

Garden Day 1, Day 21

Can you tell how much my tomato plants have grown since the 1st picture? Everything has grown. :)

The zucchini, which we planted from seed, has sprouted! Yay! We have 4 zucchini plants.

The herbs are doing quite well, aside from the little red bugs that seem to be EVERYWHERE in our area right now. I can't remember what they're called. Does anyone have a solution for little red bugs?

I'm thinking it's time to get some fertilizer...something I haven't tackled yet. Someone recommended powdered milk for our tomato plants. Have you ever tried that?

I thought I would have trouble remembering to water our garden, but quite the opposite. Instead, I feel somewhat like Toad when he waited daily beside his seeds....singing and reading to them to encourage them to show their little green faces (you have read about Frog and Toad, haven't you?)! I haven't actually taken to singing to them, but I do watch them like a hawk...

If you're growing any sort of garden this year, where are you in the process? 


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10 comments:

  1. I haven't started a garden yet this year (or really ever!) but you've given me the confidence! I think I'll give it a try. Also, I LOVE Frog and Toad. :)

    Hope the garden keeps going strong!

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  2. I'm in the "take pictures of the progress with hopes to write a blog post about it sometime" stage :P LOL! Your stuff looks good! I've never heard of powdered milk for tomatoes, though... it might be some "natural" thing, though "powdered milk" is hardly natural.

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  3. Wow, you are doing a wonderful job and they are looking great! :)

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  4. Your containers look great! I am not brave enough to start most of those by seed (that, and it's too cold to leave them outside yet).

    On Thursday we collected 16 cubic feet of soil and all the materials needed to make a nice garden, but ran into a landscaping snafu. Progress is stalled at the moment.

    It looks like you're using potting soil, which may or may not have to be fertilized any time soon. Some of the soils I saw when getting dirt last week said "feeds for 3 (or 4) months" so you might not need to deal with that until later in the summer. Singing may be all the additional help they need. ;-)

    I don't have any answers about your red bugs. :( I hope they move on and leave your garden alone.

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  5. Your garden is off to a great start! I'm starting from seed too, and I still have teeny little babies. I'm in NC and we're still getting some days too cold for spring/summer crops. I might end up buying plants for my tomatoes like last year. Right now, I have some carrots and onions(from fall) that'll be ready this summer, some new carrots and onions started, and some garlic, lettuce, spinach, and peas, all coming up nicely. I found a small, 3-tiered greenhouse for the jiffy pellets I started from seed, and it seems to be helping out a lot.

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  6. It looks so good Alicia! Can't wait to see what yumminess you make come harvest!

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  7. Catharine, that's awesome. It's really not as hard as I thought (so far).

    Cindy, yeah...I'm not very brave about starting from seed, either. I think I'm mostly impatient. But the zucchini came up so quickly! :D
    HOpe your landscaping issue is fixed soon...can't wait to read your updates. :)

    Akehia, I'm thinking my garden needs some lettuce like yours! Your garden sounds lovely...

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  8. No idea about the bugs. Sorry.

    It is probably not even warm enough here to start yet. It has been raining for days (supposed to be 10 days straight, so far we are on day 4(?)...usually raining at night only, but the winds are rattling the windows as I type). We usually get the plants in around late April/early May....even late May will give us 100+ tomatoes. =p

    Now I really want to plant a few herbs. Hubby would love that.

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  9. It looks lovely!!! I'm showing some pictures tomorrow of our lettuce growth. I started them a few weeks ago and they're growing a little bit. We just planted carrots today, hopefully we'll have some fun picking in a month or couple of months. Your herbs looks beautiful!!!

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