There are both exciting and tragic things happening in my back yard lately. Remember how at month 2 everything was pretty much hunky dory? Well, there have been a few developments, both of good and bad nature.We'll start with the casualties.
1) Florida storms are not very nice to container gardens. After several rainstorms pots have been upset, sometimes causing fruit and/or branches to fall off. As a result...
2) Three out of our four zucchini plants up and died. A storm flattened them and messed up their roots and they promptly expired. We did get two lovely zucchini fruits before they died! There is one plant left, and it looks rather ill. There is some sort of fungus growing on the leaves, I think.
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| Can you doctor my last zucchini plant? |
4) Well, of course the tomatoes had to have their share of drama. Hello Blossom End Rot. We have still not been able to find a solution to this problem. Supposedly it's due to some sort of calcium deficiency in the soil. We water regularly, but I have not been able to find any sort of calcium spray to possibly abate the issue.
Thankfully, the ugly black spots are not affecting all of our plants. Look at these beauties:
5) Ok, I promise I'm getting towards the end of our gardening trials and moving on to the successes soon. But the parsley (which I planted last fall!) and the cilantro have gone to seed. But that's ok, because I haven't been cooking much lately...and we'll have seeds for replanting!
6) One of my neighbors gave me some cucumber plants! They are a comfort in light of our zucchini loss. We repotted them yesterday, and I'm curious to see if we'll get some cucumbers this late into the season.
7) Speaking of neighbors, our other neighbor tended our garden for us for an entire week while we were out of town! So sweet.
8) The most glorious success so far? Look at this lovely bell pepper...almost ready for picking! There are more like it on the horizon. Sooo exciting!
9) Here's hoping that the next month produces lots of bell peppers, tomatoes, and maybe even some cucumbers.
10) What's happening in your garden lately?
Linked to Top Ten Tuesday, Tuesday Garden Party, and Frugal Gardening 101.
It looks like it's been a busy couple of months. Love that pepper! It will be a while before I have any to pick since I just planted mine.
ReplyDeleteEvery year we get those horrid aphids! Last year they attacked our corn with a vengeance. We used ladybugs to eat them, but the corn was done by then.
ReplyDeletecrushed egg shells in the soil should help with blossom end rot.
ReplyDeleteBummer on the storm and bugs, but those peppers do look fantastic! I'm not sure but I've heard tomato and zucchini are pretty hearty so maybe there is hope for them.
ReplyDeleteMy little indoor herb garden is doing well, I'm just not sure what to do with the basil or how to know when it's ready....should probably google soon as the pot is looking pretty full.
I started out my plants in peat pellets, and well, I think I waited a bit too long before transferring them to pots. They were strangling each other with their roots! Almost all of them are in pots now, so hopefully things will be okay.
ReplyDeleteWe have a few plants growing, but our recent backyard birthday party led to some plant trampling. Hopefully some hearty ones will survive!
ReplyDeletetrials and tribulations of the garden!! haha glad there was some high spots!!
ReplyDeletedebbie
Beautiful pictures! And you're having 10x more success than I've ever had with any sort of garden. (Probably with 10x more knowledge and effort :)
ReplyDeleteHave you tried bone meal for the calcium problem? Our garden is coming along pretty good. My herbs are growing like crazy!!!
ReplyDeleteCandi...bone meal? I'll have to try that...googling it now!!!! Will also have to try the crushed egg shells...
ReplyDeleteWe lost most of our cucumbers seedlings but the rest seem to be doing okay. It is still raining over here, so I haven't had to water the plants, but they need more sun.
ReplyDeletehttp://joyceandnorm.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/how-does-our-garden-grow-week-4/
Aphids! We had them on the trees at my old workplace, and they were everywhere. Yuck!
That's a great looking green pepper! Thanks for sharing pictures of your plants along with your post.
ReplyDeleteFor calcium, grind up your eggshells in a coffee grinder and sprinkle around the base of the plant. That will help.
ReplyDeleteLucky you! Tomatoes and a pepper! I hope you can get rid of the rot.
ReplyDeleteYour's looks better than mine so far. It is heartbreaking to lose stuff though, especially after it looked so good. I'll remember the aphid tip in case I get some, need to remind myself to look under the leaves.
ReplyDeleteawww :( I'm glad you were able to save some!11
ReplyDelete-Samantha
www.kreativekaring.com
I'm sorry to hear about your zukes. I love the pepper plants and how nice of a neighbor to give you more plants.
ReplyDeleteYour garden is looking great. Those tomatoes are so cute! You are way ahead of us.
ReplyDeletebeautiful pics Alicia!
ReplyDeleteAlica- your garden is coming along nicely, there's always ups and downs. :-) I'm jealous of your pepper AND your neighbors!
ReplyDeleteAbout the tomatoes- two things: roma tomatoes are more prone to blossom end rot, unfortunately and besides calcium, fluctuations in watering (dry then soaking) can cause the rot. Since you're using containers, as the roots grow they take more water and there's less room.
You might try putting the pots in shallow containers (or a kiddie pool) that has a couple inches of water in it and the plants will take up water from the bottom on a much more even basis (though this method can put too much water in the plant, so let them dry occasionally, and when you want them to ripen, ease up on watering completely).
I also use this kiddie-pool idea to water my pots when we're gone, so people don't have to come by as often to water.
May be worth a try in addition to the calcium!
Thanks for linking!
-Jami
An Oregon Cottage