Stagnant Peppers

Gave up on the peppers I had started from seed. They literally had not grown higher than 1". So we bought a watermelon vine and a red pepper plant from Radical Roots. Put those in the ground last night. Also noticed the lima beans have started to wrap around their poles. Progress! The compost pile has shrunk by about a third since I turned it last week.

Monday May 26

Rain last night - some heavy storms. Was able to turn the compost bin for the first time in a long while yesterday as well.

Memorial Day Weekend Update

Here is the latest from the garden.

Cucumbers never came in, so we broke down and bought a few from Kmart today that we just panted. Pitiful, I know . Mesclun is coming in pretty well - probably need to thin it. Lima beans are doing great. Thinned the carrots out this morning. Peppers are struggling - still only about an inch high. Tomatoes are doing better - especially beefsteak seem to be doing the best - they are about 6 inches high. Others are only 3-5 inches. Fertilized again yesterday. Been using an organic fertilizer for all applications so far, but decided today with the cucumber transplants to use some Osmocote that I had in the shed from prior years.

Weather: has not rained a ton this past week, so I watered 2 or 3 days. I used water from the rain barrel for one of those. Still need to hook the rain barrel up to the downspout, so I only had a few inches in there - whatever has rained in its open top. It got down to 33 degrees two mornings this week. That doesn't help I am sure.

Put the tomato cages in today. Also move the blueberry bush to the inside of the fence. Still haven't planted that thing! Also still need to come up with some kind of gate.

Click on any of the pictures to see a larger version.

Ok, by popular demand, here are some updated photos. First shows the entire garden. All tomotoes in the back plot. In the front plot, from left, carrots, lettuce, lima beans, then cucumbers in 4 hills across the front and more tomotoes in the back.

In the bottom photo, you can see the 3 lima bean plants more clearly. Those things are growing like crazy!

Rain, Rain

It literally rained almost every day last week. Friday was the one exception. Got straw down last week as mulch. Put 3 lima bean plants in on Saturday that my daughter brought home from pre-school. They are growing like crazy. Tomatoes are all doing pretty well. I fertalized them a few weeks ago, but they aren't growing as fast as I'd like. Peppers are even worse - nearly the same size as when I put them in the ground. Carrots have started to show themselves. Lettuce is up. No sign of the cucumbers. Thinned the lettuce in the pot pretty hard today. I think it was way too dense.

PRECIPITATION (IN)
TODAY 0.13
MONTH TO DATE 3.19
SINCE MAR 1 8.52
SINCE JAN 1 10.59
.

It has now been raining for the last 3 days pretty much straight. Mostly light steady rain. Hopefully my plaints don't drown!

Rainfall

Ok, found some rainfall data. From the Charlottesville airport:

PRECIPITATION (IN)
 YESTERDAY        0.03
 MONTH TO DATE    0.04
 SINCE MAR 1      5.37
 SINCE JAN 1      7.44  

So apparently not as much rain yesterday as I might have hoped. Maybe it rained after midnight, though, and that doesn't show up here?

Everything Planted

Busy day yesterday. Got the back parcel planted and added one more tomato to the front parcel since I had run out of mesclun seeds so don't need as much space for them as I thought. Tomoato totals: 10 tomato plants - 3 better boy, 3 beefsteak, 2 cherry and 2 of my son's from school - no idea what those are!.

I also put down some straw as mulch. And I got the deer netting up on the posts. Actually went up really easily. Just stapled it to the posts and used landscaping fabric staples to anchor it to the ground. I've got the ground staples every 2 or 3 feet, so hopefully that is enough to keep the rabbits out. Still need to make a gate of some sort.

Got some rain last night. I don't have a rain gauge so can't tell how much. Tried to find a website online that shows historical rainfall for our area but quick search produced no results. I'll try more later. Having a garden does make you much more in tune to the weather and stragely makes you really appreciate rainy days.