Days 54-63: Garden Progress & Harvest

May 10: The garden seems to be doing well. The tomato plants are really taking off. They have outgrown their cages. Hopefully they won't need additional support, but if they do, I guess we'll have to buy bigger cages.

 May 12: The potato vines continue to grow. They don't have too many flowers due to constant rain, but they seem to be growing and climbing the fence at a good pace.

We also added support for the cucumber plants. 

May 16: So the strawberry pot has been attacked by a bug. You can see the damage to the leaves.  

The strawberry plant on the ground is doing OK. It has pretty flowers, but hasn't given us any strawberries lately.

May 17: I think the squash plants have finally stopped growing; I was hoping they wouldn't get any bigger. They have produced 7 squash zucchini total. They all tasted great, except the last one- I think we took it out too soon...it was way too hard. The jalapeño plant sneaked into this shot...it is doing great. :) The tomato plant closest to the wall is getting huge!!

May 19: A lot of leaves on the squash plant are yellow..not sure if that is normal or not. :/ In this picture, you can see the potato vine on the left much better- it continues to climb the gate. You can also see the damage to the strawberry pot. :( Well that is it for now...

Small harvest:

Need to add photo of tomatoes.

Jalapeño Plant 20-Days Progress

I am starting to get a little worried that the pot might not be big enough. I didn't realize each plant should have been in its own pot until a few days after I planted them and I read that it might be too late to separate them now.

 Well, hopefully they continue to do well. I think this is one needy little plant...but at the same time I am glad it lets me know its needs right away. The leaves start wilting when I need to water it and so far it has been needing water every other day. I don't want to underwater it so I give it plenty and then let the excess water drain out.

You can't see it very well in these pics, but they have a few flowers growing, hope that means the jalapeños are soon to come!

Harvest Monday: More Squash and a Few Tomatoes

So we've been eating a lot of squash, needless to say. It is only two of us, so we have plenty to eat. Now there is no excuse, hungry? Eat a squash zucchini. : |

 This is how we've been preparing it, but this is going to get old fast. I need to look up some recipes for squash casserole and other ways of preparing it.

2 more!

 

Measurements for the ones above:  

 

Another 2!

  Measurements for the ones above:

Tomatoes

So we took a little long grabbing these tomatoes and the birds gladly ate them. Ughhh.... we are going to have to buy some netting or find a way to protect our tomato plants. The birds took almost all the ripe tomatoes.

Our Garden Gets a Visitor

Our garden is doing so great it attracted a goat!! A goat in the suburbs, believe it or not. Actually, we have no idea where the goat came from or why it decided to stop by our house, but it definitely surprised us and made us really happy. :) Unfortunately, we could not keep it.

I named it GOATYE! lol

Day 53: First Squash + More Tomatoes

We are really surprised at how big the leaves are getting.We need to go out there and fix the support system. The leaves are getting so big that they are blocking the sun from the cilantro on the left and the strawberries on the right. : ( 

 

 Tomatoes continue to grow. We haven't pulled out any yet because we are waiting for them to turn red.

 Close up of tomatoes.

 Another close up of tomatoes.

The most surprising thing was the gigantic squash we found buried under all the squash leaves. Check it out!

  

We went inside and measured it. It was 10 inches long!

 

A better view of the cucumber plants- the plants are finally getting big and all of them are flowering. In this picture, you can see the damage the squash leaves did to the second strawberry plant. We might replant it in another location this weekend so it can get more sun.

 

The potato vines continue to grow and grab on to the fence. You can also see how big the tomato plant has gotten to the left side of the potato vine- they are almost the same height now!

 

Day 47: Everything Looks Great + New Additions

 We are getting excited now that we see that everything is growing. We started this with very low expectations so it is definitely very exciting to be getting this amazing results.

 

If you look closely,  you can see the water sprinkling out ! :)

 Close up of how the watering system works.

Another close up of the watering system!                   First cucumber plant flower.

 

More tomatoes are growing. 

 Potato vines' progress.

 Here are the new additions: One pot with 3 strawberry plants and another pot with two Jalapeño plants.

Irrigation/Watering System Installed

A long time ago, we tried to grow a tomato plant and we neglected to water it, so it died. : ( Well, we are determined not to let this garden dry out. So we came up with the idea to set up a watering/irrigation system. We went to Lowe's and bought a garden hose and timer for the faucet. 

 

Then, we carefully ran the hose through the garden and made holes for the water to spray out. We also added tomato cages for the tomato plants, this will help support them as they grow. We should have added this at the beginning but we completely forgot, so it was a little difficult to add it now that they are big. We lost 2 tomatoes and one branch in the process. This is how it looks now.

 

Unfortunately, we might have to return the timer. Turns out our faucet has some sort of device with holes in it that won't let it stay open without water leaking out all day. My husband was able to remove the device with the holes but the faucet is still leaking out water (way too much) to leave it on all day. So we are trying to figure out a solution. For now, we have to turn on the hose by hand. : (

Day 38: Things are Going Well

As you can see in the pictures, the garden continues to grow. I forgot to mention earlier that to the left side of the squash we planted some cilantro seeds and a few of them are growing now as you can see. 

 Close up of squash flower. 

The squash plants are getting really big!