Weekly Veggie Patch Update 5/19/08

Not much new this week in terms of growth, but I did get all 6 pepper planted and the remaining tomatoes planted, see picture of tomatoes above. I planted a plastic bottle next to each plant. Each bottle has holes in it, so I can put water or fertilized water into the bottle and it will water the roots and not the ground above the roots. This is the first year I’ve done this, so we’ll see how it works.

The radishes look wonderful (far left of picture, near my finger), the largest few are about a half inch in diameter, so maybe in a week or two I can start pulling them. The carrots and lettuce are also coming along (the yellow things at the right).
I put up some small supports and planted some Boothby’s Blonde cucumbers around them. I’m planning to do some more tonight or tomorrow, weather permitting. I also want to get some nice bee-loving plants for the cukes, I have never had good luck with them. Maybe a morning glory to climb beside them. Hmmm….

I also planted the three Prescott Fond Blanc melon seedlings in the bed that was supposed to have the arugula. I planted some nasturtiums there, too, to try to attract bees.




I have two heads of Forrellenschuss lettuce coming up, but none of the other seeds I planted sprouted so I think I’m going to use that area for my Roc d’Or yellow bush beans (I hope to plant them tonight, along with the Kentucky Wonder pole beans along the fence supports).


I’m planting nasturtiums with the squash for the same reason. I don’t have the room to plant the squash in the fenced veggie patch, so I’m planting them on the terrace beside it. I need to haul some dirt in to make the mounds, hopefully tonight, and get them in the ground. I’m a little concerned, I noticed what looks like some fungus on some of the Blue Guatemalan seedlings, and the ones affected look like they’re withering, one has died. I separated them all out to keep it from spreading to the seemingly unaffected plants. I do have seeds left, so if it really spreads I can still seed them directly and hopefully have winter squash this fall. The summer squash isn’t coming up yet at all. We’ve had sooo much rain and gloom and cold nights. It was 44 when I woke up this morning.