Week 5

Here's what happened in the garden during week 5:

• The boy scout troop that meets at Our Savior, Troop 98, finally had a chance to get in the garden and work.  Up until this week there wasn't really much to for them to do.  They planted a few rows of beans where other beans hadn't come up and the scouts did some weeding.  Thanks for your help guys!!!
• The rabbits had quite a few morning, afternoon, and midnight snacks of bean plants, cucumber plants, and the broccoli plants.
• I got pretty upset when I saw that a lot of the leaves on the broccoli plants had been nibbled on.  The broccoli plants were/are doing so well and growing so much.  Now, this might seem a little strange, but I have a bit of a personal connection with the broccoli plants.  Broccoli is my favorite vegetable and I grew these plants from seed, so I want to see them grow and produce lots of delicious broccoli.  So when I saw all the poor broccoli plants that had been chewed on, this was when I figured we really needed to put up a fence to try to keep the little critters out.  
• We put up a fence.  We used "rabbit fence" around most of the garden with one section of chicken wire.
• We got a rain collection container all set up to collect rain water.  Of course it hasn't rained since we got it hooked up, but soon enough it should be filled and ready to water the plants.

Here's some pictures from the week:

Chewed up broccoli plant

Guess the bunny only wanted half

a little pumpkin plant pushing through the soil

The leaves on the Blue Hubbard squash plants are HUGE!

Pumpkin plants finally growing

Cantaloupe is doing quite well

The bunnies only left one leaf on this bean plant

Bean plant chewed down to the stem

A new cucumber plant in the foreground and one that's a few weeks old in the background

The tarragon is growing so much we had to stake and tie it up 

The Fence.

Overview of the whole garden (and the fence!)

The fence.

We have noticed more and more evidence of plants in the garden being eaten.  First it was the disappearing cucumber plants.  Then it was the bean plants that were chewed down to the stem, and then it was the broccoli plants with the leaves chewed off.  I can't say for sure who the culprit is because I haven't caught any critters in the act, but I have seen rabbits jumping around the church property by the garden.  So, I'm blaming the rabbits.  We just planted some new cucumber, bean, squash, and pumpkin seeds and I'm worried that the bunnies will eat those little plants right up before they have the chance to grow much.


And so, we are going to begin what I'm sure will be an ongoing project of trying to stop the suburban wildlife from helping themselves to the plants in the garden.  We thought we could do without a fence, but too much has been eaten already.  So we are going to put up a fence this Saturday.  The fence probably won't completely stop the rabbits, but it should help.


We could really use some extra help this Saturday to make sure we get the fence up this weekend to prevent any further rabbit-damage to the plants.  There is also plenty of work to do in the garden, especially weeding.  The other little project is to do some work around the edge of the garden where the grass and weeds are encroaching on the garden.  We'll start working at 9:00 am and work for a couple of hours.  Please bring along your own shovel, work gloves, and garden tools if you have them.  Hope to see you on Saturday morning!

Week 4

It's hard to believe that the garden was planted 4 weeks ago, but it's true and some pretty exciting things happened during week 4!


Some of the kids that attend the summer camp at Our Savior helped out in the garden.  They learned about the two important things about picking weeds: 1) Only pick the weeds- don't pick the plants that are supposed to be growing.  2) Try as hard as you can to get all of the root of the weed because otherwise the weed will grow right back.  The kids worked on weeding the section of the garden where we had planted the pumpkin seeds that didn't grow, so it was a little easier because everything growing in that section was a weed.  One helper got tired of weeding pretty quickly so he helped stake and tie up some of the broccoli plants that were having trouble standing up on their own.


We also got tomato cages for all our tomato plants!!!  In the beginning we were a little worried about how we would support all the tomato plants as they grew big and tall.  We needed a lot of tomato cages (about 45) and the cost for that many tomato cages adds up quickly.  A member of the church bought about 20 cages for the garden.  The Home Depot in Bartlett donated a some donation coupons that we used to buy the rest of the cages.  So, now the tomatoes are all caged up!

Little tomato plants in big cages.  It's hard to believe now but the plants should eventually be as big as the cages!

Look closely- you can see all the wire tomato cages

There are peppers growing on the red and green pepper plants!!!  This is the first thing growing that actually looks like a vegetable!

We also planted some new seeds where other seeds failed to grow.  The pumpkin seeds and one kind of squash didn't grow at all.  There were very few cucumber plants that came up and some were probably eaten by bunnies, so we planted a few more seeds.

this week's overview of the garden

The herbs: chives, tarragon, dill, and cilantro (and the grass and weeds that are getting out of control in this part of the garden)

the gourd plants.

The broccoli plants keep growing and growing

Saturday Gardening

Every Saturday morning at 9:00 am there is a group of people working in the garden.  Anyone from Our Savior and the community is welcome to come help us- we'd love to have your help. 

You don't have to have any gardening knowledge or experience- we'll teach and show you what needs to be done in the garden.  The main task throughout the summer will be weeding, but we'll also be mulching, tying up plants, watering, and picking the veggies once harvest time comes.  This is a great opportunity to learn about vegetable gardening from other people or to share your knowledge and experience with others.  

Come get your hands dirty!

Week 3

Things are growing along!  However, there are no pumpkin plants grew and one kind of squash plant did not grow.  :-(   Must have been bad seeds?  Check out the pictures below to see the progress of the plants growing.

Squash plants that are growing

Some very nice looking onions

Empty squash mounds.  :-(

Green pepper

The little tomato plants are doing well

Morning dew on the broccoli plant

The broccoli plants are getting so BIG!

Cantaloupe!!!

Jalapeno pepper plant

Watermelon

Cucumber

You still can't see much growing from this view 

Week 2

Week two brought some rain (thunderstorms included) and some sun and some very hot weather.  The seeds are turning into baby plants!  Some of the seeds aren't growing yet, which makes us a little bit worried, but we're going to give them a few more days and see if anything happens.  And if nothing happens we'll plant some more seeds.  The weeds are really starting to grow, which means that we need to start picking weeds.

The tomato and pepper plants got some fertilizer- some fish emulsion fertilizer (Ray said it smelled really bad, but it should make the plants grow).  

We think some baby cucumber plants disappeared- perhaps the bunnies had a little late night snack.

The garden

Cucumber plant soaking up some sun

Cantaloupe

Cucumbers

The chives are looking quite healthy

Bush bean plants among some grass and weeds

Cantaloupe plants coming up through the grass clippings

Red pepper plant with a flower on it!!!

The pepper plants are doing well!

This broccoli is growing quite nicely!

tomatoes

Look at those onions (and weeds) grow!

Onions

These squash plants weren't there two days ago and look at them now! 

The first official weeding!  Thanks Lois!!!

Week 1 Update

During the first week, the garden was watered a couple of times.  Not too much happened in a week.  We didn't see anything sprouting from where we planted seeds.  A few of the tiny baby plants didn't survive the week, but other than that nothing too exciting happened.

Overview of the garden

The herbs are doing well!

We put grass clippings around the plants to act as insulation for the plants to keep the soil moist and the plants protected.

A few of the tomato plants were already ready for tomato cages.

Some of the onion sets are already coming up!