Showing posts with label Fertilizer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fertilizer. Show all posts

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Filling in the holes

The patches of dirt left bare between the seedlings are beginning to fill with new life as the baby plants stretch out their new arms to compete for the sunlight. Watching a garden grow is such a rewarding experience for me. Every morning, I walk down my back steps, let Stella out, and examine all the growth that took place the night before. Then I go to work. When I return, I water the plants that look stressed from the heat of that day using Stella's pond water and examine the changes that took place that day. Maybe over the course of the week visitors may see some differences, but to the gardener, we see them every day and night. 


 The Zucchini plant is healthy and has gotten huge. I had to take down the little white picket fence aka "duck barrier" in front of the plant because this huge Zucchini grew right into it. Technically, you should not let your zucchinis get this big because they become fibrous and woody, less juicy and not as sweet, however, we are going to let this one go, and go, and go, and see how big we can get it. We might make zucchini bread, or a roasted zucchini boat out of it. We have plenty of others that we will be eating. It was a good thing I tool the picket fence down when I did, because it's been growing an inch a day.

The zucchini leaves get bigger every day
Remember the first pics of it??
Watermelon vines
Flowering cucumbers and summer squash
 I don't really know what is going on with the leaf at the very bottom on the pic below. It seems to be a healthy green leaf, but the veins are turning white. To me this indicates a deficiency, a disease, or a pest. I'm going to do more research to find out what it is. We did just have a heat wave, so I'm hoping it was just the result of extreme heat, but it might be low in iron or something.

Cucumbers, one with white vein (bottom)
Kohlrabi
There are a lot of advantages to successive planting. Unfortunately I do not do it as often as I would like. The nice thing about successive gardening or planting, is that not all your crops mature at the same time. It is the best way for a home gardener to have a continual harvest, its just hard to remember. I also have a hard time hold back on seeding my entire plot!

Below is a pic of my radish crop that I am successively seeding. I planted some 1 month ago, and the others 1 week ago, and I still have some fallow dirt.
Successive planting of radishes 
My worm bin, started last year sometime
My little red friends
More worms in the bin
My pumpkin patch 
Stella loving her new pond, she gets in herself 
Midget melon flowering, can't wait for this one
Huge tomato vines
Like, huge, like probably 5 feet
GARLIC!!!
Laura's red onions
Bolting lettuce. I need to eat this stuff.
Peas Starting to climb

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Compost tea: crack for your garden

Lets be honest, its harder growing organic food. In fact, most people these days can't imagine a garden without the term 'miracle grow'. But do you ever wonder what they put in miracle grow to make miracles? I do. And I'm pretty sure what they put in it is chemicals. So the question then becomes, is it really worth it to trade in your organic vegetable garden and food safety for a miracle grow chemical crop just for a few more tomatoes???

ORGANIC =  NO CHEMICALS USED 

Here are some Miracle-Gro Ingredients: 

    Here's my suggestions for good organic fertilizers:
    • COMPOST TEA = garden crack
    • Fish Emulsions
    • Fish tank water and fish poop sludge from a tank
    • Worm castings from a vermicompost bin
    • Condensed liquid seaweed
    • Spent mushroom compost
    • Any fresh organic compost is teaming with good bacteria to boost plant's immunity
    • Egg shells
    Vitamin c +molasses+ worm poop + water + oxygen = garden crack

    Brandywine Heirloom Tomatoes
    The pictures above show the brewing process for compost tea. It was super simple and cost practically nothing, other than the 2 products that I bought pictured above, Molasses and Vitamin C tabs. Just add an aerator for oxygen and poof, you've got water teaming with good microbes for your plants, the best fertilizer on the planet.
    Cluster tomatoes

    After 19 hours of brewing the tea, I put it in my watering can and dumped it ALL OVER the plants, not just at the roots. This should boost the good microbs so that the plant forms a protective wax. This will provide defenses against the pests and will allow for that plant to put all its energy towards getting large and producing fruits and healthy foliage instead of fighting off bad guys and regenerating leaves that are just going to get munched again.
    Crinkle and romaine lettuce

    I will keep posting updated pics of the compost tea results, however I do not have a control plant, I added it to all the plants. Consider these the before pics.
     I think my plants are looking a lot healthier at the new home, and the compost tea should really boost that so I'm expecting a pleasant yield this year. Stay tuned.

     I'll leave you with this. If this doesn't get you stoked about growing a garden, I don't know what does: