Giant Leaves

I had no idea that zucchini leaves got this big!  Seriously, the leaves are bigger than a personal pizza, many of them are over a foot from base to tip.  By comparison, the cucumber leaves in the top left corner are about 3-4 inches from base to tip. 

So much for planting parsley next to the zucchini...

And the lilac said, "Finally!"

We FINALLY got the lilac in the ground.  Here's the short version on how to plant a lilac shrub:

1. Buy a lilac shrub. 
2. Call your local utilities company to find out where power/electric lines lay in your yard.
3. Ask your fiancé to dig you a big hole.
4. Reevaluate.  Ask your fiancé to dig you a bigger hole.
5. Procrastinate 2 weeks.
6. Cover the bottom of the hole with a layer of garden soil mixed with peat moss/compost.
7. Gently tease out the roots of your lilac plant. 
8. Place the lilac in the hole so that 1-2 inches of the plant peak above the earth.
9. Surround the plant with the same garden soil/compost/peat moss mixture.
10. Build up the area around the plant with more good soil.
11. Cover everything in mulch.
12. Water heavily with plant food immediately after.  

 There you have it. How to plant lilac.  

New plants take 2-5 years to flower, so hopefully we see them closer to 2 years.  I won't be pruning the plant until it gets to be 6-8 ft tall.  Right now, it's about 4 ft tall.  The rule of thumb with pruning a lilac shrub is to cut to the base any stems 2 inches in diameter, and never cut more than 1/3 of the stems.  It will be quite some time before I have to worry about that!


Stay lovely,


Christine

How you feeling? HOT HOT HOT

One of these things is not like the others...

My cayenne peppers have started to turn colors, beginning with the very first pepper!

I have but one word to say today:

Yum.

Pumpkin Paradise

I'll say it once and I'll say it again- pumpkin flowers are beautiful. Also, they're enormous.  This is yet another male flower from the pumpkin plant on the right.  No lady flowers yet, but it's only a matter of time.  Pumpkin, zucchini, and other squash typically produce male flowers for a few weeks before producing a lady flower, perhaps to alert local pollinators that there are lovely flowers blooming in the area.  The male flowers don't last nearly as long as the female ones, simply because the female flowers later become pumpkins and the male flowers do not.

I may have underestimated this hybrid

The above photo was taken last week.  I am 5'11.  The tomato plant, for all its zigzagging within the wire cage, is now taller than me.  Today I measured and it's about 4 inches taller than me.  This is with me pruning back 90% of the suckers, bottom leaves, and burying the plant a total of 8 inches underground from its original root system. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I highly recommend Burpee brand Big Boy Hybrid, available at Giant Food and other fine retailers.  Especially if you're looking for a shade tree...

Stay fruity,

Christine

Exceeding Expectations

Look familiar? This is my garden immediately after mulching.  The tomato plants were huge! The pumpkins were finding their soil nice, and I planned to put some herbs in front of the zucchini on the left.  Well, I don't think I can do that anymore...

Blossom End Rot

Today's lesson is going to be on Blossom End Rot (BER), a disorder that can affect peppers, eggplant, and, sadly, tomatoes. BER is mainly caused by a shortage of calcium in the soil during a fruit-growing period, and irregular watering. BER is characterized by big brown or black flat, mushy spots on the bottom of the tomato.

The deformity is NOT contagious. It cannot spread from fruit to fruit or plant to plant. You can cut the deformity off of the fruit and eat the rest, though BER makes the fruit susceptible to other infections.

Only two of my tomatoes have BER- they were the first two to grow, before I mulched the garden. Oops. Now you know and can learn from my mistakes.

Grow, baby, grow!

Christine

Perspective

Some of my plants grow better than others.  I bought the cucumber maybe a month and a half ago and, although it flowers and I assist in pollinating it, it doesn't seem to grow at all.  I planted the pumpkin maybe 2-3 weeks ago and it was the same size as the cucumber.  Maybe the cucumber needs a little more shade? I hope so, because it's about to get it!

Pumpkins have Enormous Flowers

I never thought pumpkins would have big yellow flowers the size of lilies.

The first pumpkin plant flowered! I haven't yet seen the inside of the flowers, since they only bloom for a few hours a day, usually in the morning.  I've checked as early as 6:30 am with no luck.  Unfortunately, the bottom flower got pulverized.  Thankfully, it was a male flower, which is way more common on the plant (and in life, am I right ladies? just kidding).  Here's a picture to help identify male and female flowers on pumpkin plants brought to us by the Missouri Botanical Garden:

Source: Missouri Botanical Garden

The flower on the left is a male flower, the flower on the right is a female flower.  The more you know, right?  There are usually fewer female flowers than male flowers, since only the female flowers will bear fruit.  I am going to wake up super early tomorrow and see if I can catch a flower opening.  Fingers crossed.

Have a wonderful day!

Christine

A New Addition to the Raised Bed Garden

As I've probably mentioned a few times, we live down the street from a sort of permanent farmer's market.  They grow corn and loads of petunias, which they sell in giant hanging baskets.  I was drawn into their store the other day because of a giant 30% OFF LILACS AND AZALEAS! sign (woohoo for my lovely lilac).  While wandering around the store, I noticed a table with a little sign that said, FREE.  The table was covered in some sickly looking plants, mainly tomatoes of the roma variety.  When I say sickly looking, I mean practically dead, leaves shriveled, mostly-brown plants.  Call me an optimist (or unrealistic), but I decided to take home a California wonder sweet bell pepper plant.  I already have one California wonder, but it hasn't done much except get big.  No flowers, no nothing.  So, when I saw this California wonder with two wee flowers, I thought, "Why not?"

Most of the leaves had been cut off, but the flowers still grew.

Sweeter Tomatoes?

My tomatoes are bigger than your tomatoes! Photo from July 2nd, Zone 6.5-7

Follow my awesome tomato tips and you could have tomatoes like these! The single most important thing I am doing now that I have fruit is regularly watering the plants.  As I learned in high school, irregular watering makes for irregular growth.  My high school tomatoes were lop-sided and covered in weird nodules of fleshy tomato.  I have also heard that regular but lighter watering when the plants are producing fruit results in sweeter tomatoes.  This does not mean let the plants wilt!  Just.. give a little less long a drink with the usual frequency.

Good growing!

Christine

Lovely Lilac

Spray paint really can do anything.

You may be wondering what lilac has to do with red and orange lines sprayed on a sad looking lawn.  Well, in Maryland, if you're planning on doing any digging, you have to notify Miss Utility before you dig.  In Maryland, it's the law to verify where all power lines, pipes, gas lines, etc are in your yard before you dig them up.  Digging up utility lines and pipes can result in downed service for yourself and others, or even death if you electrocute yourself. 

All of the lines that go through our yard are in the front, well in front of the landscaped areas.  However, they may be problematic down the line when we edge our trees with stone.

So what's this about lilacs?