The Lone Pepper

Here I am again, working to put our daughter to bed, and I just wanted to post a quick note. Earlier this evening, while watering the garden, I noticed that we have the coolest little jalapeno pepper growing. It being the first pepper of the season... for that matter, the first pepper I've actually grown, I'm pretty jazzed. Next time I am out in the garden, I will remember to snap a pic to share.

Up, Up, and Away!

Tonight, sitting on the floor in the upstairs hallway, across from our daughters bedroom (working on getting her to sleep), remembering that so much has happened with regards to the garden since my last post. It's kind of blowing my mind here.

The first Zucchini of the season. Yum!

Let's see...it was about Tuesday of last week, I finally decided it was time to bust out my new soil nutrient testing kit, I purchased during my

Budding Bell Peppers

outing to the local nursery with our daughter (Ah, what a great day that was!). Following the directions, I collected 1 part soil (from the center of our garden), and in a glass mason jar added 5 parts water, then shook the ever-love'n-bajeezus out of it. 24-hours later - ding - the liquid was clear enough to extract and test. The test results indicated the soil had a pH of about 6.5, and contained adequate amounts of phosphorous and potassium. Nitrogen levels, however were depleted. Luckily, I had picked up a box of organic fertilizer,

Roma Tomatoes Waiting to Turn

sprinkled that around the garden, and watered it into the soil. All I had to do left was wait, and oh yeah, continue day-dreaming about my plans for my fall/winter garden.

New Real-Estate

My day-dreaming about a fall/winter garden led me to visit a couple of seed supply company websites. I finally ended up at Burpee Seed and Plan Company, and ordered sugar peas, organics sugar pumpkins, Long Island heirloom brussels sprouts, multicolored cauliflower mix, organic goldetti spaghetti squash, and yellow dutch shallots.  Adding to my excitement of growing a fall/winter garden, I've been offered a new area to expand the garden into. This new real estate will at least double the current size of our garden. The only thing holding us up is the necessity of getting paid. So come next month, we will plan a trip to the nursery. COME ON AUGUST!

Finally, over the past week, I added a trellis to the garden in an attempt to grow our cucumber plants vertically. I thought about doing this last year, but never got around to it. The reality of it was that we had plenty of space to just let our cucumber plants grown along the ground. This years garden is thriving in a much small area, which I think it makes perfect sense to trying an grow any many of our plants vertically as possible. I'm an already thinking of employing the same design in the fall garden for the peas. 

Intervention

"I can stop! Really, at any time." -- "Beefy" Tomato

What does one do when it becomes apparent that your plants have a drinking problem...ya head on down to your new favorite local nursery and treat yourself to some new toys, and a bit of garden bling! Okay, so calling it an intervention may have been slightly dramatic, but really it made for  a great excuse to spend some awesome father-daughter time together in the garden.

Designer Tomato Scaffolding

I'd say it all started Friday afternoon, when we stopped off at the local Home Depot to pick up a couple of trellises. During the proceeding week, we had experienced a significant warming trend, resulting in a growth spirt for most of our plants. At the Depot, I found and bought four wrap around cages. Called the "Ultamato Plus", these cage kits came with three 5-foot long stakes, and nine adjustable (10 to 14 inches) horizontal supports. What really attracted me to these cages is the ability modify the configuration of each cage (teepee, cone or straight column shape), and that when were done, the cages can be broken down for reuse later.

Back home and in the garden, I choose the straight configuration, or at least that's what I attempted to create. Let's just say, at times the rocks in the soil posed a few minor challenges. The cages were a breeze to set up, so much so that our daughter even helped to clip the supports onto the stakes.

With the cages constructed, I decided to spend some time pruning our plants, and weeding. That's when I noticed several problems with out plants. First, I noticed that the zucchini sprouts - mentioned and pictured during my last post - had yellowed and all but died; second, the pepper plants appeared to have started to develop blossoms, but they too faded; and finally, the leaves of our tomato plants appears to be wilting (as pictured above). I suspect that the problem might be associated with either amount of water the plants are getting, or nutrient level of the soil. So, Saturday morning, after a very very fun father-daughter pancake breakfast, we drove over to a nearby nursery.

Wow! I felt like we were both two kids in a candy store. Hand in hand, excitedly we explored the nursery, looking at all the beautiful colors, stopping to smell all of the sweet flower blossoms. My daughter would spy something new, look up at me, and say "look at this", or "what's that".  Fun, fun, fun!

At Armstrong Nursery, we picked up an at home soil pH an nutrient test kit, a soil moisture probe, a box of organic vegetable garden fertilizer, a pair of garden shears, and...a humming bird. "Agh, it's so cute" my daughter said as she played with it's spring hinged wings, and that sealed the deal for me. Into the cart it went, and shortly thereafter our daughter proudly placed it into the garden. Total Visa card moment, right! "Metallic humming bird...price, six bucks, the price of seeing such pure joy on your daughters face...priceless".

Soil Moisture Levels - July 9, 2011 @ 19:30

Optimal Soil Moisture Level Measured

That evening, with our new soil moisture meter in hand, I made measurement at each plant grouping, at depths of one, two, and three inches. Based on the meters literature, the different plants the optimum moisture content number should be between 2 and 4. My reading were much, much higher. Oopps. With this information I created the following plots. Okay, granted they might be a little difficult to understand, so let me help. On the right side the graph are depths which the measurements were taken. On the bottom are the numbers 1 through 5, representing the five plant grouping (1 - Tomatoes, 2 - Peppers, 3 - Cucumbers, 4 - Zucchini, and 5 - Beans). Finally, the soil moisture is represented a multiple colored layers, coming out of the page toward the reader. Of the two graphs to the right, the top graph represents current soil moisture conditions, while the lower graph represents optimal soil moisture conditions. It is my goal to make the top graph look like the lower.

Soaking Up The Sun

Zucchini

Watering our plants last night I noticed that not only are the tomato and zucchini plants thriving, but several vegetables are starting to develop.  Excitedly, this afternoon I set out, with camera in hand, to take a few pictures our our new veggie sprouts to share with everyone.

Cucumber

Tomato

I have to say, that having the bed this high is great! It makes weeding a breeze and is awesome for making these kinds of observations. I think that when the time comes to harvest our vegetables, it will be really nice.