Garden 5-15-2018 Ferterized and Straw Mulched the Plants

More colorful decorations in my garden, Bo gave me the two windmills for Mother’s Day and Lee gave me the garden rain gauge.

The garden rain gauge is a good size and I sure will get a good use out of it.

The plants are big enough now to put down the straw mulch. My straw mulch was left over from last Fall decoration so it’s aged and will work well as mulch compost.

Before putting down the straw mulch, I fertilized the plants with chicken manure compost. The manure is mixed with straw, Bo cleaned out his chicken coop and left a pile in my garden last year. I turned and worked with it for several months and it’s ready to be used. So far I’ve discovered it’s one of the best fertilizers and it’s free.

I mixed the chicken manure compost in the dirt around the plants. The cucumbers are tall and fragile, the straw mulch will help to support them.

I also fertilized and straw mulched the string beans.

They look healthy and should start climbing the trellis in a week or so.

The chayote

I need to get more straw to cover the side of the tomatoes planting bed so I wouldn’t have to weed as often.

I also fertilized and straw mulched the row of peppers

Bell peppers

Thai chili pepper

Chili peppers

The potted basils are doing well, I’ve noticed that they grow a lot slower than planting directly in the ground. I have a few Thai basils left and will plant in the ground to see the difference.

Thai basils

I have a lot of frogs in my garden since the pound is nearby, this one is a good size.

I mulched the blueberries with pine needles, I read that it works well for blueberries since they love acidic soil. I have more time to tend to the garden this year, and so far they look great.

Next is to straw mulch the okras once they get bigger.

Garden 5-10-2018

A few days late in posting, the garden is coming along nicely. The apple and Asian pear trees that I purchased from Stark Bro’s last year survived their first winter.

The basils seem to adjust well to the inground planting pots.

This part of the garden is sloped and the water washes the garden soil downhill. The pepper plants are hardy and thrived well last year. They got a lot bigger this week, I will be mulching them with straws to prevent the soil from erosion and keeping the moisture during the hot and humid months.

I saved a few Chayote fruits last year and looking forward to a bounty harvest this year.

I didn’t keep my string bean seeds from last year, they were the fat and meaty variety and I didn’t like it as much. I got the seeds from my sister this year and her string beans are long and skinny, I think it has a better flavor.

I used to soak my beans and plant them as they sprout but the last few years I just dropped the beans in the ground and they came out within a few days.

Cucumbers grow well from seeds.

I will be mulching the tomatoes with straws also.

I mulched the blueberries with pine needles the other day and will update with the next post.

The metal border looks rough, I’m not complaining since it’s free. One of my dad’s neighbors thrown them out and I had the hardest time getting them in the back of my Rav4 but I managed and got them home. This part of the garden is also sloped and hope this will help. I planted okras in this planting bed, the same spot as last year.

Once they get a bit bigger I will be mulching them with straws.

So far so good for the Persimmons.

My banana trees didn’t survive the snow and cold weather, my sister gave me one last week.

I have too much mints and will be giving some to my sisters.

Planting the Garden

It was cold up until last week, and so much pollen in the air that I was in no shape to go out and prep the planting bed. It rained most of last week also so I didn’t feel as guilty not being such a good gardener. Since the weather is warm enough now to garden, I tried to work several hours a day in the garden. This makes me wonder how other gardeners have time to blog.

I only have enough time to weed the planting bed area, once all the young plants are planted then I’ll have more time to weed the rest of the garden. My new boss gave me the bricks that were left over from her garage and I’ve used it to lay the walkway, hope this will cut down on my weeding time and I still have a big pile of bricks that I could use in the garden.

The tomatoes are in the ground, I didn’t have any luck with the seedling last year so I bought the young tomato plants this year.

The bell peppers and chili peppers are in the ground. I wanted to plant the jalapeno peppers but they were out at Lowes.

I got the young chili pepper plants from my sister.

The bell pepper plants were store bought.

The sloping land posted some problems last year when it rained, all the garden soil washed away. I’m trying something different this year, I like the idea of planting in a pot, but didn’t want it to be in the way so I planted them in the ground.

It makes it easy to water also.

My persimmon trees look promising this year. I know I said the same thing last year and didn’t have any fruit by harvest time.

Let just say that I’m hopeful this year. The garden came along further than what I’m posting here. I put down the Okra seeds, the cucumber seeds, and the string bean seeds today but didn’t have time to take the photo. I have to make time and hope to be able to blog on a regular basis now.