Let's get to some pics. First up is the newly planted lettuce coming up. This will be the second crop. In a few weeks I'll plant some more to keep it coming. I planted a row of Romaine, Buttercrunch, and 2 rows of different red leaf types.
Next my strawberry plants have really begun putting out some berries. I picked a couple the other day which were pretty good. Several more are beginning to ripen up.
Here is the first planting of lettuce and spinach. They all taste wonderful and I am eating salads picked fresh from the garden daily. Also I cooked up some of the spinach by sauteing in olive oil and garlic. The transplants in the large black pots are doing better than I thought they would do
The Bush Goliath tomatoes both have several growing on each plant. They won't be ready to pick for several more weeks.
Here my zucchini squash have lots of blooms. So far they are just male blossoms but the females are getting ready to bloom. I haven't had any problems with pickle worms yet. I think that is because it did get down into the 40s a couple weeks ago. Usually here once that happens the moth populations tends to decrease greatly.
The sugar snap peas have taken off nicely and so has the chard planted between each row. My earlier planting of chard I ended up pulling up as it was pretty much eaten up by worms. I am thinking I may have to keep any greens I plant early in the season covered with an insect barrier. That way I won't have to worry about spraying.
The first crop of broccoli is heading up nicely. I should be able to begin harvesting in a few days. The variety is Pac Man. My favorite variety.
Here is the second crop I planted a couple days ago.
Next my Cherokee Purple tomatoes are loaded with fruit and growing like crazy. One large fruit is almost ripe enough to pick.
Beans are forming from the flowers on the purple bush beans.
Cabbage is heading up nicely. Along side the cabbage are the beets and carrots. I thinned them and they should be ready to begin picking in about two weeks or so. I planted a few more rows of carrots on the other side of the beets. They should begin germinating any day now.
The hot peppers have fruit on them. I don't know the variety as they were given to me and the person didn't know what they were either. They were just a few plants from a package of mixed seeds. Also the Sweet Banana Peppers have fruit on them, too.
The eggplants in the pepper bed are growing nicely. I had to replace the one to the far left because fire ants built a nest at the base of it and killed it. Fire ants are a constant problem here. I chased them off by spraying the ants with rotenone/pyrethrin mix. It is pretty toxic but yet organic. I only use it on fire ants because they are so destructive so fast.
My pole beans should be ready to begin being harvested in a couple days. The variety is Kwintas.
The Pak Choi is doing real good and I have harvested several heads and put them in stir fry. They are really tender and mild. I ordered three more varieties and will plant them when the seeds arrive. They are a baby variety, regular sized Bok Choy, and a purple variety.
A shot of the pole bean / pak choi bed with a volunteer tomato growing in front. The tomato is full of fruit. I wonder how they will taste since it is a plant from seeds from the Beef Master that grew there last year. Since it is a hybrid the plant won't grow true to it's original.
My one bed of blue berries that are actually growing. They have a few blooms and look pretty healthy.
I am getting some papaya from the plants I planted a few months ago. I found several large caterpillars on the under sides of the leaves which I would pick off and destroy. I also kept finding these cottony balls which I thought were moth eggs on the bottoms of some of the leaves. I would pull them off thinking they were moth eggs.I decided to let a caterpillar grow to see what kind of moth it produced. To my surprise one day I went out to find the caterpillar full of the cotton with little "worms" moving inside it. Duhh!! They were the eggs of parasitic wasps. A beneficial insect which preys on caterpillars. I have a pic of the eggs below. As the days would go by the wasp larvae would slowly consume the caterpillar until all that was left was the "cotton" underneath the leaf.
I also have a Carambola that I planted in the spring. It is now bearing fruit which should ripen in a couple weeks.
That's all for now.
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