fall garden is underway

Fall tomatoes! Now which is which?

Side garden

This pic is an update on the poor guy in the last post... looking better!

The 4X12 raised beds

Corn hasn't sprouted yet

The okra is loving the heat

Gideon helped with the Saturday morning honey-do's

I decided to give the blog a face-lift to celebrate my newly planted fall garden. I am growing three different kinds of Tomatoes: Better Boy, Cherry, and a grape-tomato variety called Juliet. I planted two of each, and then forgot which was which so we won't know until they start to set fruit (how fun!). I have a variety of Okra called Cajun Delight which is busily sending out new leaves every couple of days. It looks like they have been planted too close (okra gets really tall and wide) but Abbey's grandpa (from henceforth known as Pa Pa) showed me a way to do this by cutting off a stem every time you harvest an okra (you know when to stop when you can't reach the tops of the plants anymore). I also devoted half of the other raised bed to a super-sweet corn variety called Gotta Have It, and after tasting some of what Pa Pa grew I must agree. I think I will have around 50 or so ears of corn in about seventy days, so we will have to have a corn-roast party at our house and celebrate before the raccoons do. Party details will be closer to harvest-time. In my side-garden I have a black-eyed pea variety called Early Contender which has done well despite the abuse I have put them though last week (see the previous post). Also in the side garden I have planted some Cucumbers called Sweetest Yet, and they should be hanging all over my energy meters and time warner cable boxes soon. 

In a month or so I have been thinking about planting Snow Peas and Spinach in the second half of the raised bed with the corn. I have also been thinking to interplant some elephant garlic cloves that Pa Pa gave me. Garlic is a pest and disease-free plant, and it can help keep bugs out of the garden if you juice it up and spray it (I hear it also keeps away vampires). Garlic is different from most veggies in that it grows during the winter. You plant it in the fall, and harvest in the spring.

I also must recommend a blog that I ran across by accident. Skippy's Vegetable Garden can be found in the continuously updating column on the right. She puts up new posts almost daily and takes really great pictures. I tried copying her picture-posting style for this post, we will see if it works.

Stay tuned!