TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2009

This week we had some baby watermelons start to grow, squash continuing to flower, and many delicious tomatoes and jalapenos to harvest! After creating some zinnia bouquets, we watered, weeded, identified some plants and then headed in to make some nachos. The fresh salsa we made tasted wonderful added to chips and cheese. It "wasn't nearly as nasty as (they) thought it would be."

punkin city

The pumpkins have taken over! Next year we will have to remember to plant less and possibly quarantine them to their own pool because they were taking over the peppers. Last week one of the students "J-roll" couldn't stand the thought of "sacrificing a pumpkin" so he planted it in the mulch pile and its actually growing. This week we tied up some more tomatoes, moved a few peppers and tried to wrangle the pumpkin/squash. We also made a couple of nice bouquets with the marigolds and the zinnias.

SQUASH OVERLOAD

Although we missed last week and it seems the garden really benefited from our absence. The pumpkins were growing up the fence!! We tried to pull some out and sacrifice them for the good of the garden, but the kids weren't having it so we planted them in the mulch pile.

WHOA spring growth

Wow, the spring rains are making things really grow. Those Chinese greens ended up being prickly and huge and that big white guy is a Chinese radish.

COMPOST!!

The awesome folks at Wash U's kumquat garden done schooled us on how to build an awesome compost pile and now all those suckers (the tomato kind) are composting like crazy!!!!

Spring time = plants!

Last Tuesday we started getting things in the ground in time for good rains. We planted a bunch of peppers, 5 tomato plants (with large stakes), zinnia, and seeds: pumpkin, nasturtium, marigold, and a few watermelons. Sounds totally haphazard, but its going to be rad.

2009 spring start: totally awesome

we had a lot of weeds blow in over the winter, so we got started by pulling those out.
we also had some trouble with the soil drying out so we added a bunch of great potting mix from south side garden spot.
we mixed that well as the sun went down and planted some spring veggies. we got a lot done the first night because we had a great crew.

CUKES!

This is one big pickle!

We have fresh cucumbers every day.

Eggplants are growing well

Even some squash hiding in there.

Hi, Shane! Hi, Cara!

Thursday we are going to make some salsa with our tomatoes and peppers!

The Garden is GROWING

We are happy to announce that the garden looks fantastic! The other students in the facility want to join us so we will be expanding next year! Who knew so much could grow in an old metal bucket!The tomatoes are growing like WEEDS!
The cucumbers are amazing. We are going to make some HUGE pickles. Everyone loves the pickles.
Pool number 2 is pulling through. We finally got some mulch so that should help us keep the soil moist.

Pool Number 2 is FULL

The garden is really coming along nicely. We had a bit of drying out and a few losses, but that's to be expected in any garden...The sunflowers are already blooming!

We staked the tomatoes so they will grow nice and tall.

We planted the second pool with a lot of vining plants such as watermelon, squash and morning glories which were a gift from a coffee friend. THANKS :)

The young men work as an efficent team

The growth in the first pool is quite encouraging. We even have some cayenne peppers already!

Pool Number 2

After some close calls, near misses, and almost nots we finally acquired a second pool to be our pumpkin patch.Which means we had to fill another with dirt.
We had high aspirations of planting the new plants, but considering the pool was bigger than the first, we spent most of the time transfering dirt.

But the sun decided to take on a hint of summer and, with a larger pool and further distance to travel, it took a lot longer then 17 minutes.
Tuesday we plant, and, since Cara is out of town, there has been talk of White Castle and root beer.