Fewer and further between

Good grief. Another 10 days has passed without a blog entry. I'm still playing in the garden, but I don't ever seem to have enough time in the day to play in the garden, take pictures, resize the pictures, and post an entry to my blog. I get the whole play in the garden and take pictures part done, but it's the next two steps that seem to gum up the whole works. I've had to resort to making short two line entries in the Word version of my Garden Journal. So now I'm going to cut and paste the stuff I've been doing over the past week and a half. Read on. If you dare.

June 4, 2009

Thursday was a mixed bag. My Cherokee Purple tomato got too much rain and split wide open. It was a little depressing to pull that tomato off and toss it over in the compost pile. *sigh* However, I did notice that my black eyed peas have started to bloom, and the rest of the garden very much enjoyed the rain. Before I came back inside for gardening, I also noticed that my corn is starting to get some tassels or something. That was just the little bright spot in the day to help me overcome the loss of my tomato.

I think I’m taking this whole gardening thing a little too seriously.

June 5, 2009

My corn is finally getting tall, and I’ve been worried for a week or so that a strong wind is going to come and blow it over, because Mel B warns of such crop devastation. We don’t get much wind to speak of in East Texas. Well, except for when those pesky Hurricanes Ike and Rita pay a visit in September and October, but hopefully my corn crop will be safely harvested and digested by then. Of course, I do plan on doing a fall crop of corn. Anyway, I thought a cattle panel would be a good thing to use for corn support. Bend the thing into a U-shape and then stick the ends in the dirt. My hubby, ever patient man that he is, once again obliged me and implemented my plan.

I’m pleased with the way it turned out, because before I thought of the cattle panel I wasn’t really able to envision what Mel was describing. That’s one of the few things he didn’t put pictures of in his book. Or maybe I just missed it….

Another surprise… My eggplant is about to bloom!! Woo hoo!

Baby cherry tomatoes

Almost blooming eggplant

Watermelon's still growing

The corn after my honey put up the cattle panel

Check out the tassel!!!

Charlie's green beans

American melon blooming, blooming, blooming

This head of cauliflower is looking normal

This one not so much. What's with all the purple??

June 7, 2009

We had to go out of town for a graduation this weekend, and I must admit I was kinda worried about leaving my garden. Did I give it enough water? What if swarms of locusts (in Biblical proportions no less) showed up to dine on my SFG and no one was there to protect it? Etc, etc. Turns out the garden survived. Whew!

June 9, 2009

We had to go to the lake house to turn on the power for the painter Monday evening, so I wasn’t able to do my evening garden check. Surprisingly I got up kinda early enough to take a quick peek at it this a.m. I really need to tie up some more of that quick pick tomato plant. It’s leaning dangerously close to the ground. The cherry tomatoes are coming along nicely. A handful of Black Krims and Cherokee Purple are popping up too. Corn is looking good. Jalapeno peppers were eaten. What! Something ate my jalapeno pepper plant!!! All of the leaves and most of the peppers. ARGH!!!! They were just about ready to pick and eat!!!!! My inclination was that it was a rabbit or deer. I was leaning more toward deer. I went to work fuming about the carnage and trying to figure out HOW I was going to keep deer out of my peppers. I should’ve bought HOT ones! That would have taught them!!

I had some friends over tonight for a tastefully simple party, and as I was giving garden tours to my friends who had the misfortune not to see my latest obsession, I pointed out the jalapeno plant devastation. Then I noticed something had been munching on my eggplant. The eggplant is on the inside of the box and is up fairly high. Now I KNEW it had to be a deer. No rabbit would hop to the inside of the box and start munching on leaves waaay up in the air. Too much work. As I grasped a leaf of the eggplant in disgust, I felt something that didn’t quite feel right. It was not fuzzy like the back of an eggplant leaf. It was kinda squishy and a little cold. Huh?? Turned the thing over and found a GINORMOUS caterpillar. Dad says it is a horn worm, and apparently this critter is responsible for all the damage in my garden. Sheesh!

Tomorrow a.m. I plan on inspecting the garden for more worms, and I’m gonna kill those suckers. Too bad I had guests over. I really wanted to run out and take pics of the damage and do more looking, but I had to be a good hostess. Tomorrow it’s Hasta La Vista worms………………

The culprit.