It's time for a garden update!

HEY THERE!! Glad you could come and visit! Have a seat here with me under the big ol' pecan tree!

So glad you could meet me here on the patio! I know, it needs sweeping badly, but I am waiting till the pecan tree above is done shedding all it's little catkins! And as you can see it's loaded. That just means a good harvest of nuts this year, so enjoy the carpet of catkins!
There are vairious plants placed around the patio, some are just starting out after being transplanted earlier this year. They are doing well! Ahh, and the patio, well my daughter and I built this little crooked old patio back in 2001 or so, with the old bricks from the front patio. Didn't want waste them ya know!Let's go on to the garden gate!

Ok, here we are just inside the gate, and you can see the tomato growth! Many blooms have sprung up in the last week, and there are lots of little baby tomatoes on the vines. Another week or two and we'll be ready for some Fried green tomatoes! YUM!! The benefits of that 'fertized' hay are wonderful. It provides fertilzer as well as a mulch to help hold in moisture for the plants. If you've got chickens, fill their coop with hay, then use it to your benefit! You won't be sorry.

On the braces of course, are the beans. Alas, not as many sprouted as I would have hoped, I guess those seeds were not fresh. However, we've planted more in the large open field you'll see later.

Here we go, inside the garden on the backside looking toward the gate. The banana peppers in the first box are doing well. I just added some fertilized hay to them about 4 days ago. Although I did not get a before picture, there has already been improvement! The box behind the peppers are cucumbers!! And boy have they taken a leap up and out! There are so many blossoms and baby cucumbers hidding under that unbrella of foliage I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them all! (veggie stand in the front yard anyone?)

And of course, you can see the tomatoes in the far back all big and bold.

Ok, here we go, let's take a look to the other side of the garden!
The empty box you see at the bottom of the picture has been planted once this year with the radishes. I never plant too many radishes, since we only use them as spring time munchies. Then when the radishes are done, I prepare the bed for something else. The bed next to the empty radish bed houses some acorn squash. A very long growing veggie/gourd. Truly takes them all year. Ok, the first rows of green are on the left, zuchinni, and the next two boxes are Turnips! I get to pick those greens today! Next to that are the mustard greens (I get to pick those today too) and not to be missed, but all the way in the back are the squash. I took some close ups of the squash plants, as they are HUGE, here ya go, take a look at these monsters!

Aren't they pretty!! Oh my! I've gotten several smaller squashes off these guys already. Again, it's the hay I swear it is!

I plant these in 'ridges'. Not boxes or beds. Any type of the squash family takes up a lot of room. So I never confine these to a box or a bed, they are much easier done in a ridge. It allows them space to crawl down the ridge a bit.

They do send out tendrils and will climb a bit if you give them the opportunity. Next year I do plan on putting my ridge for these a little closer to the fence and will hope that they decide to climb it. It will make picking so much easier! Squash family plants can be a little on the prickly side! Wear gloves! (it's not that bad, but gloves make it less uncomfortable.)

Ok..let's go visit the second garden shall we. I caught hubby on camera yesterday mowing around our corn area. The corn has come up a good many inches. The rains we had last week sure did help!

There's much more in the second garde, and I'll get pictures of that next time, the gourds, the sweet pototoes and some more beans. Not to mention a few melon plants.

Well, that's about all for this week. I can see the sun peeking up higher and higher in the morning sky here, so I must go out and give the turnip greens a hair cut! Why don't I take an extra basket and you can meet me, down.........at the garden gate!