Infiltration by the ENEMY

So there I am, minding my own damn beeswax after getting a particularly bad nights sleep downstairs in the post-surgical suite set up for Tasha in the den. I was eating my typical breakfast of Cheerios with milk (in a tall glass, not a bowl) and I happened to look out the window at one of my tomato pots. GASP. There was potting soil all over the ground and the trellis was tipped over. NO. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.

Panic. Have they destroyed everything? What kind of animal is this? I immediately think it is one of the plethora of cats my mom has collected (It is up to 8 now, people) and call her up crying. I convince her and myself that some childhood trauma that she suffered is still evident through years of therapy, and now she is passing her misery onto me vicariously by having her collection of cats destroy my vegetable garden.

I quickly realize that no cat possesses the physical strength to almost completely empty a two feet deep by two foot wide pot. I survey the yard for damage. I find no less than 10 spots that this animal, assumedly a raccoon, dug up for no apparent reason. None of the fruits/vegetables are in bloom, and it dug most of the holes in random spots in the mulch. Even though 2 tomatoes, 2 beans, 3 carrot, and 2 corn plants were dug up, none of them were eaten. I know we're supposed to "be one with nature" but this thing is a saboteur and needs to be eradicated. But seriously, it's come back every night and every pot that isn't covered completely is totally emptied out, with nothing to show for it. We had a bout of raccoons with distemper a couple of years ago and the police had to come and shoot them. That was awful. I will sacrifice my garden before I have to hear another raccoon get shot.

I believe the last time I updated this, the only seeds that were planted were tomato, cantaloupe, and cucumber. Matt and I started the green beans and corn about 3 weeks ago. I thought I drowned the corn because I watered them, and put the peat pots out in the sun and covered them with the plastic caps, so they were soggy messes the next night. Apparently it was ok though because 3 weeks later they are all about a foot tall. The green beans literally grew 8 inches in the first 24 hours they were in the ground. I started carrots too but only about 7 of them seem to be doing well. Potatoes took almost 2 weeks to sprout, but grew almost 36 inches over the course of the 2 weeks.

The cucumber plants are HUGE, the leaves are the size of the palm of my hand and they are growing tendrils that reach out and wrap themselves around whatever they can find; If I put my hand up to them for a few minutes they start to curl around my finger. One of them is also starting to bud a yellow flower. I had to transplant about 5 of them from the box on the deck to the one near the corn because they aren't getting enough sun and are starting to turn yellow. I had to do the same with ALL of the cantaloupes, although I don't know if they are salvageable.

The tomato plants have doubled in size and quadrupled in width. The burnt leaves from when they were seedlings have fallen off and been replaced with many huge nice green leaves.

Here's a breakdown of what I have, and what the expected yield is:

Cucumbers - Around 8 plants. Each plant yields approximately 25 cucumbers.

Tomatoes - 5 plants. Approximately 25 pounds per plant.

Potatoes - 4 plants. About 15-20 potatoes per plant.

Corn. About 18 stalks. 1 -2 ears per stalk.

Carrots - Only 7, for now. One carrot per plant.

Green beans - 6? plants. About 25 beans per plant.

Cantaloupes - 8 plants. About 5 melons per plant.

I can't figure out how to add multiples of pictures so I'm just adding them to my facebook album.

I'm making different links to the different weeks because it's getting too confusing to keep putting them in the same album.

Vegetables week of May 25 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2165640&id=24208755

Vegetables week of June 4 - excuse the terrible focus and lighting in this album. The sun was going down and I just wanted to go to sleep. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2165642&id=24208755

The potatoes are barely breaking through in the last album. I'm going to post pictures tomorrow of pictures that I'm taking tomorrow, instead of taking pictures and posting them two weeks late like a lazy piece.

A Constant State of Wilting

I've been mentally wilted for the past week, and my vegetables have followed suit by physically wilting.

Last weekend I got a little over ambitious and decided to add a little of the organic fertilizer on the tomatoes. Of course I dropped the container and a lot of it fell into the tray...I washed out as much as I could but the next day there were burn marks all over the leaves. I think they also might have gotten over watered from when I tried to drain them out; I don't know what did them in. The fertilizer claims that because it's Organic it won't burn the leaves, so if this is true than it was probably the water.

So then of course I didn't water them for a few days because they were so over-saturated...but then I went away for the weekend and when I came home late last night a lot of the cucumbers had lost their connection to their roots and fell over. The cantaloupes faired well though even though they took almost 2 weeks to sprout.

I also lost a little motivation when I found out my moms disgusting feral cats have found a way to break through the fence I erected to keep them out and use it as a fucking litter box. Excuse my language, I just find it disgusting, filthy and horrifyingly unsanitary that someone would have so little of a spine that they wouldn't try to stop WILD cats from peeing in YOUR OWN DAUGHTERS garden. I can't even talk about it; it's infuriating.

Here's some new pictures

Tomatoes. You can see the burns on their leaves.

Cantaloupes. Just a few and they're small...but strong.

Cucumbers. You can see a few casualties.

I think I mentioned in my last post that I used some twigs I found to start trellising the tomatoes and cucumbers. I think some of them were too big and hurt the root systems so I pulled out the ones that had the seedlings leaning away from them. The rest of them are holding on tight to the twigs or each other. Plants sure aren't afraid to ask for help.

It is utterly forbidden to be half-hearted about gardening.

You have got to love your garden whether you like it or not.

~W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, Garden Rubbish, 1936

Not going as well as I had planned

Hmmmm so today my tomatoes were looking a little floppy. Right now they are in a seed starting kit so they have to stay inside, and they are fighting for sunlight with the cucumbers and cantaloupes. They bent pretty much completely flat trying to get the sun and they look really thirsty. I put them outside for a little bit and went around and picked up little twigs so I could start trellising them.

I also had to cut down the weakest ones, so I went from having about 23 plants to having around 15; some of the ones I saved will eventually die off though. The cucumbers are taller then the tomatoes but they are sturdier; I trellised them with twigs though anyway. The cantaloupes took the longest to sprout, but they are also looking the strongest so we'll see.

I decided to do a test run on fertilizer on the tomatoes, and accidentally dumped a lot of it on one of the plants. Hopefully it doesn't get burned from it; oh well, 15 tomato plants is a little excessive.


Tomorrow is Week 3 so I am going to update pictures tomorrow.

Excavation

I think I might have gone a little overboard in my vegetable adventure. I've never had a garden before, except for when my mom planted tomatoes and string beans when I was about 8. I thought you just stuck the seed in the ground and the next day you picked off some vegetables.

Apparently you have to plan out everything. eve-ry-thing. I chose to plant Cucumbers, Cantaloupes, Carrots, Green Beans, Tomatoes, Corn, and mini Pumpkins.

They all need varying amounts of light and water, so they couldn't all be put in the same spot. The tomatoes and green beans are going to go in big planters with some pretty trellises I picked out. Corn and carrots are going to go on the side of the deck, and cucumbers and cantaloupes, with a couple of left over tomato and green bean plants are going to go in the huge box on top of my deck. The cantaloupes and cucumbers need to be planted in huge hills, and then when they get to be a certain height, they have to be transplanted to be twice as far apart. Tomatoes like the most water so I put them on the side of the box that has a little more peat moss.

I had to empty out the planters, which weighed about 70 pounds a piece, and also had to shovel out the boxes which are about 7 feet long by 4 feet wide and about 6 inches deep. I then had to add a mix of peat moss and soil to all of them. I think I have permanent back damage from it. I was cursing myself the whole time I was doing it, but I know the hard part is over.

Luckily, everything gets planted at different times so I don't think I'm going to be up to my ears in vegetables like I first thought.

Here's a link to the photo album on Facebook; I'm starting out with weekly pictures, but once the plants get bigger I'm going to extend it to two weeks.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2158948&id=24208755

Tomatoes got started 2+ weeks ago indoors. Cantaloupes and cucumbers just about a week ago. The tomato plants are only about 4 inches tall but already smell like tomatoes. Cantaloupes haven't sprouted yet but cucumbers sprouted and grew about 6+ inches in 4 days.

100% Certified Organic Garbage

I was delighted to go to CVS a few weeks ago an find that there is a new hair care line called Organix, which touts that their formulas "contain natural active ingredients and are sulfate and paraben free."

Wow how nice, a breath of fresh air.

Wait. Stop it. Natural ACTIVE ingredients...what about it's inactive ingredients? The first few lines of ingredients on the bottle were pretty comforting. I thought to myself "wow, how nice to see a commercial grade product that is actually what it claims to be." My faith in humanity was almost considering hanging up her coat and staying for a while. However, after reading this beaut of an organic ingredient list, she decided to put that coat right back on and steal some silverware and a salt shaker before she walked out the door.

Water, Coconut Milk, Egg White Protein, Coconut Oil, Vitamin E, Jojoba Oil, Cetyl Alcohol, Bethentrimonium, Cetearyl Alcohol, Cetearyl Glucoside, Glyceryl Stearate, Glycerin, Cyclomethicone, Dimethicone, Panthenol, Silk Amino Complex, Terasodium EDTA, Fragrance, DMDM Hydatoin, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinon.

Listen people, if you have to slow down to learn each syllable before you can muster the strength to even try to pronounce the whole word, it's probably NOT an organic ingredient. Apparently, the USDA only requires a beauty product to have 95 percent organic ingredients. That other 5 percent you're free to stockpile with as much hazardous waste as you want. Have a free-for-all...none of your zombie consumers read ingredient lists anyway.






Whatever, this blog is not about shampoo. It's about my garden. I decided to do an organic garden because I like eating food that I don't have to shop for, unwrap and/or wash before consumption. I might be having a love affair with nature or I might just be lazy.

I bought all "organic" soil (which smelled like cow shit, so it MUST be organic....depending on what they fed those cows), organic fertilizers, organic seeds, and organic pest control. After my encounter with that "organic" shampoo, God only knows if what I'm using is really that pure. Even if I just planted a seed in the ground and did nothing for it, who knows what's in the soil in my backyard. Or in the raindrops. Congratulations human beings, you've managed to cover pretty much every inch of the earth in your grime.

No animosity here, though. I do have to say the ingredients in the organic garden supplies were QUITE impressive. I'm very proud of my veggie babies...Tomatoes are ready to be transplanted in 2 weeks or so. Cucumbers planted on saturday and sprouted tuesday. Cantaloupes planted saturday too but they haven't showed up yet. I can't wait to transplant them outside and bathe them in acid rain.

I promise this was my only anti-humanity post. Everything following will be strictly veggie progress related.