Friday, June 6, 2008

Kitten Update & Zucchini and Cucumber Flowers

For regular readers of my blog, I wanted to give an update on the kitten that Cam saved last week. (Check out the initial post about her). You’ll be happy to know that I have adopted the kitten. Her full name is Foxy Luka Nguyen-Cornelius, but we call her Luka. She’s an American short hair and only about 2 months old, possibly younger than that. No one knows her history, but she is the sweetest little thing ever. The vet thinks that she was weaned from her mother too soon, so this has caused her to be extra clingy to Cam and me.

Currently, she’s living in the very spacious sun room and she just loves being around us. She is incredibly vocal, meowing constantly, and she’s very playful. She hates it when we leave the room, and she meows until we come back. It’s hard to resist her because she is so lovable and cute!

The vet said that she will become less clingy as she gets older, but I really don’t want her to grow up and be a regular old cat. To me, she’s almost a dog trapped in a cat’s body. She follows me everywhere, likes to sit in my lap and nap. Once she gets big enough to fit into a harness, I’m going to try to leash train her. We’ll see. For now, I’m really enjoying her kitty-hood.

Now onto gardening fun! I have to correct myself. I’ve been incorrectly telling you that I have squash plants. I actually have zucchini plants. And the one in SFG box # 1 has started to flower (below).

The flowers haven’t opened up yet, and I don’t know if they are male or female, but they look promising! Little zucchinis are about to be born! I love the yellow color in the flowers. That’s the beauty of vegetable gardening—you get the flavorful fruit as well as the pretty flowers.

Below: A close look at the big, pretty soon-to-be flower

It's hard to believe that that zucchini plant used to be a seed that we planted inside. When we first transplanted it, it flopped over and didn't stand up straight for weeks! And now look at it! Getting nice and big!

I pulled out the diseased zucchini from the soil because I didn't have the patience to wait and see what it would do. But the ones that were left are doing better now. They are slowly getting larger, and their stems are intact.

Below: The other zucchini plants

The cucumbers that I planted last week are still blooming. This time, they have new flowers! I’m not sure about the sex of the flower, but there are two sets. One yellow, and one white. Either way, I have both sexes. It looks like fuzzy cucumbers are growing behind a few of the flowers. I don't particularly care for the look of these flowers, but at least they produce vegetables.

Below: The cucumber flowers

One of my favorite summer sandwiches is a cucumber and tomato sandwich with mayo and dill. Maybe in July, I can harvest the ripe vegetables for my sandwich. That'll be so exciting!

P.S. For Tina: I'll end up posting more about what square foot gardening is, but I'm going to wait until Cam and I decide to build more boxes to describe our process. We don't follow everything the founder of SFG, Mel Bartholomew, recommends. We probably should, but we don't. I love experiments, as you've probably noticed. :-)

10 comments:

tina said...

That kitty sure looks better now. All cleaned up and fluffy. Lucky it to have you as a new mommy.

You can wait as long as you want to post about SFG. I will follow along.

DP, if you pull everything that is not going well in the garden, you may wind up with nothing! Be patient. Time sometimes works all things out.

Thanks for commenting on my sister's blog.

Dawn said...

Okay, kitty is black like my coon, that explains it. He's my shadow too!

DP Nguyen said...

Tina,
Aw thank you! I really love Luka. I feel like her mommy! And I'll try to be more patient with my unhealthy plants. But haha, the good thing is that every time I pull something out, I replace it with another plant! :-)

Dawn,
I hope Luka ends up being my shadow. It's like having a dog... kind of :-)

Gail said...

Found kittens are so loyal...they chose you, that's how they got found!

I don't know where you get your plants but someone wrote on a blog that has shut down, that the plants may all originate at the same place but they use different soil for the Big Box stores ...it isn't as good , etc...and I wonder about good root development when we put them in the ground....it may take a bit longer as Tina says.

Just out of curiosity, do you mean to have word verification on your comments page? I ask because I never realized it was a default setting and I couldn't see it on mine! It's ok if you do, but when I first started out I didn't know!

Gail

DP Nguyen said...

Hi Gail,

I got my first few plants from Home Depot and Lowe's, but the later, we went to a local nursery in Mt. Juliet. The ones at the local nursery seem much healthier and they are growing faster!

I didn't know about word verification. I'll have to take it off. I find it annoying sometimes because it's hard to make out the letters. Thanks for letting me know!

Mick said...

Lucky kitten to have a loving mum and dad like your good selves. We have 3 cats. Two rescued from our local Humane Society and one which wandered into our lives as an abandoned kitten.

I must mention something about word verification to you dp.

My wife didn't have it turned on when she started her blog and one day, literally seconds after she composed a new post a comment was left with a "clickable link" in it.
I followed the link and it was a scam to download fake anti virus software. Luckily she was able to delete the comment before anyone could be scammed.
Word varification can be a pain but it does stop this kind of automatic commenting, I'd hate anyone to get scammed from my or anybody elses blog.

Be careful out there folks!

Skeeter said...

I also have two black beauties! They came to us from the woods within 4 months of our beloved 16 year old yellow fella Skeeter passing away. I was so hurt by his loss and when these two came bouncing out from the woods, my life has been filled with love and joy of pets again. Like your Luka, my girls Sheba and Cheetah found us! Sheba is the Queen mother to Cheetah and baby Cheetah (AKA Monkey Girl) is my shadow. But let me warn you, having a Shadow can be a pain in the butt at times. She is so needy that I have major guilt when breaking our morning routine! I go outside to play in the garden and look around to see big Amber eyes looking at me from within. I see her pearly white teeth as she cries for me to come back inside. My babies stay inside only for their protection from such scary things as coyotes... Leash training would be great! Anyway, congrats on your new baby…

tina said...

Skeeter, You should watch the video of how she got Luka. For me the funniest part was hearing everyone laugh at the situation.

DP Nguyen said...

Skeeter, here is the link if you are interested!!!!
http://fox17.com/newsroom/top_stories/vid_1861.shtml

Skeeter said...

I did see it. Too cute...