Carrots at LAST!

In May, I planted a bunch of carrot seeds. I was very careless about it. I planted several seeds in one hole, and continued in that fashion. And then I waited for them to grow. Their green tops came first. And now, three months after I first planted them, I decided to pull all of them.

Two of my carrots looked ready. Its orange flesh was popping out of the soil. I couldn't help myself. I took a picture and then I pulled it.

Three months is long enough!

Below: The carrots before I pulled them. Don't they look ready?

When I pulled them, I noticed that they were rather small. The carrots that you see in the grocery store are beautiful and long. Maybe that's because those farmers use chemicals to make them grow larger? Whatever the reason, I was rather disappointed. I did not use any chemicals on my carrots. I just watered them and let them grow.

Below: They don't look too bad. They are short, but still edible

I must confess that planting all those seeds in the one hole was a big mistake. I think I should have spaced out the carrots more. They would've had more room to grow and become a bit larger, I think. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Below: These carrots just look funny. They are joined at the "head," but they should still be delicious.

The above carrots were grown in the raised bed in the front yard. In the backyard, where the square foot boxes are located, we planted seeds at the edges of the square and planted other vegetables in the center of each square. As a result, the carrots are extremely small and funky-looking. But that's okay. Again, lesson learned. Next time, I'll do better.

Below: A line-up of carrots from the Square Foot Garden boxes

My sister put a bunch of the carrots in a soup that she made, and they were very sweet. Even though they were small, they were still packed with tons of flavor. So I guess I grew "baby carrots" instead of full-grown carrots. LoL.

I think I will pop a few more seeds in the ground and see if I can get a fall crop of carrots.

Yesterday, I met some of my fellow TN bloggers (Tina, Gail, Dave, Donna, and Frances), and it was a wonderful time. We talked about the most random things, but it was so great to meet everyone outside of the cyberspace. I'm hoping Tina will post pictures soon, and I will link.

Frances gave me daylilies, which I will plant soon. It will be my first attempt at growing flowers. Hmm, I hope they don't die. LoL.

And Tina made the most beautiful marker stones. I'll post pictures of that soon. I need to decide where to place it.

Ta ta!

Fall Crops

No new photos from the garden today, but my musings for fall crops. In SFG Box # 3, all of the corn has died from lack of water. Partial my fault, I moved the sprinkler, so it only hit box 1 and 2 and missed box 3 completely. It has been fixed now, but time to pull the dead corn.

And to replace the corn, I have four empty squares. What should I plant?

Here are my ideas:

-Broccoli
-More carrots
-Garlic
-Lettuce
-Spinach
-Peas

Anyone have any other suggestions?

I've never planted broccoli before, so it will be a fun experience. I plan to plant the seeds in small containers and transplant the seedlings at a later time. I read that was the best method.

We do have carrots in the garden, but we haven't pulled them. We don't know how long to wait before pulling them. We want nice-sized carrots to eat. So should I plant more carrot seeds? They take so long to grow.

Below: The carrot leaves before the zucchini got huge and covered them up


Tina from In the Garden had an amazing garlic harvest earlier this year. She said they were pretty easy to grow, so I'm gonna give them a try this fall. Tina--When is the best time to plant the garlic?

I grew lettuce in the garden earlier this year, and I had a nice harvest... until the slugs started eating the lettuce leaves. That was rather disgusting. I think this time around, I will not attempt another lettuce head variety. Maybe I'll experiment and grow romaine or iceberg. I love romaine lettuce... Maye red lettuce.

Below: My beautiful and yummy lettuce before it bolted and became inedible


We grew spinach this spring too. They were delicious when we ate them, but sadly, as soon as it got hot, the spinach flowered, and then died. Yikes. I may give it another go-around.

Finally peas. I planted them from seed this summer, but I guess the heat got to them, and they all died. I think they will be better suited this fall.

Below: The healthy seedlings before the heat got to them


Who knows if I'll actually get around to planting all these vegetables, but who knows? I just might!

Thanks to Dan from Urban Veggie Garden Blog for the info about fall crops.

Hot Weather, Watermelon and New Seedlings

Boy has it been hot in Nashville! I've never wanted it to rain more than I do today. Even poor Luka thinks its too hot. Late yesterday afternoon, we took a nice walk around the neighborhood and she was perfectly behaved. I believe she is now officially leashed-trained, but today she didn't even want to leave her air-conditioned sun room. She just laid there and hugged my leg.

My plants are also taking a beating. These peas that Cam and I planted a few weeks ago are starting to die yellow and die (see below).

I really think that it must be the heat. Before all the hot weather, these pea seedlings were green and thriving. Now look at them. They're not getting any bigger, and every day I discover any leaf that has yellowed. It's really depressing.

I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings... I hope the rain revitalizes my garden. But from the looks of things, this hot weather is slowly killing many of my hopeful vegetables. So far, only the lettuce, tomato plants, and strawberry plants seem to be unaffected. More on this dilemma in a post later this week.

Turning over to my garden at my parents' house. My sister and I planted lettuce seeds and carrot seeds last week, and they've started to sprout. I think we'll need to thin it out somehow, but everything looks good so far!

Below: The lettuce (left and middle row) and carrot (right row) seedlings


Below: The carrot seedlings up-close


The watermelon plants are also doing very well in this weather. The plant (below) was only planted a few weeks ago, but it's starting to flower! I'm feeling very hopeful.

Now let's hope that the hot weather doesn't start affecting these plants as well! *sighs* I want the rain to come. Maybe I'll do a little rain dance for fun. :-)

Carrots and Squash in SFG Backyard

I was running out of the SFG boxes a while back, so I decided to plant a few carrot seeds near the corn seedling in Box # 1.

The top portion of the carrots (the green leaves) are doing very well. They seem to be growing larger and taller every day. I'm wondering how fast the actual carrot is growing underneath the soil! I guess I'll have to wait to find out.

Unfortunately for us, this corn plant probably won't get any taller. We didn't realize that corn needs to cross-pollinate, and it'll be unsuccessful unless there are several stalks planted next to each other. Oh well. Another gardening lesson learned.

Another view of the same SFG square:


Next to the corn and carrots, we planted squash seedlings. Out of all the squash we're growing, it seems to be doing the best. It's not growing as fast as I'd like, but it is slowly getting taller and its leaves are getting wider. It will probably be a while before I see any inkling of baby squash.


In SFG Box # 2, we have a squash plant that doesn't seem to be doing that well. It's still pretty small, and some of its leaves are yellowing. I'm not sure why it's so tiny. Perhaps it's getting more sunlight than it really needs. The squash (above) might be doing better because it's shaded a bit by the foliage of the concord grapes.


Finally, here is another squash plant that we planted a while ago. This is its baby picture. We've planted 5-6 squares with squash. They are all growing at a slow, but steady pace.

To get the seedlings, we planted the squash seeds in one of those seed starter dome kits. We actually planted a bunch of different vegetable seeds--corn, squash, bell pepper, beans--but the squash and corn were the only seeds that actually worked.



The squash seedlings were planted in the SFG, and I wish they were doing better. But I guess it's just going to take them more time.