Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 43 Entries. Sunday, February 20 View Page Figured I'd throw some photos up since Wile Coyote messaged me about where I've been. I've been taking care of the family, having a baby, and going to work 10 hours a day. On my "spare time" (har har..) I've started building an enclosed garden for my veggies. As Gandalf would say "Keep it secret, Keep it safe." I'm using 4"x 4" x 12' posts from home depot that warped really badly. they were delivered by home depot and man, they are twisted all kinds of ways! one of the posts was broken and someone wrote in sharpie "broken" on it. But i digress... Most of this garden is for eating, but i have like 4-5 competition seeds that i started. Anything could happen! One was from my Hydra tomato, one was a McCoy plant that produced a great heavy, round tomato. I think i may be wrapping up soon with some of my busy projects around the house and i will have more time to dedicate to growing stuff. This photo is on February 20th, 2022   Sunday, April 3 View Page By April, i have my plants in that i started from seed as well as some plants from the local nursery (green acres) There are Swiss Chard, Fennel, Garlic, Yellow squash, Gray squash, Spaghetti Squash, Dragon Bean, Chicago Pickling Cucumber, Double Sunking Sunflowers, Borage Flowers, Lime/pink zinnias, Basil, rosemary, Thornless Boysenberry, Strawberry Shortcake Raspberry, Purple Tree Kale, and about 14 tomato plants, some lettuce, some onions, a blueberry plant. There may be something i missed.   Friday, April 29 View Page 04/29/22 Everything is coming in nicely. some yellowing going on with the squash but i think they will be fine. More photos to come.   Saturday, May 14 View Page The wife and kids in the butterfly exhibit at Six Flags. A Blue Morpho landed on my neck and I made friends with an Atlas moth. It was an amazing greenhouse.   Sunday, May 15 View Page My baby, Madison. Her smile lights up the room! she was an 8 pounder when she was born. I was 10 pounds. lol funny to think that tomatoes are getting that big now for the top growers.   Monday, May 16 View Page Mr. Peacock "Pepe" comes by our window every morning and fans his feathers.   Friday, May 20 View Page we have a whole army of turkeys because we feed them seed... now look at them eyeing my goods! I have bird netting to put over the top of the garden, just need to find the time to do it!   Friday, May 20 View Page The Skidger is my favorite new gardening tool!   Friday, May 20 View Page I done messed up with my labels. The sharpie didn't last and I don't really know what's what right now. -_-   Friday, May 20 View Page The Thornless Boysenberry seems happy in the hoophouse.   Friday, May 20 View Page This may be a Brandywine Tomato. The leaves look impressive.   Friday, May 20 View Page one of the mysterious competition tomato plants.   Friday, May 20 View Page mysterious tomato plant number 2   Friday, May 20 View Page Mysterious tomato #3   Friday, May 20 View Page Garden progress photo. The hot weather is making these plants grow FAST. We have already been enjoying our Swiss Chard, Mizuna, and Lettuce. There are several, maybe 6 tomatoes growing.   Monday, May 23 View Page Under the cloak of night, a fertilizer injector is installed and Math is performed (Gasp!). 23 oz of Growth products Triple12 was put inside along with blue food color to check flow. Figure out the flow was something like 87.5 gph by checking multiplying the drip tape flow by number of holes. 14 lines with 25 holes in each line which equals 350 holes total. multiply that by .25 gph which equals 87.5 gallons per hour. the white flow disc was installed and the food coloring was added to the mix to see that it was actually flowing out of the canister since the canister always stays full. some other sorcery was used by my dad to figure out how many oz of the Triple12 to add.   Monday, May 23 View Page ABSORB IT! AND GROW!   Monday, May 23 View Page Fertilizing at night seems like a good idea to me. We'll see!   Thursday, June 9 View Page Look who decided to swarm right by the front door!   Thursday, June 9 View Page Dad bought a beehive and shook them into it. They seem to like their new house. I had never seen a swarm like this before. We were like "what is that moving around in the air over there!?"   Thursday, June 9 View Page The Garden is really coming to life. I was out with Covid for like 2 weeks. Wife and both kids and I got it. The kids were mostly only affected for a day with a fever. Was like a nasty flu for me.   Thursday, June 9 View Page I grew some Borage flowers AKA "cucumber flowers" for my daughter. They are supposed to taste like cucumbers. The plants themselves are fairly prehistoric looking and the pollinators like them so they get a thumbs up from me.   Thursday, July 21 View Page For the weight and heft of this tomato i was impressed by the roundness and overall shape (besides the cracking). It was tasty! My mostly food garden is really providing lots of food this year. Just had butternut squash soup, which my wife made last night which was excellent. Lots of tomatoes were put in the freezer to can at a later date.   Thursday, July 21 View Page This is kind of getting away from me but the food is abundant! Those are spaghetti squash that are hanging on the trellis. They seem to be getting bigger than the ones growing on the ground.   Thursday, July 21 View Page A view of the tomato area. :) Next season I'm sure I'll figure out the spacing and support better. This year i was just lucky i actually managed to sprout my plants and get them in the ground in time!   Thursday, July 21 View Page Saswampo posted about the "Leaf Sepal Phenomenon" and it made me have a flashback! Your tomato is the only other I've seen do that!   Sunday, July 24 View Page My biggest one for the season, more than likely. What is impressive is that this plant was just inundated with large tomatoes, like 10 of similarly sized tomatoes and I only fertilized the garden maybe 3 times so far. So I am very happy with this plant, whatever it is. I'll be planting more of these for sure!   Sunday, July 24 View Page Here is the weight on that one.   Sunday, July 24 View Page This is my second basket of tomatoes this weekend. I'm going to freeze them and then can them whole. There must be at least 60lbs so far of tomatoes.   Tuesday, July 26 View Page Picked this one last night. These plants are putting out lots of 2+ pounders this year.   Wednesday, July 27 View Page and the heaviest one yet. It didnt look like it would weigh more than the other one. This is the maccoy plant (tomato on the right).   Monday, August 1 View Page I saved the seeds from my best producing tomato that gave me tons of 2 pounders which i plan to grow again and the 2.4lb maccoy descendant tomato to regrow as well.   Monday, August 1 View Page Washing the tomatoes to make sauce.   Monday, August 1 View Page The canning assembly line for canning the Roma tomatoes.   Monday, August 1 View Page Sauce complete! tastes delicious!   Monday, September 12 View Page Garden Entry Overview   Friday, September 16 View Page I planted 12 broccoli plants, 6 purple cauliflower, 6 white cauliflower and 6 brussels sprouts on the left side of the garden. It was 116 degrees in the garden when they were planted and i was worried they wouldn't make it but i just ran the sprinklers sever times per day and they survived!   Friday, September 16 View Page Picking some tomatoes and queen lime zinnias for my wife.   Saturday, September 17 View Page I found a Ton of these bugs on my tree kale plant in the garden. They killed the plant outright. i threw it in the chicken coop, hoping the chickens would eat the bugs. I think they are harlequin bugs which inject the plant with stuff that disintegrates them and then they suck out the nutrients. Now they are attacking my Brussels sprouts and broccoli.   Sunday, September 18 View Page i sprinkled the whole left side of my garden with Diatomaceous earth which i read kill these harlequin bugs. i have noticed only one or two in the garden a week later after applying so i say it was a success. i will apply more this weekend.   Sunday, September 18 View Page Yuxi Jiang Bing Gua chinese squash i'm growing. I planted it at the same time i planted all of the other squash in spring. as soon as i ripped out a bunch of the other squash plants that had outlived their usefulness this one completely took over the right half of the garden. I didnt even know it was still alive.   Sunday, September 18 View Page You can eat these as young green sprouts like a summer squash or wait until they turn tan and have hard rinds to eat them.   Sunday, September 18 View Page we brushed them with olive oil and added salt and pepper and roasted them. they remind me of a sweet potato that isnt very sweet.