Garden Preparation

Today is our day for garden preparation. We will be tilling to loosen the soil, which has been baking with no water for several weeks. The last couple of days we put the drip lines on and moistened the soil so it will be ready for tilling today. The nursery's are starting to carry fall tomato seedlings, and the Maricopa County planting calendar says now is the time to get those in the ground although the nursery person told me it is still too hot. So we will till the soil today and incorporate all the material in the mulch pile.

Harvest Season

It is an early harvest this year. Today we picked our second bowl of tomatoes, which is something that usually doesn't happen until mid to late May. The yellow tomatoes are volunteers.

Out with the old...

The peas have succumbed to warm weather and age, but the beans we sprouted in the shed and then set in the garden yielded their first harvest for Sunday dinner this past weekend. One of the joys of gardening is learning to take advantage of what is currently available, while looking forward to things that will come again next year.

Cucumbers

We sprouted cucumbers in the shed, and took photos nearly every day until we set them out into the garden:

So far, so good. They are growing outside now.

Bush Beans

These are the bush beans. We've had so much trouble in past years with birds picking the seeds out of the ground that we tried sprouting the seeds inside this year. It took about two weeks and thus far only one plant was damaged by birds after we set them out.

We also sprouted a batch of pole beans in the shed and (Purple Pod) and set those out yesterday:

Guatemalan Blue Squash

Here is the Guatemalan Blue squash. The seeds are very thick and orange in color. The first two leaves are large - must be from the same squash family as pumpkin. At least one of these survived the birds plucking....

Stupid Birds

I have nothing against birds... until they decide to rip three-inch tall plants out of the ground and leave them there to desiccate in the sun. We found two nice, healthy Guatemalan blue squash seedlings laying on the ground today, and one of the bush beans is missing. All in all not a bad season but I wish the birds would leave the garden alone. After all, we provide nesting materials for every bird in the neighborhood when we mulch the yard waste after pruning each season. They should be grateful.

We set out purple pod pole beans today and created a custom ladder to heaven for them to climb on. Photos tomorrow....