The Gardener's Pledge

Some of my earliest memories are of the gardens of my family.  I can remember traipsing through my grandfather's garden on the heels of my mother and sister with corn grown up so high I would get lost just a foot or two behind them.  I remember all of us eating baby ears of corn just picked, fresh and raw, and what a sweet taste that was.

I remember my great grandfather's garden in east Texas and how proud my great grandmother was when she showed us the towering metal cages they used to support his green pepper plants.  Plants that I now realize were amazingly tall and robust, the likes of which I have not seen since.  I remember that same trip playing in the sand near the rows of vegetables and somewhat vexing my great grandfather with my antics.  As I recall, the smoothness of the sand inspired me to pretend I was a mermaid and thus I was 'swimming' on my belly and basically getting in his way as he was tending to his garden.

My parents also garden.  Not the big vegetable gardens of my grandparents and great grandparents, but blooming plants and fruit trees and fragrant bushes and also the occasional small vegetable garden.  Many of these family gardens have been successful and many have also yielded disappointment, much like my own gardening endeavors.

What I wish is that I had been the kind of child that would have been absorbed in my great grandfather's incredible garden and have more than just minor glimpses into how he was so successful.  I wish that when I had the opportunity to observe my step-grandfather's incredible garden I had been more questioning about the why and how of it all.  I wish for more of their knowledge to bolster my own gardening progress.  I especially wish that I had found out how my great grandfather grew those enormous bell pepper plants, so robust, dark green and tall (mind you, four year old children generally don't question their elders about compost, caging and care of vegetable plants.  Not when there is such excellent sand to swim in...).

So here I am with some memories and a few insights gleaned from my family history of gardening, mostly learning from my own 25 years of mistakes and successes in organic gardening while I plan and implement this years grand organic vegetable heaven. Last year was a good year and many, if not most of the things I attempted to do in the spring garden worked well.

For example, last year with just six tomato plants I harvested 50 pounds of tomatoes in one month. That was just one months worth. The total amount of tomatoes harvested was... (looking back at last years calendar.... adding totals....) a whopping 90 pounds from just the spring/summer garden. I didn't even record the tomatoes I harvested from the fall garden.

And tomatoes were only a small part of the yield. There were cucumbers ( 65 pounds ) peppers ( 7.5 pounds from just 2 plants ) green beans ( 13 pounds ) squash ( 12 pounds ) okra ( 10 pounds ) figs ( 29 pounds ) and sweet potatoes (63 pounds). There were also lesser amounts of things like onions, cabbage, turnips, basil and lettuce.

Most of the harvest was done throughout April, May and June and then a smaller amount of things in the fall October and November. So basically I am saying that last years garden was a success in many things and could have been better in other things. I am planning for this years garden to be even better.
 
There is just one small troubling thing.  My current activities are forecasting my future activities. For this to all work out I have to make a commitment to the garden. A pledge if you would that will guide me and possibly others into the potential success of organic gardening.

The Organic Gardener's Pledge

1. I solemnly swear that I will plant only the things I will eat. 
(Unless of course it is something my dogs will eat, then I can also plant that. Or maybe something I think I will eat because it sounds like it would be good. Or maybe I have eaten something like it or it sounds like something I should eat.)

2. I pledge to not over-plant my garden with too many plants in too small of an area. 
(Unless of course it looks like it will fit right now when all the plants are so small and the garden area looks so empty. And of course since the plants came with three or four to a cell and what am I expected to do with the extras? Just kill them? Those poor baby plants who didn't do a thing wrong in this world except sprout? And do the instructions really mean that you have to have 36 inches between the rows? I mean, that is three whole feet and my garden beds are just seven feet long. Do they really expect me to only put in two of these in a seven foot bed? And after all there is this thing called square foot gardening which if I recall slightly, was about putting a whole bunch of plants together in a square foot area and they all do just fine and even the weeds can't grow because they are so densely packed. And after all, I don't want to limit the harvest just because I haven't planted enough. And wasn't I just skimming the Rodale's Organic Gardening book for the seven thousandth's time and dimly recalling how many plants it takes to feed a family.)

3. I pledge to water and weed my garden daily. 
(Unless of course I don't have time this morning and then I will do it this afternoon. Unless this afternoon it is too hot or I am too tired and then for sure I will water it first thing in the morning. And after all the weeds are really not a problem when they are small and I can do a whole lot in a little time, so why fuss so much every day.)

 4. I pledge to amend the soil and fertilize with fish emulsion as well as bone meal and compost as often as the garden needs it.
(Unless of course I forget to amend the soil prior to planting. And you don't actually have to amend the entire bed. Planting the plants in a deep hole in the bed you have filled with pure compost works fine. Bone meal can be sprinkled around each plant. And fish emulsion has to be made up in two or three gallon batches which then have to be portioned out to each plant - times all the plants - and maybe some of them don't actually need as much. And maybe this fish meal I just got this year will work as well or better than the fish emulsion as long as the opossums don't dig up the plants trying to get to the tasty, tasty fish emulsion.)

5. I pledge to trellis and tie back all the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers to keep the from blocking pathways or shading other plants. 
(Unless I don't have time for that. And really I can just prop them up a bit for now and tie them up when I find wherever it is I hid the string. And tomatoes really are a vine that can grow along the ground and they produce fruit just fine as long as you don't mind the occasional slug bite. And once they have overgrown you practically have to perform some sort of martial arts round house kick to get them to let go of what they are currently adhered to in order to tie them to what you want them to ride up (I am talking to you cucumbers!).)

6. I pledge to harvest the produce at the peak of ripeness.
(Unless we are talking tomatoes which get pecked by birds once they turn even slightly red. And you can't always find those darn cucumbers and end up with the classic cucumber baseball bat - how did something that big hide there? And what with all the watering and weeding and tying up of things just how am I supposed to find time to harvest the beans? And if we are talking figs, between the five to 9 trees that will produce figs this year who require me to get up at the crack of dawn to beat the birds into the trees - and suffer near heart spasms from the leaping grass hoppers that station themselves in the trees - and practically hurtle myself off the ladder I need to reach the tallest branches - and the fact that figs are fragile and don't pack well so just how are you supposed to process 10 pounds of figs every single day?!!)

7. I pledge to remove spent plants and maintain the beds so that each season's crops are planted and ready to go.
(Unless I just give up around late July through September because honestly, nothing is producing. The plants are just barely hanging on with wilted sun scorched leaves and saying 'Kill me...', but I am too heat sodden to even lift a shovel their direction. Wake me when it is less than 100 degrees in the shade, you know, around November...)

And so I have taken the pledge.  I will once again hurtle headlong into the spring with garden gloves on and an optimistic outlook.  Life is good.

The passing of the torch...

As we have entered the summer time garden phase there has been a changing of the guards in the harvest horizon.  Gone are the tomatoes and cucumbers with their incredibly prolific yields that strained the kitchen counters, refrigerators and time allotment to my morning gardening.  However, the garden replaces these wonderful pickings with another abundant crop. Make way for fig and okra time.

Fig time involves getting up at dawn, dressing in the most mosquito proof clothing you can stand to wear and climbing up and down ladders then moving the ladders to climb up and down them again.  Repeat the ladder moving a dozen more times.  Fig time involves a search for the ripe figs, contemplation regarding whether the fig is ripe enough to pick, frustration over perfect figs some bird or squirrel has mouthed and shear terror that only testing the limits of ladder, balance and reach can create.  All of this before you even have a chance to grab a cup of tea.

Last year fig time had several weeks of pounds of figs per day harvest out of one tree.  This year there are three trees.  Thankfully the first tree to go ripe was the small 5 year old who gave us about two pounds of fruit total.  We did not get very much from that tree because it is 'dog high' and the canine unit steadily denuded it.

The biggest tree is absolutely covered with figs that ripen daily.  I know how to pick this tree as I have done it every year.  The wild card was the 10 year old tree.  It is huge and gangly.  Last year with the drought, it did not produce much fruit.  This year it too is covered with fruit.  Between both of these trees I have been spending about a half hour to an hour each day picking figs and will do so until it finally ends sometime in mid-July or whenever I just can't stand to do it one more day.

How much will the fig harvest net this year?   So far my daily yields have been between 2 pounds to 10 pounds per day.  People have been asking me what I am doing with all of this fig.  Aside from eating as many as I can stuff into my mouth I am sharing them.  Family members are making fig preserves this year.  Friends are being treated to fresh figs.  I have met several people who have admitted that they have never eaten a fig before. Well, that kind of fig ignorance just can't be allowed.  I am the ambassador of figs.

Now although the figs get a lot of my attention, the okra also has to be attended daily.  The hotter it gets the more the okra loves it.  Okra goes from flowering to tiny pod to vegetable stalagmite in a very short time.  You want to pick the pods when they are just a couple of inches long because once it reaches the stalagmite stage, okra is becomes very woody.  These woody pods can be cooked and the seeds inside eaten, but that is not as appealing as the tender pods.  Our dogs however absolutely love those long pods and we give the ones that get to that stage to them.  Vegetable chew toys.

So, okra needs to be picked daily and it requires a special technique.  The okra plant has a lot of stiff hairs on its stems and on the pods.  These hairy quills become an irritant to your hands if you try to break off a pod.   Using a glove does not work because you don't want a dirty glove touching the pod of the okra.  The pod itself is tender and although you wash it, the skin is permeable, so you want to keep it clean.  My solution is to use scissors and bare hands.  I still end up with a bit of irritation but very little.  The biggest problem with this method is keeping track of the scissors.  Typically I will lose several pairs of scissors over one okra season.

So, as I have said before, the garden never sleeps.  It does have a changing of the guard from one season to the next, but it always wants my attention.  After the fig/okra has finally petered out, there will be a brief respite from the harvest as we have our annual Mega-Summer celebration involving many days of 100 plus degree temperatures and vows to never step foot in the sweltering garden again.  Then it will be time to plant the fall garden - in all of that sweltering heat.  Good times.

The Harvest Continues...

I think I am beginning to experience cornucopia fatigue.  The garden continues to produce at an extraordinary rate.  Now I feel I must qualify that statement a little in regards to 'extraordinary'.  I am not a novice to gardening by any means (the whole collection of my previous garden rants can be found here: Gardening Deja Vu, The Garden Never Sleeps, Garden Photos - part 1, Garden Awards Spring 2011,  Weeds - part 1, Garden Photos - Part 2, Gardening A,B,C, I am RAIN, Evil Tomato, Figs!, The Garden Marches On, Okra Odyssey, Garden Equity, Garden Check In and Garden Harvest - the haul so far). Some years you have great harvests and some years no matter how much work you have done or time invested - you get nothing. 

Forget Mother Nature.  Sometimes you get Father Wonka.

This year I am discovering the unrelenting agony of success.  Sure every year the garden needs me like a two day old abandoned kitten but this year I have the added guilt stab of the harvest.  If I don't get out there and pick those beans or tomatoes or cucumbers they are not going to pick themselves.  Oh no!  That luscious organic produce is going to go over-prime on the vine and blah, blah, blah... starving children overseas!  Or something like that plays out in my mind.

Okay, okay, so I go out and pick it all.  Just where does one store 68 tomatoes that are currently hanging out on my kitchen counter finishing the ripening process  (Let me tell you the myth of 'vine ripened' tomatoes - you might as well just call them bird pecked tomatoes and toss them right into the compost pile...).  There is only so much room in the fridge where I can store the five gallon-sized bags filled with cucumbers.  And the beans... well, okay, those are pretty small, but still - two pounds of beans is a lot to have hanging out waiting to be cooked and eaten.

We are overrun and by now even our friends and family are getting a little gun shy about me approaching them with plastic bags.  "More cucumbers?" they say, looking for the nearest escape. Yes.

So, let me reveal the garden productivity for this last week from 5/23/12 to 5/30/12:

Cucumbers

Total weeks harvest = 20 pounds

Although the pickle plant is suffering from mildew, it is still producing some great tasting offerings and the burpless hybrid are doing what they always do.  They are completely impervious to any plant disease and rocking the garden with constant productivity.  The only thing that will stop them is the upcoming unrelenting heat which will bake the flowers to dust before they can set fruit.  Until then it is a cucumber world.

Bush Beans

Total weeks harvest = 3 pounds

The first planting of about a dozen plants is showing signs of old age, but still setting beans.  The second planting has been doing great, but even it is having a little trouble with the heat.  I don't recall just when they give up, but I don't think it will be that much longer that they can hold out.  I estimate that by July we will see the last of the beans.

Peppers

Total weeks harvest = 1/2 pound - which is deceptive since they don't weigh very much.  About a dozen peppers in all.

The pepper plants continue with a modest offering.  Many of the fruit now don't get very large before they start to show the red rosy signs of maturity.  Since I have several varieties, some might continue to set fruit in the heat, but others won't.  The plants will typically survive the summer and might produce again in the fall.

Okra

Total weeks harvest = 1.25 pounds

Finally!  The okra plants have now grown past the 'dog' stage and I am getting to harvest most of the pods.  I know I stated that whatever happened to the okra this year I was going to blame on 'dog', but truer words have never been spoken.  The canine duo are still circling the plants like sharks, hoping for a low hanging pod.  Now when I am out there harvesting they hunker at my feet as if begging from the kitchen table for scraps. I don't relent because this 'okra predation' is the type of behavior I would like to extinct in my hounds.

Tomatoes

Total weeks harvest = 25 pounds

Well.  This continues to be a pinnacle year for the tomato harvest.  I definitely did something right with these guys this year because all of our productivity has been taken from five plants.

The two Creole tomatoes definitely are winning on numbers with one of them having set over 70 fruit and the other over 30.  Many of these fruit are in the half pound range.

BN444 - "Bunny" is the winner in HUGE fruit.

Many of Bunny's fruit are in the one pound range and they are beautiful.  Too bad Bunny is determinate and after all this fruit is gone she will be done for the year.

Here are eight of Bunny's fruit together weighing in at 5 1/2 pounds.

Top Gun is awesome and has quietly produced mostly half pound fruit that are the prettiest unblemished fruit I have ever seen.  The plant itself looks awesome and may go on to produce another crop.  It did not say on the tag whether this was determinate or indeterminate, so we shall see.

Big Boy has had a come from behind recovery from whatever befell it earlier this spring.  It has produced some moderate to small sized fruit.  Quite a lot actually, but the fruit are sort of ugly looking with tops that won't turn red and look a little wrinkly.  I think this is from the ?whatever? sickness it suffered from since I have grown this type before without this kind of issue.  Now though it is definitely setting new fruit and its new growth is out of this world healthy.  It may finish with a big bang of a harvest and be the longest producer of them all this year.

The month of May totals

Cucumbers = 40.5 pounds
Beans = 9.25 pounds
Basil = 2 pounds
Okra = 1.75 pounds
Pepper = 3.5 pounds
Butternut squash = 8.75 pounds
Tomatoes = 53 pounds!

Some people when I tell them about my garden harvest ask me "How many acres?"  There is not even one acre.  The entire area of our garden takes up just a small part of our back yard.  We have ten 3x6 foot beds along the fence on one side of our yard, a 3x9 foot and 3x12 foot bed in another area and a 3x6 and a couple of 3x3 foot beds in another area.  You don't have to have 'land' in order to have an over-abundance of produce.  What you need is good dirt and that you make yourself through composting.  Coming up I will share our secret of making great soil.  Stay tuned.

Garden Harvest - the haul so far...

If you have been reading this blog you already know that I garden as I talked about in  The Garden Marches On  and in the update of Garden Check In.  Well, I thought I would take a break from harvesting all of our garden produce to run the numbers on what we have picked so far and to talk about the major contenders in the garden produce competition.  Yes, my plants are pitted in a knock down drag out fight with one another to win my love through relentless production.  The winner gets my eternal love, devotion and an extra shot of fish emulsion the loser gets my ridicule and maybe not as much water at the end of the season.  You definitely want to be on the winning team in my garden.

Here is what the garden has produced so far:

Basil

Lots of globe basil which has a very rich smell and taste and stays compact if you clip it frequently.  So far I have harvested a pound of it and it is still growing strong.  It is trying to bolt, but clipping off the outermost stems will set it back into leaf production and encourage its compact growth.


May Harvest:  1 pound
Over-all Garden grade: A+ so far

Cilantro

A constant supply of bolting cilantro.  Just what is up with this cilantro?  I just get it to a size that in a couple of weeks it might have enough leaf stalks to use for a recipe and then I turn my back and WHAM!- look at all the pretty flowers.  This is not the first year I have had this problem, in fact it is the umpteenth year this same scenario has played itself out.  I do not have the cilantro gift. 

April Harvest: zero
May Harvest:  zero
Over-all Garden grade: F!  final grade  (okay, its bolting flowering self looks pretty cute, so at least it has that going for it)

Squash

The butternut squash we tried this last fall for the first time has made a wonderful addition to our lives again this spring.  The plants are looking a little bedraggled from the heat, but there are several squash on the vine and several already harvested.  Plus, not a sign of the dreaded squash vine borer yet!


May Harvest:  6.25 pounds - all in the last week
Over-all Garden grade: A+ so far

Okra

The plants are doing wonderful and have been producing fruit.  Unfortunately the plants are still suffering from 'dog'.  My two canine gardeners are enjoying almost every single pod these plants produce.  It is hilarious to watch them sniff out the pods and reach up to snap them off with their sharp middle teeth.  The plants are getting tall now and almost out of Westie range, but this morning I saw him trying to climb a plant to get to that sweet, sweet, okra ambrosia.  Raw okra as a dog delicacy.  Who knew?


May Harvest:  1/2 pound
Over-all Garden grade: A+ so far for the plants - Grow little plants.  Grow big and tall and out of doggie range soon so I can enjoy your bounty.

Onions

The onions were pitiful this year. In my second ceder bed the few that survived produced a half dozen less than golf ball sized bulbs.  My other onion bed did a little better, but this is nothing like the wonderful crop I got last year.  I have managed to make about three onion braids in all, but there is far less fruit and they are very small. 

April Harvest:   1 pound
May Harvest:   1.5  pounds
Over-all Garden grade: C-  (final grade - all have been harvested) 

Leeks

The leeks are going strong, but not at a harvest size yet except for a couple I pulled just to see how they were doing.  I am unfamiliar with leek habit, so I presume they will continue to grow, but who knows.  Perhaps they are pulling a fast one and just sitting there taking up water and fish emulsion, plotting to die before I get to harvest them.  


May Harvest:  1 pound
Over-all Garden grade: B+ so far

Peppers

The pepper plants have been producing a great crop of well formed fruit.  Both the banana pepper and the gypsy are going strong and are the best producers.  It looks as if they will continue to set fruit if the temperatures stay under 90.  The Corno de Torro produced quite a nice crop but is slow to set new fruit.  It may be more sensitive to the hotter temperatures.  The mild Tam jalapeno was slow to get started but it is setting a lot of fruit now.  So far so good.  

April Harvest:  1.5 pounds
May Harvest:  3 pounds (1.5 pounds this last week)
Over-all Garden grade:  A+ so far.

Cabbage

The cabbages did alright in all the beds they were in.  They suffered from predation of voracious worms but I was happy to find that hand picking these critters solved the problem and the cabbage heads formed with only a couple of holes in the outer leaves.  A couple of the plants had no holes and I was able to harvest perfect heads.  This being my first year with cabbage made this an exciting discovery for me.  I can grow cabbage!  Now I just have to come up with a whole bunch of cabbage recipes.  

April Harvest: 4 pounds
May Harvest:  3 pounds
Over-all Garden grade: A (final grade - all has been harvested)

 Beans

The bush bean plants have really been churning out their pods.  I have to pick nearly every day.  The plants are lush and not only did the original bed do well, the secondary bed I planted has started to produce as well.  Finally I got something right in the plant a second crop category.

 
April Harvest: 2.25 pounds
May Harvest:  6.25 pounds (3 pounds just this week)
Over-all Garden grade: A+

Cucumbers

The burpless hybrids are doing it again and producing copious amounts of fruit on disease impervious plants.  They are truly garden champions and if they weren't annuals I would be leaving them something in my will.  The pickle cucumbers have also produced but at a more demure pace.  They are also afflicted with the typical cucumber mildew plague which is already taking its toll.  Their fruit however is crisp and tasty so they have that going for them.  Together these plants are way over producing what we can personally eat and I have been giving away many, many pounds of these things to friends and family.


April Harvest: 1.5 pounds
May Harvest:  20.5 pounds (16.5 of that in the last week - eeek!)
Over-all Garden grade: A+ for the burpless hybrid, A- for the pickle type

Tomatoes

Okay, if I say this I run the risk of somehow jinxing everything, but this is quite possibly the best tomato situation I have ever had.  I read what I consider the Bible of gardening info - the original Rodale's Organic Gardening book.  I consult that old green book every year and live by its principles.  No pesticides or inorganic substances - lots and lots of compost, etc.  Well, the section on tomatoes features an article about this guy who planted his tomatoes in pure compost and got "50 tomatoes to the plant" yields.  That has always been the gold standard to me regarding tomato production.  Now, I am not talking about cherry or grape tomatoes, because I have already maxed out on productivity with those types.  What I was longing for was the ultimate large type tomato productivity.  The type of tomatoes that have 1/2 to 1 pound size fruits. 


So, this year I planted all 5 of my tomato plants in pure compost.  The plants did wonderfully in leaf and vine health, which is nothing unusual as far as I was concerned.  They always seem to look great, but the big tomatoes seldom produce much fruit.  I decided to do a fruit count to see how things were going before the fruit began to ripen.  I also wanted to see which of the different types of tomatoes I had planted were the most productive.  Here is what I found:


Top gun  - this tomato is new to me and I don't even know if it is determinate (sets all fruit at once) or indeterminate (sets fruit throughout the season) but it was touted as being good for hot humid conditions.  I counted its green fruit and was delighted to find 31 growing tomatoes.


BN444 "Bunny" - this hybrid was also touted for hot and humid conditions and was a determinate type which I have not used before.  Now Bunny had a major limb disaster after a hail storm, so I wasn't holding out much hope for her productivity, but low and behold she had 27 fruit which considering the 6 fruit she lost in the storm put her totals to 33.


Big Boy - this indeterminate type was causing me all sorts of worry due to loss of leaves which reminded me of late blight issues I had suffered with last year.  I am not sure what exactly is the trouble, but this plant has some sort of problem.  This has probably reduced its fruiting capacity, but I was amazed to find there were 41 fruit on it!


Creole 1: Leeky Creole -  This plant had some seriously huge fruit on it which was causing me anticipatory stress.  What was going to befall the luscious fruit before I could get it to harvest?  The fruit count on Leeky was a promising 32 huge tomatoes.


Creole 2: Corny Creole - This plant had the most lush growth which it turns out was hiding a treasure trove.  The first count I made I figured that I must have made a mistake and recounted several fruit.  So I counted again.  Then I counted a third time.  Something has gone very, very right for this plant because it had set 78 tomatoes.  78!  And the plant is healthy as can be!  And the fruit is very large!  I can't believe I have finally not just met but seriously surpassed my Rodale's Gardening dream.




But of course, set fruit does not equal ripe fruit and there are a whole host of problems getting from point A to point "on the table".  Not every one of those fruit on any of the plants made it to the eating stage.  Top gun has lost 3 due to some hole making creature.  Bunny lost her first fruit to who knows what and also four more to some hole making insect.  Big Boy was visited by some sort of nocturnal 'eat half a tomato' creature that gnawed into a couple of fruit and some of the fruit just up and died.  Both the creoles have lost about six fruit between them for various reasons.   In all there have probably been a dozen to two dozen lost fruit from all the tomatoes so far.  This is hardly a drop in the bucket to what is waiting on the vines.  Here are the totals from all plants so far:


April Harvest: 2 pounds
May Harvest: 28 pounds (21 pounds of that in the last week - eeek! eek! eeeeeek!  - I estimate we have triple that at least on the vines and ripening in the next two weeks)
Over-all Garden grade: A++++++



What does one do with 28 pounds of tomatoes?  Well, we eat as much as we can and give away a whole bunch to friends and family.  Too bad this kind of crop can't go on all year.  Come July there will likely be no tomatoes at all, sniff.

So, that's all for the harvest so far, but stay tuned.  Fig season is about to start, the tomatoes are all going to ripen in the next couple of weeks and the okra will finally outgrow the dogs.  

Garden Check In

April has been bringing showers this year, which is a very welcome thing considering how badly nature treated us last year.  In fact it has been raining so much it really has made it difficult for me to install the rest of my watering system.  In the meantime of course my garden has been growing by leaps and bounds which made it a virtual flora wrestling match to install the last few soaker hoses.  Finally though the last one went in with a bunch of huffing and puffing and sweating on my part.  All that rain makes the low 80 degree weather seem like a sauna. 

I finally got the camera out this evening and decided to take you on a tour of the garden as I saw it today.

First stop is my newest bit of yard art.  I present to you Garden Koi.  He is lurking in the Herbie bed right now, but I will probably move him to a shadier spot to prevent him fading out from the sun.

Now here we are in the second of the ceder fence beds in what I am calling the Leeky-Creole bed.  Here are three of about a dozen Creole tomatoes growing on this plant.  This is my first year with this variety which is touted as being able to set fruit in hot humid weather.  I have only love for this plant - these tomatoes are huge!

Next door to Leeky-Creole is the Big Boy tomato who has some sort of tomato unhappiness going on.  Some of its leaves have died back and the stems look a little purplish as if there is a nutritional issue.  It has plenty of fruit but they are much smaller than the Creole.  Might just be a variety thing, but I swear if this plant pulls a late blight swan dive on me I will yank it from the garden faster than the Border Collie can tear up a new stuffed toy (30 seconds is her new record).  I am already removing the dead leaves as if they are a potential contaminate to my other plants and I use surgical gloves when I handle it in order not to spread any potential gunk. 

It's Bunny!  Lovely BN444 is neck and neck with the Creoles for humongous fruit.  But on a sadder note, Bunny's first fruit went boots up for some unknown reason.  I found it all withered like a tomato raisin on the vine.  No other problems though.  The fruit was so advanced in decay I could not tell what befell it, but I think it must have been some sort of fruit injury.

Here is the other Creole in the Corny-Creole bed.  It also is adorned with bunches of these clusters and barring the descent of tomato poaching insects we should have a great tomato harvest beginning soon.

Here is a representative of the pepper clan from the six plants in the first four beds.  This is a Gypsy variety and all of the peppers are already loaded with fruit.  One more day and we will pick these and many others.  That is one thing for sure about the peppers.  Harvest often or they will get to thinking that their work is done.  We are already in a race against the night time temperatures.  As soon as they climb into the high 70s our peppers will no longer be able to set fruit.

Here are the leeks from the Leeky-Creole bed.  They are a lovely blue-green color which contrasts nicely with the other greens.  Nobody is big enough to harvest yet, but with the rain and warm weather there should be some big stalks coming.

This is the best looking of all six cabbage.  We have had some issues with I guess cabbage worms.  I have found those little guys down in the leaves of the other plants and when I find them I evict them into the dog area.  The resident Border Collie makes quick work of them and then the Westie rolls on them.  A hardy one/two punch in pest control.

Not only is this picture showing you the fence trellis I finally erected today for these burpless hybrid cucumbers, it also is showing you the pathway that I finally finished between the beds.  Okay, I lie, I have only finished five of the between bed pathways and have another four to go.  Okay, another lie - they are not actually finished until I get the ceder mulch for between the stones and the black plastic to put down over the dirt so the damn weeds will stop making my life a constant weed pulling mess.  But other than all of that backbreaking labor to come - I am finished.

Why is it the onion bed always seems to need some sort of makeover.  It did have a hard start with the whole being dug up by opossums in its first few hours as a bed and I also disturbed it by putting in the hay mulch and just recently again by putting in the soaker hose - but still does it have to look so apathetic?  Lift up your fronds (stalks?). Have some pride or something.  Ahh well - as long as it continues to onion it does not have to look pretty.

Collard greens are sort of the emperors among greens.  Unlike turnip or mustard greens, collards have to have a lot of space between each plant.  They are robust and I am sure if they were not tied down by their roots they would be setting off on all sorts of vegetable adventures involving mountains and grizzly bears. 

This started out as just a photo of a sun blasted squash blossom but on further review it revealed one of the bug friends of the garden.  This is an assassin bug and he or she is on the lookout for other bugs.  What you don't see in this photo is the long saber like snout on this thing that it gleefully stabs into other bugs in order to suck out the sweet, sweet bug nectar.  I am very glad they are only about a half an inch long because I shudder to think of having to live in a world if these were Border Collie sized.

Here is a female bloom of the butternut squash.  It will be a couple of days before we know if this fruit set or not.  Meanwhile the rest of the plant is plotting the eventual take over of the entire garden.  I put in six of these into this bed and they are now moving into both beds next to them, the pathways and also eyeing the dog proof fence.  I think butternut squash may be the Kudzu of the squash kingdom.  I will let you know when it has covered our house.

Okay so these pickling cucumbers are looking a little upset and I must admit it is my fault.  They were perfectly happy and beautiful before I went and put in their soaker hose.  This involved me whipping the vines back and forth like some sort of slow vegetable monster rock dance.  I also put in their trellis fence and insisted they use it.  They haven't gotten over it yet.

Stepping out of the ceder fence garden we are met with the promise of things yet to come.  Here is the fig tree displaying three of what will be about a billion figs this year.  The abundant rain is making the fig growth lush and since we didn't trim the tree last year it means I will be doing advanced gymnastics atop the ladder this year in my quest to get my share of the figs from the birds and squirrels.  Stay tuned.

Another up and comer is the Meyer lemon.  This tree is the one I call Lazarus because we found it languishing in a pot that got buried within an enormous hedge of shrimp plant for about two years and was never watered.  Somehow even though it never grew through the pot it managed to survive.  We now have it in a place of honor in the garden and it has shown its thanks by tripling in size.  I always admire the plants I can't kill. 

It is a slow year in okra land, mostly because I decided to start them from saved seeds from last year.  This is Clemson Spinless and it is doing just fine although most are somewhat worm bitten.   No worries they will shake it off and in a couple of weeks they will put out their adult leaves and grow about six inches a day for a while.  This will soon be an okra forest.  On another note, next to this bed I put in about a half dozen Emerald Velvet okra which are supposed to be great.  I now have three of those plants remaining because something was biting the tops off the plants.  Now due to last years okra problems I vowed to blame the dogs for any okra problems this year.  I have done that officially, but just between you and me, it would be a little hard to get a doggie snout past my okra barriers.  I am almost certain this was the work of some little whiskered pest.  Specifically I am talking rodent especially because next to this bed I sprouted some cantaloupe seeds and each morning their tops had been eaten clean off.  I put the seed tray up on a table and yet again the tops were mowed off.  It seems some little critter was ecstatic that I was providing it with an abundant source of fresh sprouts.

Here is the outlier tomato known as Top gun.  He sounds all tough and stuff and I must admit he is sprouting a lot of fruit and has some rather attractive foliage, but just between you and me he doesn't hold a candle to the Creole twins in the ceder fence garden.  But who knows - this guy is supposed to handle the hot weather too, so he might just win the productivity game yet.

Now this plucky little guy is one of several tomato volunteers that applied to be the tomatoes for the Westie this year.  If it looks like it is behind bars that is because it is.  Although these are for the Westie, we must protect them from Big Foot the Border Collie who can make short work of any plant.

This is a view into the grapefruit garden and this is the single yellow squash plant that decided to come up from seed this year.  I do not have high hopes for it because you can almost hear the rumbling of the squash vine borers as they are about to pounce.  Just as soon as this plant sets fruit and that fruit almost gets ripe they will attack and that will be the end of this plant.  So far other than burying the vines I have found no cost effective organic solution to this pest.

Here we have the garden bed name-sake.  This is the first grapefruit that has set this year.  The tree is covered with fruit so far, but it remains to be seen if it will be able to bring any to ripeness.  The tree is still very young, but it is encouraging to see it trying this year.  Last year I don't even recall if it bloomed.

These are bush beans and they are loving life right now.  This year I gave them circular cages like I made for the okra and they are overjoyed. 

Their joy is my joy as is evidenced by the 15 or so incredible beans in my hand.  I had already picked about a dozen of the bush beans earlier this week which makes this enough for the first bean meal this garden season.  Yum.

Here we are at the strictly ornamental bed with the last of the amaryllis that have bloomed this year.  I am not sure of the type because these bulbs were given to me from someone who forces the blooms each year.  I consider all of the amaryllis to be nomadic because every year I move them thinking that this will be the best place for them.  So that is what I am telling them now -  this will be the best place for them...

This is a scented geranium that I managed to grow from cutting taken from one of the wildly abundant tribe growing in the ornamental garden.  These were the only successful ones I managed to grow from about a dozen clippings.  They probably all would have made it if I had managed to water them more.  They also had to survive a couple of freezes.  You need to be tough if you are going to survive in my potted plant area.

Here is a pink Pintas that managed to survive last years horrific drought.  I really love it when a plant not only survives natural disaster but also my on again, off again desire to water it.

And last but not least, another volunteer, this time a weed.  This is a wild morning glory along with  sorrelvine and snailseed.  What is not to love about April.  Even the weeds try harder.