Check-Up (for real this time)

When I started the previous post (Check-Up), I intended to talk about how this year's garden was coming along.

You see how easily I can be distracted.

This time it's for real.

Tomatoes: Coming right along. We planted several varieties - 55 plants, total. Many of the plants have small green tomatoes on them. The plants that don't have any fruit are a bit puny. I'm worried that we drove stakes through their root systems as we were staking them. Maybe they will recover.

Squash: Blooming, some with small squash.

Potatoes: This is the first year I've grown potatoes. The plants look nice. Who knows what's underground? Pop-Pop says I should heap dirt around the stem of the plants. I did that yesterday, until I ran out of daylight (and loose dirt).

Green beans: Just beginning to run up their bamboo-cane teepees.

Great northern beans: I planted dried beans from the grocery store, as the seed stores around here typically do not stock "white beans." The rows are skippy - I should have replanted the skips.

Lima beans: The first planting did not sprout, but the second one did.

Cucumbers: I hope that they find the fence I made for them when they begin to run. Last year, I let them run on the ground, and and we had cucumbers hanging from the tomatoes and the okra.

Eggplants: Leaves look like lace, thanks to some crunchy bugs (no, I didn't eat any; I thumped them off the plants, and stepped on them). They look like orange-black-striped jelly beans. What ARE these bugs, anyway?

Sunflowers: I swear they grow a foot a day!

Herbs: Dill is about to bloom. So is the basil. (I'm pinching the basil back, trying to keep it from blooming, as I hear it gets bitter after it blooms.) The parsley is bushy and green. Garlic - I swear I planted some. Just gotta find it.

Zinnas: Volunteers from last year's crop. They're coming up in the middles of the rows and in the grass along the edges of the garden. I transplanted some of them from the middles to the rows (between the tomatoes) yesterday, before my husband could grind them up with the tiller, but did not get around to watering them after the move. I hope they don't croak in the hot sun today before I can water them this evening.

Onions: Nice blades. I'll need to pull up a few soon, to give the rest room to grow. My friend, Denise, gave me some "multiplying onions." It was almost a week before I planted them, and I was sure that all of them were viable. I stuck them at the end of an empty row that I was saving for okra, so as not to confuse them with the regular onions. My husband tilled that row yesterday afternoon. I forgot to tell him about the onions. He probably plowed them under. Wonder if I can find them today?

Okra: Seeds soaking in a bowl right now. Planting them this afternoon.

Black-eyed peas: Haven't planted any yet. Pop-Pop meant for me to plant some, but I used up all the garden space for other things. Right now, we have tarps laying on the ground in an annexed area at the edge of the garden, trying to kill some of the grass before we till up the spot and plant the peas.

We did a little maintenance work yesterday, tying the tomatoes to their stakes, running the tiller down the middles of the rows, and running the hoe where the tiller couldn't go. More weeding (and dirt-heaping on the potatoes) to do this afternoon.