The Corn Chronicles
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Tomato Plant Suicide Attempt Sunday, June 10, 2012
A week or so ago, Better Boy jumped. He jumped straight off his hook and went splat on to the concrete. I didn't see the jump itself, but I saw the aftermath. And I screamed.
We've pulled 4 or 5 Serrano Peppers and it looks like we're going to end up with many many more.
The watermelon is finally making a break for it. I've been dying to see these guys start to spread and flower and it's all starting now.
My Anaheim peppers have been really slow to get going. I finally have a decent sized pepper on there but it's not quite there yet. I wish this one would have taken off like those crazy Serrano's.
I didn't get a picture of the cukes, which I planted in front of the corn because I was distracted by ants. Lots of them. I had put up those little stick things to try to entice them to kill themselves with the bait, but apparently they're smarter then I gave them credit for ...
They actually seem to like walking around behind it. Sigh... I need a new solution. Sadly I have two dogs that put everything in their mouth, so I need to be very careful what I use. If I find some brilliant, safe solution, I'll let you know.
Till next time!
Blogging at the speed of growth Friday , May 18, 2012
I didn't really think about the fact that blogging about plants growing requires waiting until the plants grow to update, lol. The weeds were a nuisance, and continue to be a nuisance, but we've almost got them under control. And we didn't use poison. We picked them. One. By. One. It took forever and there was a sunburn involved but I'm glad we went that route nonetheless.Well things are actually starting to grow. I remain surprised at how well this is going. I'm certainly NOT green thumb girl, so if I can do this, ANYONE can. And despite the weeds, this has been really fun, but I'm a 'new experience' addict so it remains to be seen if I'll ever do this again.
Here's where we're at...
We've got some "Better Boy" tomato coming in...
It looks like we're going to be up to our eyeballs in Serrano Peppers. This is just one of the four plants...
The Anaheim Peppers are taking longer than expected, but are also flowering...
The Watermelon, which stubbornly stayed at two leaves for WEEKS, have decided taking on new leaves isn't such a bad idea..
The Cukes are putting along at a snails pace...
The corn is doing great! Here's our Malachi, (the first one to sprout), and you can see the two other rows in the background...
The Lime tree I didn't get a pic of, but if all those flowers turn into limes I'm going to feel really sorry for that 2 ft tall tree. Holy moses that'll be a lot of limes. Have a great weekend everyone!
The devil weeds Wednesday, May 9, 2012
You know what loves turned, compost enriched soil besides baby veggies? Ants. Lots and lots of ants. You know what else loves it? Weeds. Lots and lots of weeds. Oh lord, the weeds. Some weird freakshow weed has sprouted thousands of babies in my corn rows. I'm not exaggerating. You'll need to click on the pic to see the extent of it. They popped up overnight! I'm totally freaking out!
I'm not sure what I'm going to do here. I'm searching out chemical free alternatives as we speak. There's of course the other option of picking each and every one of these things out by hand. LOL. Can you imagine?! I'm in trouble! If anyone knows the identity of this weed, I would greatly appreciate the heads up. Right now they're incredibly small, as you can see in the picture above. I'd like to get a handle on them before they take over my corn babies completely.
I did pick the weeds out, one by one, from around Malachi. This took me over an hour. He's getting bigger by the day. My special little guy. First born and all, lol
I did pick the weeds out, one by one, from around Malachi. This took me over an hour. He's getting bigger by the day. My special little guy. First born and all, lol
I'd stay and chat a while but I need to do some searching online for a plausible way to take care of this devil weed situation chemical free. Send good, pesticide free vibes my way!
"86 baby corn on the mounds, 86 baby corn..." Wednesday, May 2, 2012
The dog runs wild and breaks one down, 85 baby corn on the mounds. We're having a problem keeping our doodle out of the corn rows. I can't even imagine why he thinks we're protecting a bunch of dirt with such vigor, but he's starting to get the idea, (thankfully!). As I mentioned, I counted out 86 corn babies today. I'm more and more amazed every day. I never thought they would even get this far. We have the crappiest dirt that ever was, and we have veggies sprouting anyway. Mind you, we did use over 20 bags of compost, so we did try to make this work to the best of our ability, but you'll notice how poor the dirt is in the pics regardless of the compost. The cukes are coming up too. I senselessly murdered one, on accident of course, but it doesn't lessen the guilt. It was one of those situations where you're looking beyond where you're stepping, and then... crunch, whoops. I'm still getting used to this garden thing, and I'm clumsy to begin with, which doesn't help matters, lol. So here's a pic of the corn today. I took a little artistic license with this photo in order to bring out the green to make them more visible.
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| You can make it larger by clicking on the picture |
Being out in the yard so much, I've learned a lot about the flora and fauna back there. Turns out we have a massive amount of ANTS. All sizes, different colors, and different responses to being, "attacked". I'm just glad I can walk faster than those little black ones can run. They were pretty pissed off about me stomping on the hill they were trying to make among the corn. And wasps weren't too fond of me knocking down the nest they were building next to my back door either. I wreaked havoc on the insect community. I'm sure they put out a BOLO on me by now. I'll be bitten by something some time soon. Bees, I leave alone. With a dwindling bee population, knowledge that we have beekeepers in the area, and myself personally counting on them to help a girl out in the garden, I'm glad to host them, even though I've been stung many, many times in the past, lol.
I shall call you Malachi Saturday, April 28, 2012
We've had a rough couple of days here. My little pom got pretty sick so we've strictly been watering outside and paying no attention at all. Tonight my little girl came home from the pet hospital and as soon as she was comfy & sleeping we were back to the yard.
I was shocked to find out that we had a cluster of cukes already. We JUST planted them last weekend! Perhaps I'm much more awesome than I gave myself credit for! But more likely it's due to the obscene amounts of compost and fertilizer we used when we tilled the soil. And when I say we, I mean the guy I paid to do it. Hey, that's a lot of soil! Don't judge me! 
Next thing I know, we spot a little green in the corn rows. We're down on the ground judging this thing coming out of the dirt. Me: Is it corn? Can it be corn? This fast?! Boyfriend: Of course it's corn, look at the shape of it. Me: I don't know what baby corn stalks look like, DO YOU?! Boyfriend: No, but it's obviously corn. Me: Pffffft... oh yeah, obviously. So we're guessing it's corn. I hope it's corn. It seems so unlikely though since we planted it just a week ago today. I've named it Malachi, so if it turns out to be some weirdo weed it would be rather funny, but I do hope it's corn. Proud Mama of some barely formed fiber Wednesday, April 25, 2012
So
I went out to check the garden after work. Something I now look forward
to daily. I never thought I would be quite as happy about all this as
I've been. It feels silly to give a hoot about stuff growing out of the
ground, but regardless. It is what it is, lol. So anyway ... the
watermelon seeds are really starting to sprout. I think we've got about
10 plants now.
Then
I check the peppers. The peppers weren't looking so great for a bit so I
was skeptical that they were even going to make it at all. But, their
leaves are green and upright. They look OK, then I see it ...
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| (In case you didn't know, you can click on the pics to make them larger) |
I
was so happy about that little "almost bloom" that I went inside and
insisted that the boyfriend come out to look at it. He said he believed
me, and it was great news, but he wasn't about to stop watching the lady
eating dirt on the, "My Strange Obsession", show to come look at it. So
I took a picture and forced him to look at THAT instead. I had to win.
Then I realized, sure, all this stuff is growing, but now I need to keep
it all alive. Sigh... there went my moment of seedling victory. There's
no movement in the corn rows but I just planted those over the weekend.
Patience ... or something. :)
Gardening Muscles of Steel Monday, April 23, 2012
Houston,
we have liftoff. I actually went a bit beyond what I had originally
planned. We now have corn, cukes, tomatoes, serranos, anaheims,
watermelons, limes, and now a packet of green onions that I just bought
yesterday. In typical "me" fashion, I have once again run amok. And I'm
still eyeballing a orange tree that I think would be amazing on the hill
next to the new lime. Thankfully the boyfriend is on board with my over
the top approach to everything I do. I can count on him egging me on in
the seed aisle. "What about squash?", he says to me. He doesn't even
LIKE squash, and I don't love it enough to deal with a bunch of it on my
own, so we're squashless. Regardless, most everything is planted and
I'm now walking like a robot. I didn't realize how much exercise was
involved in planting 200 corn seeds, + the rest of the fruits n veggies.
The cukes almost didn't get planted. But I decided if I didn't keep
going right then and there, I would be so insanely sore the next day
there might never be a cuke planted, EVER. I say to hell with aerobic
vids, someone needs to make a gardening work out video. Burning arms,
buns, thighs and abs, and in the end, you get fresh food. I'm gonna get
all muscled up!
The Beginning... Friday, April 20, 2012
The Beginning... Friday, April 20, 2012
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| Silver Queen Corn |
If you've heard I've decided to grow some corn in the back yard, and you're wondering why, here's how it happened. Every now and again, my family and I miss "back east" food. We're originally from PA, and moved to CA when I was a kid. Hoagies are non-existent in California. Real ones anyway. This also goes for Cheese steaks, Blue Crab, Barrel pickles, and Silver Queen corn, among other things. When family comes to visit, we beg for any of these foods. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be on an airplane for 4 hours with a hoagie or a bunch of pickles but they've come through for us time and time again. God love 'em! The long stretches we have without our east coast food fix causes reminiscing. A week or so ago we started up on the Silver Queen corn talk. I thought ... why not grow it? And that's how it all began. Turns out there's about a ton of reasons why not to grow it but I'll save that for another day. I was up half the night last night planning my strategy, I'm beat!
It's like a live action farmville except no one wants to wake up at 2am and help you with your crops!
ReplyDeleteThat's so true! And I'll shamefully admit that I do have a farmville farm, and it's been suffering due to real time farming, lol.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing like growing your own food and serving it for dinner, fresh from the land. Good job. May your garden flourish! Aloha from Hawai`i.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right!If I can make even just one dinner from things I grew in this garden, it'll all be worth it. Aloha my friend!! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's been a long time since I been in here to read your blog. Waving a hand and would like to place a order and have some freah veggies sent. You know meals on wheels. Sent ya something on fb
ReplyDelete