The bad news: I am starting to regret that I publicly stated on this blog that my goal this year is to keep up with the weeding in the veggie garden! Weeds are popping up left and right and it seems like 2 new weeds grow for every one that I pull.
The good news: We have beans! The bush bean plant has two full-sized beans. Now, what can I make with 2 beans?
Lots of the seedlings are popping up. The radishes seem to be doing best so far, but there are little glimpses of onions, carrots, and turnips popping up.
I waited too long to plant the lettuce seeds, so they are still tiny tiny and this heat is not helping at all. Even though I missed the boat on an early spring lettuce planting, I definitely want to start another batch of lettuce seeds at the end of August.
The row of mesclun I planted is coming along nicely, though. The seed pack says to plant 5 feet of seeds every week to ensure a full summer of mesclun. I just planted row number two today, so we might stick to the one row every 3 weeks plan and see how that work.
I'm going to plant a few more rows of turnips and radishes this week (between the struggling lettuce plants) to get some more use out of the extra soil space.
Some of our plants are getting eaten up and these tiny holes are appearing on the mustard greens and turnip greens. Rosamaria posted a great natural remedy for bugs that Jon is going to set up this weekend to hopefully give the bugs something else to eat. One tip that I read was to add all soil amendments in the late fall and rototil the garden in the fall to break up bug larvae and reduce the bug population over the winter. Since we didn't know to do this last fall, our garden has bugs everywhere this year. We will definitely be preparing our garden better this fall.
The garden looks great! Weeding is such a bore, I don't blame you for not being a dedicated weeder!
Posted by: Mandy | 05 June 2010 at 09:43 AM
Your garden is doing great! Your comment on wishing you hadn't publicly announced you were going to keep up with the weeding totally cracked me up. :)
Posted by: Amy Hodge | 05 June 2010 at 10:42 AM
I just weeded my garden yesterday so I feel your pain... it's NEVER fun. I still have a sore finger :(
But your garden looks great nonetheless! Yay for the two beans! LOL!
Posted by: Audrie | 05 June 2010 at 03:19 PM
Beautiful gardens!! My "no-weeding" advice: either try Square Foot Gardening next year, or go get yourself some Preen, pronto!
Posted by: laluna | 05 June 2010 at 04:50 PM
hooray for beans!
the garden is looking great! (i'm a pretty lazy weeder as well, so i'd only help to enable your sparse weeding...)
Posted by: melissa | 05 June 2010 at 09:34 PM
Yay for the two beans! You're doing great and I hope the natural bug remedies will work.
Posted by: caitlyn | 05 June 2010 at 11:58 PM
With all the rain we've had the weeds are unavoidable. I'm a big fan of Square Foot gardening too. I plant marigolds and parsley and another flower I can't remember the name of as these are supposed to help keep the bugs down. The flowers take up a lot of the space that the weeds like - I still get weeds, but it isn't a major time commitment to get rid of them.
Posted by: Debbie-Esch House Quilts | 06 June 2010 at 09:11 AM
Not to worry -- we all have weeds! Do you have any marigolds? If not, consider planting them in the corners of your garden -- they will keep some bugs away. Their scent is a natural repellant. And because you started this garden blog business, you do have to give us our weekly updates.
Posted by: Jodi | 06 June 2010 at 12:44 PM
You and your hubby are so awesome! I am sure you will be reaping the rewards of all your hard work.
Although I have a black thumb, I am trying to grow tomatoes in a container. My friend had too many tomato plants and gave me two. I bought some containers and soil at Home Depot yesterday and felt like I didn't have a clue.
This morning, Melody watched while I repotted the plants into the bigger containers. And then I taught her to water them with a cup. Although she got obsessed with only watering one pot! I hope they make it because it is so hot here. Their leaves were a bit wilted when I took them outside.
Posted by: Oiyi | 06 June 2010 at 04:11 PM
Good luck with the garden - I'm jealous of your ability to grow ANYTHING. I would celebrate weeds at this point. lol. :-)
Posted by: CitricSugar | 06 June 2010 at 11:58 PM
You're way ahead of the game, you've got beans! Good work.
Posted by: Kathy M | 07 June 2010 at 03:35 AM
Looks like you guys are on the right track with your garden, it always takes a season or two to work out the bugs (excuse the pun, haha)
Posted by: Stephanie | 07 June 2010 at 07:38 PM
I am living vicariously through your garden blog posts. With a young, growing business, we just didn't have time to put a garden in this year. I enjoy looking at your stuff growing.
Posted by: Jessica C | 08 June 2010 at 03:44 AM
don't worry about the weeds, i think all have them! your garden looks great, Yay for the beans!! hope the little trap works for you, I put many of them on my limes and mangos trees and they are full of bugs! also y sit one in my peppers pot, the antz was eating the leaves and now they are swimming in honey..
thanks for the link :)
Posted by: rosamaria | 08 June 2010 at 01:56 PM
good advice on the bug situation. and congrats on the beans - there will be more in the coming weeks, i promise. as for weeding, i usually try to keep up until the first tomatoes appear, then i give up and let nature take over. our radishes are going gang busters too, and my basil seeds finally sprouted, yeah!
Posted by: beth | 08 June 2010 at 06:40 PM
I'm jealous of your beans! :) Our plants are trellising nicely, but still no beans. good luck on the lettuce; we're going to put some more in this weekend so we can hopefully increase our production.
Posted by: Kathy | 09 June 2010 at 11:00 AM
i really love your garden posts. it looks like things are growing well so far. good luck with your wedding. at least there has been nice weather to enjoy while doing it!
Posted by: Nichole | 09 June 2010 at 01:11 PM