Garden: Month 3

The garden seems to be doing very well, although I am battling aphids. I won the battle with them over the pepper plants using orange oil, but something else decided to attack them and eat up the leaves. Must have been a caterpillar of some sort because spraying with BT worked. The aphids have taken to the corn tassels but I think I have burned the corn a bit with the orange oil so I'm waiting on a nursery to get their lacewings in before I try my next attack on them.


The zucchini is doing well and I inspect the stem every day, spraying with BT regularly in hopes of killing the squash vine borer before it does much damage.

I feel triumphant to discover the first jalapenos because it means I'm winning the bug battle for the moment. Something had nearly defoliated the pepper plants but it seems to have sprung back.

the first tiny bell pepper

All the pepper plants

My carrots look like they have some mildew or something but spraying for that symptom hasn't worked yet.

First Carrot. Out of curiosity, I pulled one up, not knowing how long they would survive with this mildew stuff. I was shocked to find it look like a real carrot and even more shocked to find out it actually tastes pretty good!

Here are the first tomatoes on my Solar Fire plants.


Tomato plants

Grape tomatoes

Grape tomato plants

Beets



Basil

Potato plants


Rosemary

Second set of corn stalks. I learned too late that I was planting them too shallowly.

The first ears of corn developing


Corn stalks. Apparently, planting the seeds 1 inch deep as directed on the seed packet was not deep enough and is the reason my corn keeps falling over. I have to stake each stalk to keep them up. I found out that corn develops two sets of roots. The first ones are stabilizing roots that grow out while the second set grow down deep, but if you don't plant the seeds deep enough, the primary roots can't grow. I wonder if this is the reason my corn doesn't seem to grow as tall as they should.


Strawberries

I planted another set of green beans after the peas expired.


I harvested plenty of peas but May brought 90 degree weather and the pea plants started to wither.

A harvest of peas and onions

Here is the complete harvest of onions.


Onion plants ready to be pulled. After I harvested them, I planted some more corn, curious to see what happens if I plant them two inches deep, even if it is a bit late to be planting something new.

My first harvest of green beans

Green beans