Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Small but Amazing Things

I am truly amazed at some of the garden activity and thought this would be a good time to share.
For starters, Things in the garden have not looked really well lately. The tomato leaves are turning yellow. They stopped setting fruit so I think I might only have tomatoes through August. Despite thinking the zuchini was on it's way back, it has done nothing in the last 3 weeks. Strange that it is so big, green and healthy looking. I was feeling I needed new life in the garden.

Amazing thing #1
The lettuce bed died and thought that it was time to plant another batch. My lettuce bed is directly behind the back porch and gets sun until noon–1 p.m. The previous owners of the house left a large role of fiberglass screen material in the garage. While Granny has a great system for shading her lettuce, I discovered that the screening makes a great material to protect newly planted seeds from heavy rains, sweltering heat, the sun and cats using it as a litter box. It works for a day or two after they germinate.

Nothing too amazing except that it was Monday morning when I planted the box. This morning when I went out to do my morning garden stuff, I saw that many of the seeds germinated. Two days or 48 hours seems so quick and I am just amazed that the dust like seeds, can produce these seedlings, and in time lettuce.
Here are some of the pictures. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Prepping the lettucebox.                     Screening on the box after planting.


The seedlings at 8:00 a.m. this morning.


Amazing thing # 2
I don't prescribe to any specific gardening philosophy but I prefer not to use insecticides and feel that the food chain and insect world need to be kept in balance. So a few insects don't bother me. I would not call my garden organic but this year, I did not use anything besides compost in it. Sometimes it is a problem but sometimes I harvest something that is just perfect and I am shocked to see no bug bites, discoloration in the fruit, distorted shapes. How does nature make some things so perfect?

Kale leaves without a blemish.



10 comments:

  1. That's great that lettuce germinated so quickly for you! I love it when something, anything, germinates in 2-3 days, because I really dread the waiting part of gardening. I'm trying to learn to be more patient, but it's definitely not happening overnight. So... I have to be patient to build patience? Hmm. :) You kale looks beautiful.

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  2. We had lettuce that germinated in 2 days too. It's awesome! Wow, that kale looks amazing! Perfect!!

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  3. Your screen works great! If I had screen that was large enough to go over the hoops, I'd have used it. It would keep out all kinds of birds and bugs.

    I think my lettuce is growing better now than the spring lettuce did.

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  4. Congratulations on lettuce germinating. Seeds germinate so fast in warm soil.

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  5. That's good to know. I have to get my beds re-planted this weekend.

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  6. Thanks all. I'll let you know when I am eating the lettuce.

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  7. hi Johanna - these are amazing things - looks like you'll have a great salad bed very soon!

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  8. Kale leaves without holes from bugs are always something to be celebrated, congrats!!

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  9. looks great! the screens are a nice solution. Kathy

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  10. I like the idea of the screens as well. I have some lying around as well. Maybe I'll give it a go.

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