Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

How does your garden grow?

It has been so fun having our own little backyard garden. It's been mostly experimental, but also very educational. Here's an update on how things are going:

Strawberries: We started off with three strawberry plants. One came from the Walmart on Pacific and it's the "sad" one as it was pretty pathetic looking. Hence, the reason we only bought one. The other two came from the Walmart in the Foothills and were so beautiful and blooming when we bought them. Well, the "sad" one has really prospered and has grown many new leaves. The other two bloomed their flowers, and then fruited (is that a word?) but the strawberries turned red while they were still really small. Maybe they were premature. So, we're just watering them and waiting to see if new full-term berries will come. The tag said the strawberries should be pretty big.

Green Peppers: We have 6 of these and it's amazing at how much they've progressed. When looking at pictures from when we first got them, they have so many more leaves too. Five of the six and bloomed flowers and started to bear green peppers. One of them, that took the longest to acclimate, has recently flowered (you could call it a late bloomer - ba-dum-dum!) and looks like it will have the most green peppers in the end.

Watermelon: I have no idea what I'm supposed to expect from this plant. How does a watermelon start? But it's grown SOO much and now has a vine on it. That's new, so that must be progress in the right direction, right?

Tomatoes: When we bought these, there were already tomatoes on it. Since then, it has grown a ton and I can see smaller new leaves everywhere. There are also a lot of tomatoes in the works. I got to eat the first ripe on last week. So exciting! I've noticed some holes in our tomato leaves. As long as the tomatoes are okay, it's not a big deal? I need to do some homework to see if there's something I need to do to protect my plant. I'll let you know what I find out.

Herbs: These started with developed cilantro and chives and then I grew Parsley and Oregano from seeds. We've already harvested the cilantro and chives twice. I transplanted the parsley and oregano from their little egg crate and the parsley seems to be doing well, but I don't think the oregano made it. AND, there are some caterpillars in the cilantro. Last night, I went to harvest it again and was surprised that the cilantro wasn't looking so hot. I clipped off all the mature stuff I could find and brought it in the house. I set the cilantro down and had something green on my finger. I was caught completely off guard and flicked my hand around until it flew off. I'm sure it was quite the site. I don't "do" bugs and critters very well. This morning I discovered that there were 3 more of these cilantro-colored caterpillars....ugg. So, the boys and I built a little bug home and put them there. I'm sure it's just a death sentence to the caterpillars and I've warned the boys that, most likely, we'll just end up with dead caterpillars, not butterflies. It made for a fun project though.

Click on the picture below to see pictures of our garden. Some of these pictures were posted last month. Watch our garden grow!

Our Garden