Gardening 101 Week 13

Don’t worry, you did not miss Week 12. There was no Week 12. I was out of town and despite the best laid plans writing a blog post didn’t happen. Which brings us to Week 13.

How is everyone doing? How are your gardens doing? We are in full swing for summer now, warm days, afternoon rains, cool nights.

After being gone for a week I definitely had a weed issue in my garden. Normally I try to weed the garden every morning before it gets too warm and while the ground is still soft and slightly damp from the sprinklers. It doesn’t happen every morning, but it’s a lot easier to take care of a few small weeds here and there then a bunch of medium to big weeds all over the place.

It is also a good idea to take down the walls of water if that hasn’t already happened. I was taught to leave them in place until the leaves were poking out of the top, but since it is warming up a couple of my tomatoes actually looked like they were getting too hot. So off the walls of water came. My husband has been doing a lot of reading and learning about pruning tomatoes and since I have tended to just let them go and they have turned into big huge messes the past couple of years, I’m letting him lead out in this and I’ll have him write a guest post (likely next week) on pruning tomatoes. With that said, I’ve used tomato cares in the past but this y. ear we are going to try a new system. (again more on that next week).

My broccoli is looking good and my beans are all up and looking strong. I only have a few onions but my strawberries are going crazy. My peppers had their walls of water taken off too and I’m eagerly awaiting their produce. I planted a number of hot and spicy varieties because I have yet to eat something that is too spicy for myself, so I’m excited to see what we end up with. The pumpkins and zucchini are off to a strong start as well.

Enough about edible plants, my flowers are starting to come into blood as well. Every day I go outside something new is blooming. I love this time of year!