Garden Update Vol.2

Oh, the garden. My, I have learned a lot since I started gardening. I had my first harvest this past week - my radish seeds reached their days of maturity and some lettuce was ready to be plucked. Exciting times in the garden world. So I scampered out in the hazy drizzle and fetched my fair food. And the things I found!

Out of all my radishes, this is the only one that came to maturity. This particular variety is supposed to be long and thin, but this clearly didn't grow to it's full potential. I looked up the variety and tried to figure out why mine didn't grow big enough, and apparently, you have to wait a lot longer for the fall harvest than in the spring. Oops. I was probably premature in picking this one, even though I followed the instructions. So, no radishes for now. But you can see below that I planted a whole slew of more of em, so hopefully I will enjoy a radish salad before winter's end.

While I was harvesting, my gorgeous husband dug up bushes and moved them around the yard for me. When we moved into the house, our box garden was full of bushes and thick hedges. Little by little, we are moving them so that I have more room to grow vegetable plants. He doesn't love that I'm doing this, because he thinks the bushes are pretty, but he is kind to me. (Seriously though, look at that plant in his hand - it's not that pretty.) So he's been moving them for me. I really had to make some room this time, too, because I had a ton of kale that I've been growing from seeds that had to be transplanted into the ground. So another hedge bit the dust. Or you know, got moved to the side of the house. EXCITING STUFF YOU GUYS. I know you are riveted.

My new radish sprouts! This variety will look like the traditional radishes you buy in the grocery store. I mean, hopefully they will look like that. In like 6-8 weeks.

Carrot tops! Cute, right??!

My lettuce is seriously lush. Leafy. And yummy :)

Radish top.

Oh, my heart breaks. This is my sad, sad cauliflower. I hate the demon caterpillars and the havoc they wreaked in my garden. I've plucked off over 60 caterpillars from these leaves, clinging to the underbelly of the leaves and creeping deep inside the plants - it's truly alarming how much damage those little guys can do. I concocted an organic garden spray to ward them off, but I ended up bleaching out the leaves and now the plants look worse than ever. Diseased. They're not diseased, they're just bleached. And eaten through. What's a girl to do??

SAD CAULIFLOWER.

I'm not going to lie. I've been praying for them.

But oh! A bowl full of lettuce! I actually learned a lesson after harvesting this time around. I picked too much! I only need to pick what we will actually eat on any given day, because otherwise the left overs wilt. Like I said, I'm learning! Only pick your salad for the evening.

My lettuce babies. Such good babies.

Is that creepy sounding? Stevie says it is.

But.

They are my babies. I grew them. I tended to them. I watered them when it was annoying to do so and fed them fancy organic plant food and, you know. That's it. That's pretty much all I did.

You're about to see it. That move I've always wanted to do.

LETTUCE BABIES!!!

And that's the update! Things are growing over here! I'm excited to see how everything does as we really transition into fall. Apparently, the cooler temperatures are supposed to help the lettuce and kale taste sweeter. So we will see how that goes. Thanks for coming to my garden, friends!