A tour of the veggie garden

It's nearing the end of June and our veggie garden is coming along nicely.  The weather this year is far better than last year, which was incredibly hot and dry; now we are extremely damp so I'm not having to water near as much.  Most of the crop was started from seed except the cherry tomato plant and half the cucumber vines, which were store-bought in small pots.

I didn't get everything in the ground as fast as I would have liked, some things (like the pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes and watermelons) stayed in the seed starter pots longer than they should so they're just getting started in-ground.  I still have some empty spaces left over, maybe I'll add some lettuce and onions and more broccoli.

The corn is doing VERY well this year. Last season we didn't even get a full ear, it was way too hot/dry for a decent crop. The sweet corn is in-ground, the Indian corn is super-thriving in a 5-gallon bucket on the patio.

Tiny cherry tomatoes of the Sweet 100 variety.

Baby 'burpless' cucumber, about the length of your little finger.

Larger 'burpless' cucumber coming along nicely.
Thanks for checking in! 

Harvest!

Yesterday I picked the 1st ear of the bucket sweet corn.
Last night I boiled it and we ate buttered corn on the cob, it was pretty tasty, can't believe I grew that in a 5-gallon bucket!




























Sadly the watermelon that grew to the size of a junior football started to shrivel at one end, made an icky spot. We cut it open and it was mostly rind with a red star-shaped center and some tiny brownish seeds. Oh well.... since I picked it off the vine, a few more tiny melons have started to increase but the vine itself is dying off due to the season/weather, so I don't expect anything from them.
Also, the female flower has shriveled and dropped off the pumpkin vine before blooming, just like the last one.
I totally have to get an earlier start in the garden next year and hopefully it won't be so darn dry!

How does the garden grow?

The garden is growing very well now that the weather has cooled off a bit and it rains sometimes.







The bucket sweet corn is getting big and has a lot of ears.










I can't help but think this tuft of corn silk looks like Wembley Fraggle is hiding in the stalk.
































The watermelon is slowly expanding and the vine has made two more attempts at melons - one appears to be shriveling and the other looks to be growing. I'll start monitoring that one more closely.













Beautiful watermelon flower.




A female pumpkin flower starting to form. I'll have to watch and when it opens I'll need to polinate it with one of the male flowers. This is only the second one I've seen on the vine and I didn't try to polinate the other one and it shriveled up.

Garden again

Seems like all I do is talk about the garden!
Here I go again :-)


I'm growing corn in 5-gallon buckets on the back patio. The tassels are emerging and I'm excited! I currently have 10 healthy stalks, been having to water them like crazy due to the small-ish containers and the super-dry weather. They're pretty happy so far.





This morning I picked the second cucumber to grow on the vine in the front flowerbed. It's a fatty!

I think one of the shadier vines has a cuke the size/shape of a golf ball, will have to crawl under the elephant ears to find out.


Behold: Baby watermelon.
Cute!
It's about 3/4 inch (2cm) long.













Lastly, the mango tree growing by the patio door. It is thriving and periodically puts out a new segment of leaves.