plant a vegetable garden

(a nod to Dar Williams)

I’m going to mark this goal as done. Overall, I’d say that the tomato plant was the biggest success. Its leaves are turning brown and drying up, but it still has 5-6 nearly-ripe tomatoes on it. I plan to bring them to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving. :) The soybeans were delicious, but probably work best when planted a) earlier in the year and b) in greater quantities. The peas turned brown and shriveled before I could harvest the two pods that formed; probably again too late in the year. The lettuce is growing, but very slowly. (I’m still puzzled; it’s supposed to be a ‘cool weather’ plant, but the narrow window between ‘too hot’ and ‘too late in the year’ here eludes me. Maybe lettuce grows better in entirely different climates.) The spinach never did come up, but I’ll try again in the spring. And there are two carrot tops poking out of the ground. (It’s a bit harder to tell when they’re ripe; I may have to just guess at some point and dig them up.)

But overall, success! And here’s to next year!

• I’ve harvested two groups of soybeans from the plants, whose leaves have turned yellow and fallen off. The yield was meager (a couple of handfuls of pods), but delicious!
• I have two peapods growing on my pea plants.
• I continue to get excellent tomatoes every few days from my champion tomato plant.
• I did a second sowing of my lettuce, spinach, and carrots, on the possibility that the weather was just too warm for them the first time around. The lettuce and carrots are starting to come up! The spinach remains mysteriously absent.

Yesterday I decided that my first tomato was ripe enough to eat, and picked it. The tomatoes on my plant are larger than a golf ball, but not by much. However, they definitely make up for this in flavor. The first yield from Mr. Glacier Tomato was absolutely delicious!

I’m also very excited that my soybean plants have started growing soybean pods. The pods are flat for now, and I’ll eagerly await them fattening up.

Today I noticed that the first of the tomatoes is making the transition from green to orange. Woo hoo!

The soybeans have started growing little shoots at the junction between their leaf-branches and their main stems. I’m not sure what purpose these will serve; additional leaf-branches from the same branch point? I’ll keep an eye on them.

Yesterday, I installed a trellis for the pea plants and a cage for Mr. Glacier tomato plant. Both had started to sprawl on the ground, which I hear is bad for the tomatoes, at least, since various bugs get easier access to the fruit. Plus, the pea-trellis is decorative!

Installing the tomato cage was a bit difficult. I suspect that you’re supposed to put the cage in while the plant is still fairly small. The branches of the plant are pretty weak and easily bruised or bent, and I knocked one of my tomatoes off. (Now I need to find something you can do with a green tomato. I’m sure there’s something!) But overall, I think it’s an improvement. For pre- and post-cage tomato shots, see the most recent photos here.

I was out of town for a week, and in the meantime, six pea plants sprouted. The tomato plant is noticably bigger, and the soybeans plants are almost all now working on their third sets of leaves (or “solar panels”, shown above). Wow! (I’m still wondering about the lack of activity from the lettuce and spinach… but given the 95-degree weather, maybe that’s unsurprising.)

I also had my first pesty invader. This morning I noticed several holes in some of the soybean plant leaves, and a fat worm/caterpillar thing lounging atop some of the newest, freshest leaves. I flicked him off and muttered to myself… I’d like to avoid the use of pesticides if at all possible.

Following some instructions in a book I have, I used my “cultivator” (bent-fork tool) to break up the soil between my rows, resulting in the above picture (dark areas have been cultivated and light areas are my sown rows). This is supposed to discourage weed growth and help the ground absorb water better. (True to the book, a light “crust” does seem to form on top of the soil over time.) Still, it seems like it’d be more helpful to be able to cultivate where the seeds are sprouting, but I can’t do that without destroying them. Maybe once they’re bigger, I can do some (careful) work around where they are. But then I might damage their roots. Does anyone know more about this?

Suddenly, I’ve got ten tomatoes growing, all at once. If these all ripen at the same time, I’m going to be in trouble. I foresee much largesse for my co-workers (unless bugs or other calamities befall them first) (tomatoes or co-workers).

I also have my first sprouts from seeds I planted! The soybeans won the first-up prize. There are six little plant heads that have pushed up through the soil (the package said 7-10 days, and the first ones appeared after 6 days—good job, guys!). Now I’m wondering about the sluggishness of my peas, spinach, and lettuce (supposed to be 5-10 days; I guess they still have a 3-day grace period).

In other news, my nectarines all ripened suddenly. I picked three yesterday and ten today. They are small but delicious. I know what I’m having for dessert tonight!

My Glacier tomato plant now sports seven baby tomatoes, all on the same stalk. The yellow blossoms keep converting into small, hard, green little ellipsoids that grow visibly bigger each day. This is terribly exciting to me, even if the plant had a “head start” by being planted a week ago with three tomatoes already in evidence. But this suggests that, at the very least, I haven’t halted its vigorous advance with my neophyte gardening.

I’m not really sure how long a tomato takes to mature once it’s appeared—the dates given for these plants seem to be measured from the time you sow the seed of the plant (something like 60 days), although others call this “time from transplant”. I’ll observe carefully and figure out how long these guys take to ripen.

I went down to Armstrong and picked up some things to plant. The only veggie plants they had were tomatoes (and slim pickings it was), so I picked up a “Glacier” tomato (somewhat ironically, it is an “early” tomato). I also got seed packets for some “cool season” crops: peas, lettuce, spinach, carrots, and (surprise find!) soybeans. Yum, edamame! It is technically too late to plant “warm season” crops (so no zucchini after all), and technically too early for the cool season ones, but we’ll see how it goes.

I filled each of the rows with seeds for all of the plants but the carrots. I want to try staggering the planting by a week to see if I can stretch the harvest (supposedly this can go into the winter). Therefore, I only planted 10% of the carrot row. And yes, the rows are deliberately angled on the right. Too many straight lines seemed boring.

I took some more pictures of the planting process, including a close-up of the three miniscule tomatoes that Mr. Glacier brought with him.

• Peas, lettuce, and spinach: 5-10 days
• Soybeans: 7-10 days
• Carrots: 10-25 days