AMKuska's 2020 Garden

[AMKuska]

Well, my new gardening friend tested my soil. My pH is absolutely perfect, but surprisingly I'm actually low on nutrients in the soil. He gave me a bunch of recommendations, and even sent some bloodmeal home with me to give the squash a quick boost. I'll do the rest of his recommendations tomorrow and got to spend more time in the garden! I learned so much!

 

[AMKuska]

Well, the bloodmeal didn't do much, but I used fish fertilizer on my tomatoes, beans and peppers. The beans doubled in size practically overnight, the peppers have a lot of new growth, are darker green, and even put out a few flowers. The tomatoes ripened, but otherwise didn't see anything exciting with them.

I decided based on that to try fish fertilizer on the squash, and one of them has also doubled in size. The other two again seemed largely unimpressed by the fertilizer, but it's likely they're not doing well because my daughter enjoys watering them. A lot.

I also set up a new set of plants in my grow tent to tinker around with since it has been empty since I put everything outside in the spring.

From the left we have 3 onion starts, a melon start, the large one is a lettuce, a pepper, a tomato, a zuke, and a butternut squash. No, I probably don't have enough room to grow these all through the winter but even if I have to compost one early I think I'll learn a lot from tinkering with fertilizer and moisture requirements before my chance with the big garden comes around again.

This cart is a new addition to my grow tent. My husband used it at work and didn't need it anymore, so I "carted" it off, haha!

It has only been 3 days and this onion is already popping out!

The melon too. All the plant life you see surrounding the seed is duckweed. I water from my shrimp tank and there's duckweed on the surface, so duckweed ends up in the pots too.

Lastly, the lettuce is up also.

I didn't expect to see anything that soon.

 

[AMKuska]

This is growing in my carefully planted and labeled bell pepper start. Me thinks a baby was gardening.

 

[AMKuska]

So I noticed my daughter sneaking to the tent. She very carefully got my pitcher of water down and watered it, then put it back and tip toed out. She didn’t see me haha.

Also, this plant is already visibly bigger than the others. My zuke seeds were open on the bottom shelf. Zucchini maybe??

 

[AMKuska]

Natural light photo of mystery plant. It grew visibly overnight so I put it in a larger pot for her. She seems to believe that means she doesn’t have to be sneaky anymore and watered it in front of me.

 

[AMKuska]

Apparently she is also a pro at tomato picking

 

[catjac1975]

I have used Superthrive on my plants. I had forgotten about it for a few seasons and used it again on a second crop of squash and cukes that were a bit sluggish. They seemed to really take off after that. Give it a try.

 

[AMKuska]

Thanks so much for the tips @catjac1975

 

[AMKuska]

Mystery plant update: my daughter has not been allowed outside for 3 days due to hazardous air conditions. Last night it rained, so she was released at last!

I guess between seeing me putting up my plants and knowing how much she wanted out herself, she decided Mystery needed an outing.

She drug that great heavy thing outside and had tea with it. Pray it lives through her love!

 

[AMKuska]

I'm starting to think my daughter may have a real talent and passion for gardening. I put tomato cages, upside down, around my butternut squash and melon in the grow tent so they would have something to climb on. She immediately took the last one and copied me.

She also helped me picking tomatoes and green beans from the garden. She knows just the right ones!

This one is the best bean. The very best one. The best tomatoes are squirrel cheeked in her mouth.

Unfortunately I ended up ripping out the two outdoor squash due to powdery mildew. There's a zuke that's got fruit on it that I'm trying to keep healthy with neem. The pumpkin fruited, but all of the fruits turned yellow and dropped off. I tried hand pollinating one, but either it was too late or that's not the problem, as it is also turning yellow and dropping off. I just have no luck with any kind of vining fruiting plant