Garden Update: June 2014

About a month or so ago, I decided to try my hand at growing ginger and turmeric.

I knew it would take a month or more for the rhizomes to germinate. I've had the pots sitting outside for the last month trying to get them nice and hot. I didn't think anything would actually happen but about a week and half ago, these guys showed up...

These are my gingers. The turmeric have yet to sprout anything. Occasionally, I've dug in the turmeric pots to see if they've rotted or anything. Everything still looks good, but they're just taking forever. I've had squirrels dig the turmerics up and surprisingly left them on top of the soil IN the pots. I knew it would take a lot of patience..... I should just change my name to Patience.

Other things happening in the garden....

Thai Eggplant!! My lone survivor. I've tried to grow eggplants every year since moving into this house and this is the first time that I've had an eggplant that I've grown from seed survive. This one was completely touch and go. I'm not sure how it survived but it did. It was starting to look really sad like it was about to dampen off and die in its pot,but I stopped watering and spread seed starting mix on top of the potting soil. The first time I watered, I watered from below and all of sudden, this guy started putting out new leaves. YAY!! I hope. I transplanted this eggplant a couple of days ago and so far, so good.

This is a new herb for me. This is epazote, a Mexican herb used to add flavor to bean dishes and to reduce abdominal discomfort (gas) when eating said beans. It's been growing really well. Out of control well considering I basically dumped my little seedling into the herb bed and sprinkled compost on top. I hope it doesn't take over the bed. :-P

First sunflower of the season. Not as gigantic as I hoped it would be but the heads are definitely larger than the flowers I planted the previous years. I'm not sure which variety this is. I planted Mammoth Greys and Titans but never labeled. The boy is a little irritated that I didn't label.

Underneath some of the bigger sunflowers, I planted beans! Two varieties, Cherokee Trail of Tears and Chinese long beans (my favorite)...

These are the Cherokee Trail of Tears.

And in my watermelon/pumpkin bed....

The first pic is my Seminole pumpkins. In the middle is my Zatta Italian melons and my two varieties of watermelons, a Sweet Siberian and a white Japanese Suika, at the end. This bed always seems to do well. I realized because I had covered the soil with black plastic when all of the other plants were suffering during the weird back and forth weather, my watermelon/pumpkin patch actually thrived since the soil was so hot. I hope to have some fruits by July!!! Next year, I may actually plastic some of my other beds, too.