The garden is finally taking off… I’ve been able to pick peppers, eggplant and okra… Waiting those tomatoes to ripen. The fig tree has grown some, but still a baby; can’t wait til it reaches full potential. I’ve had to fertilize the garden ever so often to encourage growth over early summer till now, as plants come out, more compost goes in. Next year will be better but all in all it’s been a fair kitchen garden so far.

 Red Cherry Peppers

 Baby Water Melon - Whenever we get a hard rain, i’ll find a watermelon split open. Only one has been growing very large… still not ready though

Eggplants have been happy and mostly pest free - I will definitely plant these again!

Small harvest of root veggies - some beets were large others not so much - I will plant beets again, but carrots? Maybe not.

Here’s a pic of the main square foot garden. I really love this format - not much weeding to be done. The small fence keeps all the kitties out. 

I put in a Brown Turkey Fig Tree; planted it real early in February and finally it’s showing some signs of life!

Oh jeez - so many of them my skin is crawling with the thought of it. I found a serious army of aphids on my rose bushes; glad I found them before I put out my veggie transplants this year! I am going to have to buy some more ladybugs. I was just telling my mom proudly yesterday that after I bought thousands of ladybugs online a few years ago I hadn’t seen an aphid since - UNTIL TODAY!!! Maybe it’s too early in the spring for the lady bugs to be out? I’m gonna buy some more ladybugs, put a net over my rose bushes and release the ladies!!! Here is a recipe I found for a homemade insecticide:

5 cloves crushed garlic

2 teaspoons dish soap

2 teaspoons  red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

I cup hot water

Steep overnight

Filter out garlic and flakes into 32 ounce spray bottle and top off with water.

You can put the leftover garlic and flakes at the base of the plant

& Spray underside of leaves and on bugs directly, all over the plant.

If it is really hot out or no sight of rain for a few days you may want to rinse off the plant an hour after application to avoid

burning leaves. It also might be a good idea to test an area first to be sure the plant doesn’t’ react badly to this recipe.

This picture only shows a small portion of them I had to get the hose quick!

April 1st, 2009 - Update: Spraying the roses with the hose probably reduced the number of Aphids by half, then the next day I used my mellowed concoction insecticide mentioned above thinking it would be their utter demise - nope - same amount of Aphids there the next day… Today I’ve added castille soap (Dr. Bronners) to the recipe and I’ve just sprayed them again - lets see if that works… I plan on going back out in an hour to rinse off the roses so as not to dry out the plant from the soap. I’ll report back - also I noted that I’m seeing more beneficial bugs around the aphids than I noticed yesterday - need to put in the daisy seeds too to attract more. I need to get this straight before bringing my veggie seedlings into the picture - got to make it work.

I took the Gro Good Pledge! The Atlanta Community Food Bank is my local food bank to make donations to; find out where yours is by clicking here.

I’ve been working hard on the garden, just got done turning the compost pile for the first time. We’ve got the raised beds built and of course i’ve rewritten the actual map of veggies 3x over. I’ve got many many seedlings indoors waiting for it to warm up out there. My tomato seedlings look a little sad; I hope they make it cause you can’t buy those varieties from Lowes.  Everything else looks great. I can’t believe the size of green bean seedlings in comparison to the others; you’d think that something that produces such a small veggie would be small in comparison.

Here are some shots of my seedlings:

See how BIG those green bean seedlings are up front?!!

See my tomato seedlings have yellow leaves - they are purple underneath and falling off.

Those are chives to the right and oregano to the left.

Here are the pepper plants - nothing’s gonna stop those babies - Thanks Janel

Rhubarb is bottom left and eggplant top left.

Here is the new plan:

Here is all the lovely dirt I bought - 100 bucks for 4 cu yards.

I’m gonna grow my green beans and asparagus beans up these chicken wire trellis’

here are the square foot method raised beds! The 4×4 will be for greens - I plan on starting seeds there this weekend.

The 4×8 are for my transplants and I’ll transplant those April 24th.