The Greenery

We are still enjoying our gardening efforts...

Here's what's left of our sunflowers. In the baggy are the sunflower seeds I got from the two smaller blooms, and the larger bloom has been hanging up in the garage to dry out. I'll be taking the seeds off of that one very soon. I might try roasting some, but I think I'll be saving most of them for planting next spring.


Most of the largest pumpkin plant we have is spilled over the edges of the planter box via long vines. The one coming toward you is a nice healthy vine (at least it looks like it is), but so far it hasn't produced any pumpkins yet. They'll start, but when they're about the size of a marble, they dry up and fall off (still). We're still hopeful.

"Nice Melons!" Why, thank you... Two of the three that got to edible size. The third one is still on the vine. I plucked these two because the one on the left developed a small crack in it's skin and ants were getting to it. I picked the other one because it's a little bigger, and I didn't want it to get ruined by bugs, so it will ripen inside. The one on the vine is still pretty green. After that last one is ready to pull off, I'll probably remove that plant from the box.

Here's one of the red-headed ears I pulled recently. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the kernels are still not quite ready yet. I pulled a small ear off of the other corn, and only half of the kernels had developed fully, but I tried the ones that were, and they were goooood! So sweet. Those might be ready any day.

Here's a not-very-good picture of the other side of the 2nd planter box with the pumpkin vines growing over the edge. I say it's not that good because you can't tell how long the one going backwards really is. It's loooong. That's the vine that has the 2 growing pumpkins on it.

Speaking of pumpkins, here's the larger of the two. Last week it was about the size of a softball. I'd say it almost doubled it's volume. The picture doesn't do it justice. The second pumpkin is still pretty small. It's only a little bigger than it was last week. It's further down the vine, so it probably doesn't get the same amount of water and nutrients as the first one.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the tomato plant has grown to the point that it's pulled up it's support cage and is now pretty much laying on top of half the yellow squash and cantaloupe plants. I just found out (from Anna's mom) that when you water a tomato plant a lot, the plant grows very large, but has fewer tomatoes. Now I know for next time, not to put it next to plants that need plenty of water.

I've picked a handful of zucchinis and crook-necks in the last week. I used a few of the crook-necks to make GFCF zucchini bread with. It came out all right, but the boys weren't too interested. I think I'll try again with regular zucchini next time. I wished I would have kept track of how many zucchinis and crook-necks I picked. That would have been a fun statistic to know. I could guess, but that's all it would be.

So there you have it... the weekly garden update.