Garden 2.0.3

So just 3 weeks ago, we pulled up the remnants of the corn and squash plants, and Mom-E planted what was left of the seed packets.

(Before)

Granted, we've had some monsoon-level rains recently, but the results have been amazing.

Just like the new and advanced Terminator from Terminator 2, apparently this second round of seeds got the Nintendo "cheat codes" for how to grow really fast.

Perhaps they are a new race of cyborg plants called Germinators?

Either way, it's exciting to see the next round of corn and squash sprouting up so quickly.

(After)

I know my tummy is certainly happy!

See you on Fatherhood Friday,
Busy-Dad-E

Life Abounds

(Technically, this is Garden: Week 15)

Whether it's a garden growing or children playing (or screaming and throwing toys in a tantrum), life and growth spring forth all around us.

It's simultaneously resilient, and yet extremely sensitive.

Take a moment to pause, reflect, and appreciate it.

Corn, Version 2.0!  Already starting to sprout up, despite attempts by storms to wash away new seeds.

With patience (and a lot of water, and a transplant to a  separate container), the first green pepper.

Dear carrots, please advise all of your friends to thicken up and sprout upwards.

Oh cucumbers, you virus of our garden...oh how the takeover of your vines hath brought forth offspring of strange shapes and locations.

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 11

 


Today we feature the fruits of our labor.

The first ear of corn was pretty good.  Not huge, not completely full of kernels, but nonetheless tasty.

And finally, some cucumbers that are bigger than my pinky finger.  We're pleased that the boys have actually eaten some of them (we didn't tell them they came from the garden until afterwards).

The carrots are next - hopefully they'll be ready soon.  (We sneaked a peak at one, and they're definitely growing).

And last, but not least, we had enough squash to make this delicious casserole (which works well as an entree - especially if you add chicken, or as a side dish).

Have a good week,

Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 10

This week's garden photos brought to you by Grampap-E and the letter "S".

Sometimes I think that the garden has turned into a crowd of parents jockeying for position at 5am in front of Toys R Us because Christmas is 3 days away and there's one Tickle Me Elmo left.

The cucumber plants are bullies.  They have these awesome little Indiana Jones-like "whips" that they use to try to take over the whole garden.

A big thank you and hats off to Pap-Pap, who came over after work the other day and helped me install a little sprinkler system/drip lines attached to a timer, so that the garden won't die when we go on vacation.  Can you say "Automatic Watering!"  What took us about an hour probably would've taken me 3-4 hours with my 3 "helpers".

Before being vanquished by the cucumber clan, the green peppers were trans-planted into their own separate pot with their very own drip line.

Okay, okay, so I'm a little bit corny...

Yay!  Finally, some cucumbers that are bigger than my pinky.

Can you eat me now?  Can you eat me now? ...  Good!  (and Yum!)

See you on Fatherhood Friday,

Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 10

On the downside, we've been battling some pesky Japanese beetles, who have a penchant for corn.

The cucumbers are also not playing very nice with the other vegetables, literally trying to strangle their neighbors in an attempt to usurp more garden space.

But on the upside, we've started to harvest a teeny little bit.  Some squash, green onions, and cilantro.

If I could upload the smell of fresh cilantro for you I would.  So pungent and so appetizing.  Knocks the socks off the stuff in the store.

Makes me want to go have a (Crystal Light) Margarita.

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 9

It's nature unleashed!  (Methinks we planted stuff a little too close together.)

So after another round of fertilizer last week, the garden has mutated into a green monster that is starting to take over.

In particular, it's "Revenge of the Cucumbers", as they've shot out these lasso-like things that will pretty much jump out of the garden and grab you if you walk by.

Okay, maybe not, but the cucumbers are starting to vine out everywhere, threatening the existence of peaceful green pepper plants from Alderaan.

Elsewhere in the garden, it's "A New Silk".  Just in the past week, we've see the emergence of corn tassels, and some corn silk, where the stalks are starting to widen.

Mom-E decided that the tassels should be called "pre-corn", which I really liked and prefer over tassel.

Say it with me now "... Mmm ... corn!"

And then below the surface of those giant leaves that are bigger than my head, we have "Attack of the Squash", which appear to be creating a clone army of yellowy goodness (I promise we did not use growth enhancers to speed up the maturation process).

See you on Fatherhood Friday,

May the Garden Be With You!

Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 8

Behold, the garden!  (Needless to say, plans to build a "Garden 2.0" next year are in the works.)

Come, come, look closer.  Nature's beauty to behold.

I was fortunate to catch these squash blooms near their peak.

And not but a day or two later, the flowers are shriveled up, but the beginnings of some tasty squash are left behind.  (If we get a squash from every bloom, we might have enough to send one to each of my followers! Okay, not really, but there's a lot of them.)

And, not to be outdone, some mini-cucumbers.  I'm hoping for full-size as opposed to gherkins, myself.

I can't wait to see how much these young "veggie-lings" grow over the next week, because about the same time these pictures were taken, we put another round of fertilizer - Miracle-Gro Organic (aka dried chicken poop).

You may be wondering, "Dad-E, why do you keep posting pictures of your garden?"

To that I'd say several things:

1.  It'll be neat at the end to be able to put together a stop-motion slide show at the end of the season.

2.  The boys have had fun with it.  They do some watering, and by watering I mean they spray pretty much everything EXCEPT for the garden, including the dog, each other, grass, trees, specific spots of dirt (Bab-E Brother's favorite).  Even if Mom-E and I do most of the watering, it still gets the boys excited and outside.

3.  Life is hectic, and the garden is a good reminder to slow down and admire natural beauty.

4.  There are some good parallels between gardening and parenthood.  It's something that takes time, energy, persistence/dedication, and the opportunity to witness the fruits (or in our case veggies and herbs) of your labor bloom before your eyes (and of course you have to pull out the weeds from time to time.)  I hope my boys will always remember that.

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 7

Ta-da!

This week's garden post could've easily been subtitled: "The Leaning Tower of Vegetables"

It's been pretty windy with some heavy rains this week, and for a while, most of the corn was at a 60 degree angle.  But I was able to use some extra soil and "prop things up" (a few times), and finally everything seems vertical again.

So instead, this week's subtitle is "Houston, we have flowers!"

That's right (although hard to see), we have several flowers on our cucumber plants, or as I will think of them, delicious soon-to-be cucumbers.  (I was beginning to wonder if we were actually going to get vegetables, or just nice plants.)

There's also a ton of green blooms on the squash plants.  (There better be, because them suckas like liquid almost as much as the boys.)

And we can also see where the corn is going to form.

Many thanks to Gramm-E, who gifted us with a basil plant that has now been "transplanted" (pun-intended) into 2 basil plants.  Hopefully the carrot plants won't eat them, because they're starting to go wild, too.

We also had to transplant one of the green pepper plants (we now have 3, although it took them a long time to start growing), as one of the cucumber plants started to hog all of the sun, which I understand is bad for photosynthesis.

Oh yeah, and the boys are still having fun watching they're garden grow.

All you have to say is "who wants to water the garden?" and there will be rapid shuffling of feet that rivals the speed of response to "who wants a fruit snack?"

Then Bab-E brother waters for about 2 seconds and declares "your turn".  Followed by Little Brother wanting to water the trees (and not the garden).  And finally there's Big Brother, who makes it part-way outside, only to become engrossed in an imaginary Beyblade battle.  "Oh no, Saggitario!"

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 6

Hi there! I hope you had a relaxing weekend.

While we were busy relaxing, our garden was busy growing.

Here's an updated look:

Just look at the difference a week makes:

And to think that in 2 more weeks, we're going to hit the garden with another round of fertilizer!

Now all we need is for some actual vegetables to start growing. The leaves are great and everything, but not very tasty (so I've heard).

****

Also this week, my work was giving away free "trees" for Earth Day.

I use the word "trees" in quotes because they make Charlie Brown's Christmas tree look pretty bountiful.

But nonetheless, we planted two trees. They have some decent roots, so maybe they'll actually grow. We'll keep you posted on them from time to time.

Dogwood. I know the leaves are brown, but I assure you the tree is alive.

Crepe Myrtle (sans leaves). I know it looks like a stick in the ground, but I also assure you it's alive.

Have a good week,

Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 5

Another week, and another garden picture. I’m sure once we get to harvest, it will be neat to go back review these pictures in “rapid fire succession” to see the dramatic change.

I can honestly say in my 3+ years of blogging, that I’ve never given commentary on vegetables before, but hey, why not.

Overall, we’re quite pleased and excited with the growth. Everything is still alive!

And the Sevin that we sprayed on the leaves appears to have taken care of last week’s caterpillar problem.

The corn is just going crazy. Hearty-looking, and lots of it. The fastest growing corn plant (which I think needs a name) is about 18 inches tall!

And the two squash plants are also growing really well, and look very green and lush. I can’t wait to make some squash casserole with the squash from our garden.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but next to the squash we have two very tiny plants that we believe to be green pepper plants. At least that’s what we planted there, and they don’t look like weeds! It’s surprising that it’s taken them quite a bit longer than the other plants to spring up. This will make the boys very happy, since they LOVE LOVE LOVE them some green pepper!

And not to be outdone by the veggies, we have herbs, too! Of course, the chives we transplanted look pretty good. But we also have some clusters of cilantro (one in particular) that are starting to look hearty! Mmm…cilantro (mumbled with a cursory attempt at a Spanish accent)!

In particular this week, I’m also pleased that the carrot tops seem to have really perked up and look heartier than they have in weeks past.

And that brings us to the “class clown” of the garden: the cucumbers. We’re definitely concerned that some of the leaves are looking a little white/yellow and crispy. I’ve read everything from “that’s normal” to “you’re cucumber plants are going to end up burnt and crispy”, so we’ll see. I figure pretty much everything else in the garden is doing well, so hopefully the cucumbers won’t buck this trend, because they’re #1 on Little Brother’s “Most Likely to Eat From the Garden” list.

The boys are still as excited as ever about watering the garden. It’s also one of their favorite pastimes to just go out onto our porch, which overlooks the garden, to “inspect”.

The jury’s still out, however, about what they will and won’t eat when we harvest.

Have a good week.

Happy Patriots' Day!
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 4

Watch our garden evolve: Week 0, 1, 2, 3

You may notice a large plant of chives that wasn't there last week. The chives are the one thing that haven't done so well. So we opted to just buy some potted chives and "transplant" them into the garden.

Although you can't tell from the picture, it appears that some caterpillars are attempting to fatten up on the fruits of our labor.

TO THOSE CATERPILLARS, THIS MESSAGE IS FOR YOU:

If you eat the leaves of our veggie plants, you goin' down!

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 3

All I can say is "wow".

Mom-E and I are bucking our track records with green things.

The garden continues to grow (compare to last week), despite an attack from an hour-long torrential storm (colored in the yellow-orange range per Weather Channel).

(Apparently it took all that water, and the sunshine that followed, and got all photosynthesis-happy.)

And it continues to garner the excitement of the boys.

Here it is:

Have a good week,

Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 2

Well, 2 weeks into things and the garden is still going strong!

What a difference one week makes!

The garden has survived some pretty torrential rains.

And it also survived a sneak attack from either Pupp-E, another animal, or possibly the rain itself that took out a corn plant and perhaps some others.

To play it safe, we've installed a little plastic fence around things.

The boys are having a lot of fun with the garden. It's definitely a highlight of everyone's day to go look at the garden and water it together (and water the trees and each other) after dinner!

Stay tuned,

Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 1

As you may remember from last week, we recently planted our garden.

One of my favorite comedians, Mitch Hedberg, has a bit about vending machines where he talks about "Snacks taste better when they fall. It enhances their flavor potential."

If the same holds true for garden vegetables, then we may have some tasty treats in a few weeks.

Although the garden has been blessed with direct sunlight and some rain, it has also been subjugated to a few footsteps from a 2 year-old, dirty paws from Pupp-E, and even some hail.

(Note to self, time to buy something to wrap around the corner posts to keep animals, including homo sapiens, out of the garden for awhile.)

And yet, despite our checkered history with (non-human, non-canine) living, growing things, we're pleased to see the first signs of life from the garden!

And the boys are really excited about it, too.

Whether that translates to them eating anything that comes from the garden, however, remains to be seen.

Have a good week,

Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Day 0

So this year we planted our first raised garden in our "new" home.

Albeit a little amateurish, I built the garden frame myself (and managed to get a good smash on one of my fingers with a hammer).

Bab-E Brother "helped" me build the frame, and Little and Big Brother helped me fill it with topsoil.

We've started out with a 5ft x 8ft plot, and have planted corn, cucumbers, yellow squash, green bell peppers, green onions, chives, and carrots.

No doubt, the boys will wake up each morning and have to inspect the garden, only to ask repeatedly, "How long till it grows?"

We'll see how it goes. I'll be honest with you, I myself have "killed" a cactus plant (despite following the watering instructions), and Mom-E willingly admits to having two "black thumbs".

So we're not making any promises, but hopefully we'll get something edible out of it.

I'll post pictures from time to time to update you on the progress. (Hopefully the future pictures will look different than this one.

Have a good, green, week,
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Day 0