The Final Harvest

Well if you have made it this far on my gardening journey with me, let me be the first to say thank you. This has been a wild, challenging, yet rewarding experience. I have learned so much about myself and the basics of gardening. This week I completed my final harvest. Although my vegetables did not have enough time to finish growing, I was able to harvest a few things. My tomatoes finally turned red and boy were they sweet. The moment that I bit into those grape tomatoes they were so juicy and fresh, I couldn't believe that I grew them. My bell pepper, although a little immature still turned out pretty great. My jalapenos did not disappoint and made a great addition to my creamed corn recipe. Finally I picked my cabbage and cooked it the same night. Sitting on a bead of cornbread, my cabbage tasted delicious. I could not believe that I grew the produce that ended up on my plate. I am so proud of myself. I have learned the basics of gardening from turning over my soil, to the importance of watering, different forms of fertilizer, and insecticides. I plan on taking everything that I have learned and incorporating it into my own personal gardening. I am so excited to continue this journey and continue to grow my own fruits and vegetables. For the last time, remember. . . 

Peace, Love, & Veggies! 🍛

Tiffany

Thanksgiving: I am Thankful for my Garden

Welcome back! As we near closer to my last weeks as a gardener, I must say that this process has taught me a lot about not only gardening, but myself as well. Before, I go on my thanksgiving break I wanted to give you all a brief update on my garden since I missed last week. Upon return to my garden there were weeds, weeds, weeds, weeds everywhere! I should’ve known they would’ve been out of control. However, after about 20 minutes of picking I was able to remove most of my weeds. This week I harvested the few beans that I had and removed the remaining plants. I also harvested and removed several of the jalapeno plants that I had as well. I was excited to see my cabbage plants growing, hopefully in the next two weeks they will form a cabbage head that I can harvest and cook. My eggplant has not formed yet but hopefully it will soon. My tomatoes are growing like crazy! Thankfully they have had no disease attacks, they are the most successful crop that I have had this season. I also finally saw some growth from my bell pepper plants (I actually forgot that I planted bell peppers!). I am excited to see what growth occurs over the next two weeks. Tune in next week for my final harvest and my final thoughts on this experience. As always. . .

Peace, Love & Veggies! 🍍

Tiffany

Retirement

Hello everyone, this week I was not able to fully attend to my garden due to several different circumstances. One, my Dad is retiring from the Air Force this weekend after 24 years of faithful service. I decided to fly back home this weekend to share in this special moment with him. Two, I attempted to care for my garden on two different days, Wednesday and Thursday. Unfortunately the gardens were being watered both times. That being said I was unable to fully care for my garden or see any progress that has occurred. However, I still wanted to write to you all to let you know what was going on. Since were here, I do want to share a few things with you. The question was asked. . ."How would your garden be different if we were growing wild plants?" First we need to define wild plants. Wild plants are simply those that grow without much interference from human. Think of them as weeds, fungi, and flowers. Although many gardeners do not like to have these wild plants in their gardens they are very important. Wild plants contribute to nature's biodiversity, they serve as a source of food for many insects, animals, and birds. If we were to specifically grow wild plants, our gardens would be rather different. They would not require much fertilizer or water to grow, as they can grow in pretty much any environment. Wild plants would be a great items to grow for beginning gardens because just as succulents, they require little intervention and still grow very well. Check back next week for more updates as we bring this gardening experience to a close.

Peace, Love, & Veggies!

-Tiffany

Budding Eggplants

This week was a pretty easy week. I do not have any major updates for you guys, but there a few things that I wanted to share with you. As mentioned last week my shell bean crops were invaded by what seemed to be a caterpillar or some type of larvae. It ate through my bean pods and munched on my leaves leaving behind a white reside that seemed to be killing my plants. I removed the insect, and attempted to save as much of my plant as I could. Unfortunately this week, it seems as though my efforts were minimal as my plants are beginning to look worse than before. Our professor saw this as a common issues among our class gardens and provided us with a solution. We mixed together a solution made up of 1 Tbsp. of cayenne pepper, 1Tbsp. of dish soap, and 1 L. of water. This mixture was then sprayed on the leaves of our plants in an effort to make the leaves more acidic/spicy. This is supposed to make the environment unpleasant for the insects and drive them away. Hopefully this works and my vegetables can grow without fear of being eaten before time! My tomatoes are still growing and glowing! I also saw some growth from my eggplants! One even budded into a flower. I am so excited. Until next time. . .

Peace, Love, & Veggies!

Tiffany

Fertilizer Works!

Hello!

This week was so much fun I don’t even know where to begin! Last week I had to take a break from my garden due to the white supremacist, Richard Spencer, that we had on our campus. If you recall from two weeks ago, I laid down a lot of fertilizer as my plants seemed to be dying. Well fast forward two weeks, and a few rain showers and my garden seems to be doing so much better! My cabbage plants are no longer dying and have actually grown quite a bit. My tomato plants have been growing excellent! After pinching of their apical buds two weeks ago, they have bushed out and grown so much, in fact I even had to tie and reinforce them with more stakes and twine. I am so excited that I might even pick some early and fry myself up some nice fried green tomatoes!🍅 My eggplant has branched off and started growing another fruit as well. Meanwhile my poor snap beans were invaded by a caterpillar! He went to town on my poor beans. This week I was about find the little critter, clean away and dead leaves and add a little more fertilizer to get them back up and growing. I am so excited to see how my harvest turns out. Stay tuned and hopefully we’ll have some homegrown vegetables soon! Peace, Love, and wait. . .  I almost forgot to tell you guys about the mini heart attack I almost had! Not only did I have to get help removing the caterpillar from my garden, but this week we had to place live lady bugs. . . . YES LIVE! In our gardens. They actually expected me to touch them (insert horror face here 😱). Thankfully I have a handsome teaching assistant who came to my rescue and placed them in my garden for me. He’s such a saint! I figured since it was almost Halloween, I would share that horror story with you.

Peace, Love, & Veggies 🍉

Tiffany

A Pickle, Apickle, Apical, Apical Buds!

Hello & welcome back to Tiffany’s Garden blog! Thank you all for hanging in there with me this long, your support is truly appreciated. This week was a very encouraging week. My tomato plants are growing beautifully and have no signs of disease. My jalapeno plants are still growing very well, however, my cayenne pepper plants are not really showing any sign of vegetable growth. My shell beans are growing beautifully, and my eggplant is bulking up. For the most part all of plants are growing right on schedule. However, my cabbage and lettuce plants needed some more TLC. So, I added more fertilizer to them, removed any dead leaves and watered them heavily. Hopefully over the course of the next two weeks they begin to show strong signs of growth. This week I also pinched off the apical buds of my tomato plants. The apical bud is simply the most active part of the plant that grows the fastest. The rapid growth causes our plants to grow straight up, tall and skinny, instead of out wide and bushy. To pinch the apical bud, you simply cut (or literally pinch) the point of growth to generate new branching outwards. I am extremely excited to see where this garden takes me, continue to follow me down this journey of success.

Peace, Love, & Veggies! 🍄

Tiffany

Trust the Process

Hey guys! If you’re reading this post, you have been following me since day one of my gardening journey. This has been by far one of the toughest journey’s I have ever been on in my life. Last week I laid down fertilizer and hay in my garden. The fertilizer is used to feed the plants and help them to grow. Well . . . either I put the fertilizer down wrong, I didn’t put enough, or my plants are just flat out dying because my poor cabbages, and lettuce plants are not growing! 😥I will definitely be doing more research on fertilizers and try to figure out where I went wrong. The hay was used to keep the moisture (i.e. water) in the soil, and deprive the weeds of sunlight so they won’t grow. Thankfully the weeds were not as bad this time when I went out into my garden for maintenance. So at least that worked out for me right? 

After doing some quick maintenance on my garden, I made a trellis for my shell bean plants. The trellis is simply a structure used to help guide and support “climbing” plants in their growth. Thankfully my beans are growing very well and I’m excited to see how they turn out! Overall, this week was a fairly pleasant one, and I think I’m finally understanding the relaxation part of gardening . . .  it comes after all the hard work, who knew! 😅Oh, and one last surprise. . . My jalapeños are growing beautifully!!! Stay tuned for what’s to come, as always. . .

Peace, Love, & Veggies!🌿

-Tiffany