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

Weeds, Weeds, Weeds!

After Successfully Pulling Up All of My Weeds

This week was yet again another difficult week for me. As I made it to my garden, the weeds were out of control! I was bent over for nearly 30 minutes picking weeds, it seemed like every time I thought I cleared an area free of weeds, more weeds seemed to pop up. It was utterly ridiculous. After I finished picking my weeds, I had to lay some fertilizer down. I ended up using less than I expected to use. As a young gardener, I was always under the impression that the more fertilizer I used the bigger and better my plants would grow. That’s actually the opposite of the truth. The younger the plants, the less fertilizer they need, in fact, adding too much fertilizer can stress your plants out and cause them not to grow very well. After placing the fertilizer over my vegetables, I then had to cover my garden plot in hay. This allows the moisture to stay in the soil, and starves the weeds of sunlight to help stunt their growth. Unfortunately, hay attracts bugs, bugs that BITE! I mean at least it felt that way to me, I had to break out the Benadryl once again. I got home to discover several bug bites on my arms and legs. OUCH! 😩 On a good note, my plants are growing fairly well, I am only concerned about my cabbage plants, as they don’t seem to be doing so well. As always, I will keep you updated on my progress. Until next time. . .

Peace, Love, & Veggies!

Tiffany