Bye Bye Squash and Corn

Well, I finally did it. I finally got some of the backlogged gardening caught up. Not all of it mind you but on Sunday, Pooka and I took the chance of being home alone to get some work done. The squash was easily dead. Honestly, we didn't get anything off the corn, but the 2 ears we had rotted before they were able to be harvested. It looks like if we want to do corn again next year, we need to get our act together.

Dead and deader

We ended up with a bunch of empty pots when all was said and done. Mostly for giggles, Pooka planted some more pea plants in the pots. This variety should be fairly cold tolerant, and now that Pooka takes lunches to school daily, she loves being able to take the veggies she is growing in her lunch box. 

Not empty for long

Now to see if we get anything off these peas. Hopefully they handle the cold as well as they say they should, as well as their short growing time. But no matter what, Pooka will be happy to see things going and I will just say if we don't get any peas off the plant, I planted the seeds to put some nitrogen back in the dirt. The beans and peas in the corn pot were still quite happy and healthy and producing, so we left them alone the best we could.

The Green beans are doing okay

 As for the nastiness that was pulled out of those pots, it went out to the curb with the rest of the yard waste for the city to dispose of. I don't see us composting anytime soon.

That is alot of dead plant material

Getting There

The harvests are getting bigger. On Friday, Pooka and I harvested these yellow squash from her yellow squashes from her mystery squash plant. They are fairly small still, but I heard if you harvest them smaller they are less seedy and taste better. That's the hope. We haven't had a chance to try them yet since we lost the kitchen this weekend. We are planning on trying them today.

Harvests

Pooka was so very excited to see that first yellow cherry tomato. I barely got pictures before she was jumping in and eating it. She said it tasted wonderful and is hoping for a purple cherry tomato next. I told her we will see. Brother also had a handful of blueberries in there. Those lasted about as long as the cherry tomato.

Transplanting, transplanting.

That is all we have been doing of late. It seems that I am constantly dodging rain drops while I run outside and try to get a couple of plants in the ground or bigger pots. Sometimes I come in not looking too worse for wear, othertimes, I am pretty sure swamp thing would be a relation.

Pooka's new strawberry plant

Pooka has had plenty of time to enjoy digging her holes. She has named and counted every worm, and makes sure they all go back into the holes. And to her credit, she has hung in there, although I know planting 8 plants at a time can be a bit challenging for a 5 year old who would rather find some way to exercise "to get more energy."

Tomatoes and peppers all done

However, through all this, the regular broccoli and the cucumbers have been planted, all the hot peppers and tomatoes are now in homes. The tomatillos and the beans and the peas are settled in. The eggplant, some squash, zucchini and the mystery plant are getting comfy in their new pots.

Mystery plant all settled into a new home

While we still have some things to plant (the sweet peppers, a couple more squash, and about 8 new herbs) we are getting there. That is something to remember when you are dodging raindrops to plant, or when you sit on the ground and hear it go squish. Plus the more I plant now, the less I need to water. Mother Nature is taking care of that.

Squash in a recycling bin

More seeds...

So I already admitted I had a problem. However, I will say that not all of this is my fault. Pooka and I just started 8 more pots of seedlings.

It started when Pooka brought home some seeds from Nainai's (did I mention Pooka is learning Chinese and Nani-Nani is chinese for grandmother). Turns out, one of Nainai's coworkers had some extra squash seeds and asked if Nainai wanted them. She said no, but Pooka would. We don't know what kind of squash they are exactly, just squash, so we figure once it produces we will figure the rest out.

Then Pooka asked if we could grow marigolds since her egg flowers didn't really survive. The last one was the fact that more then once Pooka and I have looked at this new type of broccolli called Brocolli Romanesco which has this really cool geometric pattern thing going. It just happened to jump in the cart one day.

More seeds

So Pooka and I planted the squash and the broccolli. Is it a tad late to be starting broccolli, sure, but if I can nurse it along through this weird spring and summer, I will have an early crop of broccolli come fall. 

Seeds hoping to start.

The marigolds have not yet been planted since their home is currently holding a tomato. I am hoping to get that in the ground after this cold snap. The same one that has a frost warning on for tonight. Welcome to oh who knows anymore.