Veg update

Here are some snaps of The Great Veggie Experiment.
The pepper plants are growing but will they ever develop peppers? Peter Piper wonders...

Here is our amusing corn which seems to like growing in a planter after all.



The yellow and red tomato plants both came back from the heavy duty heat from a week ago. But will they dig this new cooler weather?

Looks like some tomato flowers, with big maters to follow, I hope.

Oh and I couldn't resist throwing this photo on too because I can't say enough good things about Alabama Chanin. I used the stencil ideas from the Alabama Stitch Book and refinished an old Ikea cabinet top. Here's my book review of the Alabama Stitch Book.

Some updates, as promised...yeah, really.

I promised to update you on my badge progress, so here 'tis:

I've received the first level badge in Aprons and Intermediate level badges for both Crochet and Embroidery. As soon as I find my camera in the midst of this packing, I'll be submitting my photos for Tatting (lace making, not tattoos). I'll have to find five people to teach crochet to if I want to go for Expert, so I'm not sure that's gonna happen. It will be a month before I can work on any new levels or badges. (Update: you gotta click on Speck's badges in the comments - they are amazing and she made them for me!)

In further updates, our veggie garden is alive, surprisingly, given the weather this June. Unfortunately, the yellow cucumbers didn't make it through the cold snap. The tomato plants are growing, if not sprouting tomatoes, and the pepper plants seem to be getting taller. The odd experiment, our four corn stalks in a planter, do seem to be growing taller and thicker, but once we get the planter at the new place and against a wall for support, I think it will do better. We still need to get the pumpkin seeds in - hope that we haven't missed the window of opportunity.

I'm still working up my recipes for the contests, so nothing to report on that front.

We now return you to your regular scheduled and interesting programming....

Veggie Garden Diary - Initial planting

NR and I have an ambitious goal this year for gardening; we are going to begin and tend a large veggie garden - all in containers. The containers are necessary because eventually, if the moving gods smile on us, we'll be moving and need our veggies to be portable. I also have read about container gardening and I'm eager to see if it works as it is touted.

Our goal is also ambitious because neither me nor my young son are proven to have green thumbs. At least NR has the excuse of never having planted a garden before; I've done it in the past and had mediocre results. But this is a new year and our soil is a new mix, so we're going to take our chances and see if we can grow some veggie love for the hot days of summer. I'm half-way convinced that food prices are going to skyrocket with the price of gas, so this is my foray into self-sufficiency.

Our first planting consisted of:

Six sweet corn seedlings in a cedar planting box

Four yellow tomato seedlings, one brandywine tomato seedling and four Big Boy tomato seedlings in a cedar planting box (I can see already that I need tomato cages for the stalks.)

One Lemon Cucumber plant in a ceramic pot

Four Banana Sweet Peppers plants in a ceramic pot

Four Pimento Sweet Peppers plants in a ceramic pot

Our second planting will likely include some zucchini, cauliflower and at some point pumpkins. All of these containers are in the middle of my front yard, soaking up some sun and hopefully growing. I might try playing some ABBA for them to make them vigorous; nothing makes you feel as peppy as ABBA, right?

Photos of our success (or failure, let's hope not) will be posted. Wish the novice growers luck!