Posts Tagged ‘watermelons’

9 Steps To A Successful Garden

Gardening-supplies

A quick list of how to have a successful garden.

  1. Location – all gardens need as much sun as possible. Gardens need a minimum of 6 hours of sunlight per day. 12 hours of sunshine is better.
  2. Tools – you will need tools to prepare the soil and plant your vegetables. Standard items are hoe, garden rake, shovel, hand trowel. If you are more power tool oriented a tiller works well in preparing the soil, but there is not a lot you can’t accomplish in the garden with a hoe and a shovel.
  3. Compost or other organic soil amendments – adding these elements to your garden can help your plants be healthier, resist diseases better and produce larger yields.
  4. Add any fertilizer recommended on the How To Grow pages.
  5. Plants – the top vegetable garden plants are: Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, Squash and Okra. Watermelons and Cantaloupe are almost tied with Okra.
  6. Water your plants in well after you have planted them then water them as needed until they get established and start growing. After they are established, water them good once a week with a deep slow soaking.
  7. Be sure to follow up with additional fertilizing as recommended on the How To Grow pages and prune and stake your tomatoes.
  8. Pull weeds or hoe early and often.
  9. Harvest as recommended so that your plants will keep producing.
  10. Bonus: stagger your plantings so that you have ripe vegetables all season long.
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Charley’s Garden Pictures

corn peppers

squash tomatillos

watermelons zucchini

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Lacey’s Garden – Tomatoes, Squash, Butterflies and Hummingbirds

Howdy folks.  It has been a while.  Not too much to report…my garden is growing lush and green.  I think some of the tomato plants are as tall as I am!  I planted fall tomatoes for the first time ever.  So far so good.  I tilled up an area of the yard that had been covered by a brush pile.  I added compost from my compost pile and manure to the soil so they should be happy there. 

I am getting one squash about every four days; though they are starting to produce a little more now.  Still no big ripe tomatoes; the black cherry has been giving one or two ripe ones every week.  Today there were five ripe ones on it for the first time.  Those do not even make it to the table…they are so tasty we eat them immediately!  The girls found the watermelons that are coming on; Clara is very excited about them. 

We have had some of the most beautiful butterflies visiting- swallowtails of all colors. Whenever I run out there with the camera, they fly off, so no pics yet.   I do have a photo of a swallowtail caterpillar that ate up all my dill (which is one of the reasons I planted dill).  Hummingbirds have been showing up, too, after the bee balm.  Yesterday, one hummingbird flew within 3 feet of my oldest daughter while she stood quietly in delight watching it.  It was not afraid of her at all.  It was a marvelous thing to see and share with her.  And all because of our garden!

I have a few different volunteers coming up and I am going to leave them to see what’s what.  One is a pumpkin and the other is either a squash or a cucumber.

I hope all of you are receiving a bounty of goodness from your gardens. 

ripe blackcherry tomato  vigorous tatume squash

bean blossoms and zinnias  feathery looking sunflower

garden fairies  gourd blossom

swallowtail caterpillar on dill weed  the girls  checking the watermelon

the girls finding new watermelons  vining gourds and zinnias

volunteer near the compost pile  volunteer pumpkin plant

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Lacey’s Garden – Dragon Heirloom Carrots

Hello to all!  The garden is looking real good.   I picked some carrots the other day.  They are a purple heirloom variety called Dragon.  I have few pictures to show you of me harvesting and cleaning them.  I have beautiful lush foliage and only a few fruits on just about everything.  There are lovely green tomatoes on every vine.  If they ever ripen we will have tomatoes out our ears!  I have a picture of the one watermelon ripening on the vine; it is getting bigger everyday.  Also some pictures of okra.  Enjoy the pictures and be sure to take the time to enjoy the beauty and bounty that God provides every day. 

the garden my little helper

me in the garden digging carrots

Dragon carrots cleaning carrots

moon and stars wtermelon tatume squash

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Lacey’s Garden – Video Tour

Here is the video Lacey mentioned last week that I forgot to post.  Be ye warned! The video is about 10 minutes long. 

-JP

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Lacey’s Garden – Farmer’s Market

(*Note – I was supposed to post this two days ago.  My bad.  -Jason)

My garden has finally taken off.  The plants are loving the fertilizer!   Of course, so are the weeds.  I can barely keep them out.  I plan on mulching with more straw but it is sold out at all the feed stores here in town.  I have enough lettuce right now that I was able to sale some at our Farmers Market this past Saturday and I think I am going to sale some this Saturday, too.  Here are a few pictures of my garden. 

baby cucumbers and flower climbing cucumber

 echinacea green leaf lettuce

 leaf lettuce, carrots and tomatoes moon and stars watermelon

 pretty flowers prettys

rainbow beet swiss chard

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Top Veggies For Beginning Gardeners

gardenWe here at the Charley’s Veggies blog have partnered up with the editors at AOL Home website Gardening page to provide information for gardening articles and pictures to help those who want to learn about gardening.

Helping people learn and be successful in the garden is the main goal of our Charley’s Veggies blog and this partnership will help us bring more information to you.

Click here to check out our first article on AOL Home Gardening.

corn1 cucumber1

eggplant2 lettuce1 009

okra1 peas-planting-purplehull

pepper2 squash2

watermelon1

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Charley’s Garden Update

Have you ever had a great idea that just never seemed to pan out?  Well, that’s what happened this spring with my ideas for Charley’s garden.  We were going to plant a few plants of everything and I was going to video it to show everyone how to do it.

Alas, it was not meant to be.  It rained for 6 weeks straight so that we were unable to plow the garden properly.  We were also really busy with shipping plants at the greenhouses that we may not have had time anyway. 

Charley finally got his corn planted a couple of weeks ago and his purple hull peas planted earlier this week.  He also planted some watermelons today.  Unfortunately, my duties at the greenhouses prevented me from being able to get some video of the planting. 

Even though we didn’t get the garden I wanted planted, we should still be able to get some good content for you.  Several of my kin and neighbors did get their gardens planted so we will be visiting them and asking a lot of questions.

To introduce one of the neighbors, here’s a quick video of them planting some squash seed.  They used a plow to furrow up the garden and fertilized and planted by hand.

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