Garden Update 06-14-07

My little cucumber!

I have a growing little cucumber on my hands. Lately, with the hot weather I’ve been getting more female flowers on my cucumbers than male flowers. Oddly, there are no male flowers for my female flowers to mate with. I’ve been hunting down my other cucumber plants for male flowers and I’ve successfully pollinated one cucumber. The other female flowers (the ones that look like a miniature cucumber with a flower), I have not been so successful. They just shrivel up and die it seems. The cucumber is so tiny and cute and growing gradually everyday. I can’t wait for cucumbers to come. I have so many plans for them. I love them in salads, raw, with ranch dressing and most of all, I love it with a special Vietnamese dish called “Bun Thit Nuong” which is an Asian barbecued meat. I put the meat on top of rice which is covered with peanuts and cucumbers on the side. I also want to try a cucumber salad and a cucumber sandwich on pumpernickel bread and mayonnaise. My mouth is watering thinking about all the possibilities for cucumbers!

I officially have a flowering Shirley red poppy. I bought the seeds from Groco Seeds and Nursery and I started them in peat pellets in February and I’ve heard they’re hard to transplant but I thought if I kept them in peat pellets of their own, they should be fine. They sprouted pretty quickly and grew like weeds! I was so proud of them. I planted them in a shady spot that gets morning sun and they did well there. It took them a couple of months (approximately 3 months) for them to form buds and a week after I noticed buds, they were blooming. Poppy flowers are delicate flowers and are about 3 inches in diameter. They look so fragile and the petals are paper thin. I hope they get pollinated so I can keep the seeds for next year. Although, I do have a ton of seeds still so I should be fine with poppy seeds. Like I said, I have a ton of seeds, so if anyone wants to trade, please look at my trade list and leave a comment if you’re interested.

In the garden, I’ve been able to pick 6-8 supersweet 100 tomatoes daily. My fiancee loves these. He can eat a bowl of them for a snack. I like the fact that I grew them and I know what went into developing these yummy little red poppers. Plus, it’s a healthy snack!

This morning, I fertilized the vegetable and flower garden with seaweed emulsion. I also pollinated the female squashes. Hopefully, I was successful with pollinating two female squashes. We’ll be up to our ears with squash by the end of the summer! Luckily, I have some of my vegetables and most of my flowers in pots because I’m moving to a new apartment in August. The plants I have in the ground will be taken down in August . I’m sacrificing my strawberry plants and leaving them there because I know they hate being moved. Hopefully the new person moving into my apartment will take care of them and be rewarded with strawberries in the beginning of next spring. I’ll miss my garden. We put a lot of hard work into it including amending the soil, adding soil additives, digging and pulling up weeds, etc. I hope the next occupant is a gardener because the backyard is in prime condition for growing!

Tonight, I’m going to cook the squash I picked a couple of days ago. I’m thinking about sauteing it in olive oil with onions and garlic (both from my garden). It’ll be a healthy side dish to chicken and a salad with my cherry tomatoes or what’s left after my fiancee gets to them. It’ll be dinner from the garden tonight! Everything except for the chicken and olive oil are from my little garden.