Zuchinni, Eggplant, Beans--Oh No!

This week in the garden was one for the books. While I was excited to see that my vegetables really seemed to be taking off, I am sad to report that I had to compost my veggies. I'm personally convinced that nothing will grow back in their places, but Libby assured me that this will not be the case. Anyways, after the usual weeding, spraying of BT/Neem, fertilizing, and unfortunate composting of my vegetables, I set up some trellises for my bean plants (poor things fell over with the weight of the beans). Final order of business--took some pictures (see below) and called it a day.

Bell peppers!

AJ Pepper

My veggies to compost :(

Eggplants!

I brought home a few of the sacrifices to show my roommates. We didn't touch them though, promise!

This week in class we talked about the different plant parts. We discussed what classifications many of the plants in our garden fall into. My root crops are beets, carrots, and turnips. The only bud crop that I have is my lone cabbage plant. My leaf crops are lettuce, onions, and (if it ever emerges) basil. My flower crops are the cauliflowers and squash plants. For fruit crops, we have tomatoes, cucumber, eggplants, peppers, beans, and peas.

The Hungry Caterpillar

This week in class we talked all about pests, focusing primarily on insect pests. This is extremely relevant because I've been noticing all of these little (and sometimes not so little) holes appearing in my plant leaves. It looks like we have a few hungry caterpillars in the garden (I actually caught on in the act--see pictures above).

This week was the last week to plant! I gave up on my kohlrabi and put a few cauliflower down instead. I had to replace one of my beet plans as well as a lettuce plant. They looked more than a little sad (I'm afraid that I might have used too much fertilizer last week). I did a fair amount of weeding, as usual, but it wasn't as bad because I visited my garden the Friday before and did some light weeding then, too. No fertilizer this week, which means next week I'll have to do it and be a little more conscious about the amount that I'm using. But I did spray A LOT of neem and BT in light of the many In terms of change, everything seems to be getting HUGE. I spotted two baby eggplants, in addition to more bell peppers (my original pepper is getting huge!). I almost don't recognize the squash and cucumber because of how huge the leaves are. My peas and beans are coming along nicely, although I noticed that something was chomping away at my beans as well.  The few carrots that I do have are looking more promising by the week, but the tomato plants seem to be at sort of a stand-still. I'll have to give them some extra attention on Monday. 

We have a fair amount of insect damages and pressures in the garden right now. I turned over some leaves on Monday and found critters hiding in the shade, in addition to the very large hungry caterpillar making itself comfortable in my tomato plant. We have a variety of pests in the garden, ranging from white flies, ants, aphids, leaf miners, caterpillar, and grasshoppers. Damages are mostly coming in the form of holes in the leaves (chewing and sucking), injury cause by female reproductive eggs, and damage caused by living inside crop leaves or fruits. The pressure then becomes what kind of action we should take to preserve the crops--do we spray something that isn't organic or do we let them get eaten? With this in mind, Libby decided to spray a pesticide that is approved but not organic (a response to the pressure put on our crops by insects). Hopefully the bugs go away!

My garden is simply radishing!

Whats new you ask? Everything is getting so huge! My eggplant is starting to flower, as well as my peppers. My gourmet orange bell pepper is starting to sprout something (see pictures below). The squash plants are growing like nobody's business. My peas were tiny last week, but they grew at least 2 inches in just a week's time. The beans are beginning to differentiate, so I can see clearly where my Provider beans stop and my Maxibel ones begin. There haven't been any deaths yet, though my lettuce doesn't seem to be particularly thriving.

This week we planted the last of the transplants. In went the cabbage, cauliflower, beets, and radishes. The weather wasn't very good. I ended up visiting my garden later in the week, where I weeded (as usual), fertilized, and sprayed neem and Thuricide. No lecture this week because we had a test.

Libby asked us to explain where we get our food from. Like most college students, I am a frequent Publix shopper.  I recognize that my food doesn't actually come from Publix, but that Publix is merely a forum for shoppers to buy produce that other growers are producing. Finding out where my food comes from was very difficult, which I think testifies to the fear that some people have when they don't know where it comes from. Such a fear is really a healthy fear, because what we put into our bodies matters, so we should be more aware of it. I remember doing a walk-through Publix once and seeing a few "locally grown" signs in the produce section, but not as many as I would like. I assume that most of the produce comes from Florida or nearby growers (not too far away hopefully to preserve the produce).

Enjoy the pictures!