Oh, the places you'll grow!: Lettuce take a look at my garden, shall we?

This week in the garden was eventful, hot, sweaty, tiring, and wonderful as always. We did the normal weeding and plot maintenance expected of us every week. The weeds in my plot seem to be particularly relentless, but I am assured that it is just in the nature of a weed to be obnoxious and persistent. I had to rebuild my beds (the first row was rough because I hadn't yet established a method. But, with some help from my fellow nearby gardeners, I figured it out soon enough) and clear the walkways. Aside from the normal care, the lettuce transplants were ready for us, so I got to part the soil for four cute little lettuce plants (pictures to follow). Finally, I sprayed the "big guys" with some pesticides to keep the bugs at bay. Nothing super out of the ordinary, save for my new baby lettuces, but it was a fulfilling garden visit nonetheless.

I noticed a lot of changes in my garden this week. For one, the peas have sprouted! It's hard to believe that I just tucked them into the soil last week and they're already visibly growing. Other than that, my beans are coming along nicely. My tomatoes look healthy and more upright than last week, my scallions are still tiny but I no longer mistake them for weeds, and my carrots are still a mystery. The eggplants seem to be getting HUGE and I spotted a flower on one of my squash plants (at least...I think it's a squash. I didn't actually make note of it).

To answer the question for this week's blog, an essential plant nutrient is a nutrient that a plant would not grow without. There are 3 categories of essential nutrients, which is what the majority of our lecture focused on. You have environmental essential nutrients (carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen), macro-nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and potassium), and micro-nutrients (iron, zinc, copper, chlorine, boron, molybdenum, and manganese)

I think my peppers might be showing signs of plant deficiencies. The leaves are a bit yellower than it seems they should be, which could indicate a deficiency of nitrogen, sulfur, or magnesium. My eggplant leaves are also slightly purple, which could either be the color they are naturally, or a lack of phosphorous.

Anyways, that's all I've got. Have a radish-ing weekend! (wow...I'm a little bit ashamed of that one).