Sunflower Progress & Cucumber Trellis

Sunflowers are doing great, almost 6 foot.

4 of the 8 Mammoth Sunflowers I planted from seed. They haven't formed a head / flower yet. Look at the size of those leaves. Some people use these types of sunflowers as a sight barrier...I see why now.

2 cucumber plants, planted about 2 feet in front of sunflowers. I used concrete reinforcing wire as a trellis for the cucumbers to grow on. I'm hoping it keeps them off the ground so that picking them will be easier and it will save ground space.

Squash Bug eggs on one of our squash plants. We've sprayed them with soapy water to kill them...hopefully. It kills the live bugs, just not sure about the eggs.

Tri-Pod Beans and Homemade Cages

Tri-Pod trellis I built for pole beans. You can't see it now, but around each leg  I planted 5 beans. Hopefully by mid-summer this structure will be immersed in grean.

Triangular tomato cages I built from Concrete Reinforcing Wire purchased from  a lumber yard. They are 6  feet tall, and I expect the plants to go all the way to the top...and even over.

First Squash. It along with another got picked and cooked tonight with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and  some fresh rosemary from the garden...not bad.

Mammoth Sunflowers - That's a 17 oz. water bottle at the base. There about 2.5 to 3 feet high now. 

I planted pole beans (from seed) around the base of 3 of the Mammoth Sunflowers. Notice the 4 bean plants surrounding the sunflower stalk. Once the beans get big enough, I'll run them up the Sunflower stalk...using the stalk as the supporting pole.

Broccoli, Cabbage Worms & Coca Cola

Everything is growing great. Have had a major infestation of Imported Cabbage Worms. I blogged about them earlier. I noticed the white butterflies all over my garden weekend before last and from what I have read, one can expect an infestation soon. Well, that's right. If you plant cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts and/or cauliflower and you see pretty little white butterflies dancing from plant to plant, grab a tennis racket and start swinging.
My wife and I have easily picked off around 200-300 of the caterpillars that hatch from their eggs. I think we have salvaged the broccoli and brussel sprouts, not sure if the cabbage will make it though.

New Plantings:
4 Eggplant
2 Pickling Cucumber
2 Straight 8 Cucumber
1 Straight Neck Squash
3 sets of pole green beans (planted around sunflower stalks)
About 15 Marigold seeds (meant to attract beneficial insects and repel harmful insects)

If you've ever wondered what Broccoli looks like, here you go. Looks like I'll be steaming some up very soon.

Sunflowers! Put a Coca Cola can next to the plants for size comparison. I am using  2 of the  Sunflower plants as  supporting structures for pole beans...more on that later.

Basil...I look forward to eating lots of this...especially with tomatoes .

Fortunately the Pineapple Sage has made a good comeback from the damage done during one of the frost. See earlier post for a picture of the damage immediately after the frost. Oh yeah, the leaves smell just like sweet Pineapple...it's awesome!

Broccoli Squash Progress

Quick Update:
Broccoli and Squash are really doing great (see pics below). Everything else is doing fine also. The only exception is the cucumber plants. I'll be pulling all of them up this weekend and replanting some new ones. The cucumbers currently planted just haven't changed. Plus they have white-ish marks on the leaves. Not sure what the problem is, but something ain't right.

Had the wife kneel behind the broccoli plants so that it's easier to judge the size.

Broccoli, lettuce, and Brussels sprouts.

Zucchini squash.

Salad Surprise

As I mentioned in the previous post, the lettuce, both butter bib and red leaf, have did great. I really had little expectation of them doing well. So I have been more than pleased. We have actually now taken 2 salads from the plants and hopefully many more to come. See pic below:

Tonight's salad...straight from the back yard!

Frost Bitten, Twice Shy

Got most of my plants covered Wednesday night, but it wasn't enough to prevent damage. I was actually surprised. I just assumed that if you cover your plants, all is well. That's not the case. However, it appears that I only lost 2 plants...a cucumber and a zucchini squash. My basil plants took a hit, but I plucked the bad leafs off and I think it will recover. My pineapple sage took a pretty big hit, which is a bummer, it was looking so good. I didn't cover it, so that's probably why. I gambled hopping that it would be ok...I was wrong.

With that said, the broccoli, lettuce, brussel sprouts, and cabbage are doing great. See pics below:

Pinneapple Sage took a pretty good hit from the frost!

Zucchini Squash.

Broccoli doing great!

The lettuce has been my biggest surprise, it's doing wonderful.

Sunflower Germination

My Mammoth Sunflower seedlings have germinated. I've never started any plants from seeds so I was very excited to see these leaves sticking out of the dirt (see pics below). I planted them last Sunday (April 1) and thought it may be 10-14 days till germination. They are Mammoth sunflowers. I planted them for several reasons:

1. To help attract beneficial insects (aka..beneficials) to the garden. Beneficials prey on the pest that eat your plants. Wasps and ladybugs are examples of beneficials. For example, wasps will eat caterpillars and ladybugs will eat aphids.
2. As the stalk for a 3-sisters garden, which consist of sunflowers (or corn), pole beans, and squash.
3. They just plain look cool, as the Mammoth's grow 8 to 10 feet tall.

Lastly, my broccoli appears to be doing really well and with a cool spell expected for the next five days I expect the brussel sprouts and cabbage to do well also.

Notice the 3 sets of seedlings across the middle of the pic, these are the Mammoth Sunflowers...expected to reach 8-10 feet.

Broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cabbage all doing fairly well... especially the broccoli.