Moon Flower & Fall Seeds

I haven't posted in quiet a while. Grass cutting and other home projects got in the way. Here's a quick update on the garden and the fall garden I have started.
Also, just for the heck of it I planted some various flower seed while planting vegetables and have come to enjoy and appreciate them. Check out the pics of the Moon Flower below:

Moon Flower - It almost looks fake. The lady at the nursery convinced me to buy this 8 inch vine she called a Moon Flower. I reluctantly did. I planted it on the A-frame trellis I built. It's covered one side. The flowers open up at dark...or close to dark, hence the name.

Sprouts from Radish seed I planted Friday...that's 5 days ago!! I planting a wall of Radishs around my fall garden in hopes of keeping the rabbits full of radish leaves instead of my other fall plantings, which include: carrots, leeks, swiss chard, spinach, various lettuces.

Moon Flower plant on the 7 foot A-frame trellis. This plant started out as an 8-inch single stem.

Zinnia

I planted a bunch of zinnia seed in small containers just to use up some potting soil. When they sprouted, I decided to stick them in front of the house in the flower beds. They've turned out looking really nice.

Dill flowers and grass mulch.

We've had lots of growth over the past 3 weeks.

Check out the dill flower heads (foreground) and the eggplant (background). These dill blooms bring lots of beneficial insect activity into the garden.

Squash and Zucchini that we started from seed when our others got hit by the squash vine borer. Notice the ground is covered with grass. I mulched the snot out of it with grass clippings from the yard...hoping to keep down weeds and retain moisture. 

A nice pic of most of the garden. The very front bush type plant is the Pineapple sage, it will bloom in the fall. Going right is sage and the dill plants. That's Okra behind the pineapple sage.

Where's Clinton

Check out the picture taken tonight of me behind the Mammoth Sunflowers....if you can find me. Not sure how much bigger they will get before they go to seed, but I hope they keep going. Notice the picture of only one month ago.

Picture taken tonight of the sunflowers. The tallest looks to be around 8 feet. The packet the seeds they came in said they go 8-10 feet. Look below for a picture of the sunflowers only one month ago.

Same sunflowers as above only ONE month ago. Holy cow, I couldn't even believe this, but it's true!!!

We harvested our first head of cabbage a few days ago. The outer leaves have been stripped off.

Harvesting Lettuce Seed & Squash Vine Borer Bugs

I let 2 of the lettuce plants (1 butter bibb and 1 red leaf) bolt and go to seed (flower) for the purpose of being able to harvest and save the seed. Both types did so well, I thought why not try and saving some of the seed to plant for next year. Below are a few facts about lettuce seed that I learned with some pictures. Do know, I don't know all the facts and am not sure I did this 100% right, but there is still some useful info here.

• Lettuce has to bolt (starts growing up with a stalk, instead of putting off leaves and growing out). This happens when the weather starts getting hot, as lettuce is a cool weather plant.
• Once lettuce has bolted, it will start forming bud-like pods as it prepares to flower (go to seed).
• Before the the buds open they will have yellow sticking out the end and once they have opened and been pollinated they will close back up and plump and white fuzzy material will be sticking out the end. So that's how you know which ones have been pollinated, look for white and plump instead of skinny and yellow. See pics below:
• Lastly, the buds/flowers may only open for as little as 30 minutes, so don't count on seeing the flowers for long...if at all.

Butter Bibb lettuce that has bolted and "gone to seed." 

Same bibb lettuce plant as above while the flowers were open.

Notice the skinny/slim buds with yellow sticking out the top, this is before they have opened and been pollinated. Also in the picture are closed pollinated buds...look for the plump buds with just a little bit of white sticking out the top.

An enemy of the squash / zucchini plant is the Squash Vine Borer. They enter into the stalk close to where it enters the ground and eat the plant from the inside, making it's way up the stalk. Evidence of the insect is saw-dust looking material on the vine (see pic below). This is where they have bored in. Most of our squash  and zucchini plants have these tell-tell signs, so we planted some more today. So if we lose the plants we have, no biggie, we've got more on the way. Not to mention we've been harvesting these plants for about 2 weeks now. 

There are 3 vines on this mound, one going out to the left, and 2 to the right. Notice the left vine, it has the saw-dust looking material caked on it. You can't see it from this angle, but there is actually a noticeable hole also. The vines on the right show no signs of being infected.

Lastly, the wife and I planted some Catnip (from the mint family) and Cilantro (coriander) this morning.

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!