Thursday, June 3, 2010

Our Family Garden!

I don't think I ever posted about planting our garden back in April! Shame on me. Well, to catch you up, we have strawberries, tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes planted.

Here are our strawberries.
These are doing surprisingly well for the amount of heat and sun they have to endure. We have a ton of new green strawberries sprouting up every day. However, as soon as they start to turn red, someone else decides to eat it right off the vine.

This little bug...
Our strawberries are covered with these little guys every morning! I don't want to spray pesticides on our fruit, but I'm also not sure I want to supply a strawberry buffet to the roley poleys. Does anyone know of any "green" ways to deter these little guys?

Our tomatoes are growing bigger every day!
I can't wait for them to turn red.

And our cherry tomato plants are really starting to perk up. We weren't sure if they were going to make it. They seemed kind of droopy and unhappy, but last week, they decided to pull through and we have our first cherry tomato growing.
This morning, we checked on our garden and the cherry tomato was bright red! Our first fruit of the season. Yay!

We are having so much fun with our little planter garden. I am already excited for next year to come so I can plant bell peppers, peas, green beans, and other fun things!

Do you guys have a garden? What are you growing this year? What does well and what doesn't do so well?

6 comments:

  1. I don't know if it will work on roley poleys but a good bug repellent is dish soap and water in a spray bottle. It gets all the other bugs off. Good luck :)

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  2. I've also heard that a little vinegar water sprayed on them helps as a natural pesticide.

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  3. I'm impressed! That's great! Where do you find time between work and couponing to have a garden?!?

    My dad has a sod and wheat farm- I'll ask him about the roley poleys to see if he has any suggestions. He has also developed his own organic-based fertilizer that he uses on the farm and sells in kits for homeowners to use on lawns, gardens, trees, shrubs, etc. If you're interested, send me an email at GrandpasGrainAZ@gmail.com

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  4. I have a huge strawberry patch and have the same problem. I went to my favorite local nursery and asked about it. They said rolly pollys only eat decaying material, the real problem is caterpillers. The tiny green kind eat the round holes into the strawberries and the strawberry begins to rot. There were two options to combat the caterpillars: toxic pesticides, or have the kids look for and pick off the green offenders. Since our whole garden is organic, we have decided to live with the holes.

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  5. Hey there Kim, love your garden!! I need to take a pic of mine...it's unbelievable. I had one in QC and it did not grow. Here in my house in Mesa it's huge. The cherry tomat-ers are 5 feet high...I never realized that my garden would take off like it did. Maybe it likes our soil up here better?

    I dont have any bugs in it, but I did buy a bunch of ladybugs at Home Depot. My DD loves to play with them, and they eat alot of the aphids. I have sweet peas, Cantaloupe, Cherry tomatoes, Onions, squash, green beans, cucumbers, and zucchini. Maybe I'll have to take a photo for ya tomorrow. My boss has strawberries and she said they grow good here...I was scared to plant them :)

    Good job!!!

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  6. Palmer Family - Great idea! I'm totally going to try that this weekend. The strawberry free for all is over roley poleys! :)

    Anon- Another great idea! You guys are so smart and inventive. I'll let you know how it goes.

    Wheat- Thanks for the comment! I have to confess that the garden doesn't take much work at all. My awesome husband put in drippers so the plants are auto-watered and the bark helps keep down the weeds. It is super easy! If the dish soap & vinegar suggestions don't work, I will be in contact with you about your dad's fertilizer.

    Just K - I'm happy to see I am not alone! That is good to know about the little green worms. Thanks for the insight and good luck with your garden!

    Sheryl- Cantaloupe? Wow, that's awesome! I think my garden is going to quadruple in size next year. I can't believe all the different varieties of produce we can grow right in the middle of the desert! Ladybugs are a fun idea. I had no clue you could just buy them at Home Depot!

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