Brownersen's Garden 2012: Day 13

I hope everyone had a great week and has a fun Memorial Day weekend! Since Derek and I are going out of town this weekend, I figured I'd do an update early. We have had quite a bit of rain this week, and it's forecasted to keep coming. Apparently it's becoming one of the rainiest Mays on record (this always confuses me as I keep hearing about the drought). Anywho... the plants are loving the rain I think! The lettuce in particular looks gorgeous! I'm so happy we planted it. I need to do some research, but I'm thinking we can start harvesting and making salad soon, as it will keep growing back for a couple of months. Of course, when this happens, I will be sure to post pictures!!

Alright, here is the garden! First from all four corners.

View #1: 

 View #2: 

View #3:

View #4:

Here are our sweet corn plants. We have about 8 or 9 little plants, and I'm guessing that's going to be about it. They are growing quickly! The tallest one is 3.75", which is 2.25" taller than 5 days ago!

Here is 1 of the 4 tomatillos. This tomatillo is 15.75", .75" taller since the last update.

Here is our Striped German tomato plant, 1 of our 4 heirloom varieties. I measured it at 13" today, which is 1.5" taller than the last update. The picture from last week is on top... can you see how much fuller it is getting??

Here is 1 of the 4 cauliflower plants. The height has stayed the same at 4.5", but it keeps getting more and more leaves. (As you can see from the photos below; the top picture is last week.)

Here's our sweet pepper variety, Purple Beauty. It has grown to 5", or 1.5" taller than last week.

Here is one of our unidentified hot pepper varieties. It is growing steadily at about .5" each week; it was 6" this week.

Here is 1 of the 4 sweet potato plants. Once again, it really doesn't look much different than last week. It has stayed at 3.5" tall since last week. I hope good things are happening underground!

Here is the all-blue potato plant. I measured it as 11", which is 1.75" taller than last week.

Here is our eggplant plant. It stayed the same since last week at 5".

Here is the Jenny Lind melon. It grew to 5", .5" taller than last week, but like many of the plants it is quite a bit wider!

Here is our lettuce. Seriously can't believe how filled out it is getting. I think we'll be having salad from the garden sooner than expected! It is about 4.5" tall this week, about .5" taller than last week. The first photo is the lettuce last week, the second is the lettuce this week, and the third is a new view - from above.

Here is the kale, both from the side and above. It is standing tall at 7" and is growing at a steady rate of 1" per week.

And finally, here is the zucchini! It is growing very quickly, and it looks like there is probably more than 1 plant in there... hard to say. I may have measured it differently last week, but this week I measured the stem and leaf. Apparently, it has grown to 6", 3" more than last week. That sounds like a lot, but I'm including last week's picture to show just how big it's gotten!

Brownersen's Garden 2012: Day 9

Derek and I have been caring for our little plants quite a bit this week, mostly in the form of watering (twice daily), as it has been quite dry. Today we pulled our first weeds (just a few) -- they had crept in on the edge near the rhubarb and corn. We got a good amount of rain yesterday and today, and the plants were looking very perky today for their picture-taking session! Derek declared that he'd like to fertilize, and I am not so sure. I am going to do some research, but if anyone has ideas of how to fertilize a garden without introducing bad chemicals, I would be interested to know!

By the way, this week I'm including information on how much the plants have grown. These estimates are approximate, since it's difficult precisely to measure plants! Also, in all applicable cases, I included the photo from last week (either above or to the left of the photo from this week). Makes for a long post, but I think it's worth it!

And now, here is our garden, again from all 4 corners. Does anyone see any differences from last week??

View #1:

View #2:

View #3:

View #4:

Here is the sweet corn that we planted last week. I couldn't believe it, but I noticed teeny tiny corn plants this morning! I remember planting about 10-12 seeds, and Derek and I counted about 8 little plants. We'll see if any more pop up! 


Since last Monday, the corn has grown approximately 1.5" (from 0" to 1.5"):

Here is one our tomatillo plants. Since last Monday, this tomatillo has grown approximately 1.5" (from 13.5" to 15"):

Here is one of the 4 tomato plants... this one is the Red German. (I know I posted the Red Zebra last week, but I did take measurements on the Red German, so now you can see that one!)


Since last Monday, the Striped German tomato has grown approximately 1.5" (from 10" to 11.5"):

Here is one of the 4 cauliflower plants. Since last Monday, the cauliflower has grown approximately 1" (from 3.5" to 4.5"):

Here is my pretty purple pepper plant! Since last Monday, it has grown approximately 0" (3.5" both times). However, it does appear to have added more leaves since last week!

Here is one of the other unidentified pepper plants (the same one from last week of course). Since last Monday, this pepper has grown approximately 0.5" (from 5" to 5.5"):

Here is 1 of the 4 sweet potato plants. Since last Monday, this sweet potato plant has grown approximately 0.5" (from 3" to 3.5"). However, with a potato, I assume that most of the growth happens under the soil... Right?

Here are the all-blue potatoes. Since last Monday, this has grown approximately .25" (from 9" to 9.25"):

And here is our eggplant plant... Since last Monday, the eggplant has grown approximately 1" (from 4" to 5"):

Here is our Jenny Lind melon... Since last Monday, the melon has grown approximately 1.5" (from 3" to 4.5"):

Here are our lettuce varieties. Since last Monday, the lettuce has grown approximately 0" (4" both times):

Here is the kale; independent of the height estimate, this has definitely sprouted a few new leaves since last week! Since last Monday, the kale has grown approximately 1" (from 5" to 6"):

Here is the zucchini, of which I did not take a photo last week. I did measure it last week, though, and since last Monday, it has grown approximately 1" (from 2" to 3"):