Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Harvest, etc

Cow peas from seed I saved.

 Well, it looks as if the above is all I am going to gather from the garden this fall. But I'm not too disappointed. I learned a lot over the course of the past 2 months, and I am excited about planting some cold weather crops like cabbage and collards. I plan to get some heirloom seeds in the hopes that they will produce well, and I'll be able to get more seed for next year.

I plan to make my garden larger next year to grow more variety of crops, and plan to add fruit trees and blueberries Fall 2011.

So again, I think my little experiment garden served its purpose and next year should be much more "fruitful!"



Click the image to see the larger file. He has what looks like a shield over his body!

While admiring my neightbor's purple trumpet flowers, I found this little guy. I thought it was a lady bug at first, but now I am not sure what it is; never seen one like this. Any ideas?

Friday, September 10, 2010

A canteloupe seed does not a pumpkin make.


After much head scratching and Google research, I have come to realize that the pumpkins I planted back in July are really canteloupes. Yes, it's true.... and as embarrassing as this is to post, I think there is a good lesson here... not sure what it is yet, except maybe that labeling the bag would have helped.

I know what your saying: "Canteloupe seeds look nothing like pumpkin seeds!" Yet, in the heat of excitedly planting my rows with the kids, I my eyes (and brain, I suppose) failed me.

In my defense, I have never grown canteloupes or pumpkins, so I had no idea what they would look like on the vines. My suspicion arose when the canteloupe seeds in the compost sprouted. And when the "pumpkins" started to crack like canteloupes, that is when the real head scratching began (I thought maybe the pumpkins were splitting due to too much water (like tomatoes do sometimes)).

The more I thought about, it the more I do remember saving canteloupe (not pumpkin) seeds.

Oh well, good thing we all like cantaloupe in this family.

Fellow blogger, Carol, recently organized all of her seeds. Visit her blog to read about it.