Volunteer Tomato Covers Window

Back in May we put in the bigger better tomato cage. Turns out it was not big enough after all. The 7 foot tall tomato plant here is the same one shown on the top of the blog growing amongst the carrots. A photo from May is below. Wow!!! You can also see the rapid growth of the straight 8 cucumber plant to the right. Pretty soon we will get the first taste of those cukes!!!Below is the same plant from May 9th. Wow, it actually covered the window. And it is producing great tomatoes. Yum!!! And the cucumber plant is so tiny compared to now.

Failed Overheated Cucumbers

Imagine the excitement when returning from a trip. Each mile closer to home made us more eager to see Our Suburban Garden. Finally we surveyed the plants. Seems it was a bit hotter than expected and the irrigation system did not quite keep up with the heat. Our bush cucumbers were the hardest hit. Look at those brown leaves. Let's try to baby these guys back to life. It's good to be back in the garden!!!

Suburban Container Garden

The double decker green bean patch at the end is flanked by the bush cucumbers and the potato ranch is beginning to take shape again. We got the containers hooked up to the drip sprinkler system. Originally we put the sprinkler pipes in for flowers, but guess what? No flowers, just veggies. Pretty soon we'll plant more and expand the garden. Gardening is good!!!

Watermelon Sprouts

Lil Bro is thrilled that his watermelon plants have sprouted and are growing well. To quote Lil Bro he says, "It's epic. When it grows watermelons the watermelons might be as big as the Magna Guard star fighter." Dad thinks that is a Star Wars ship. We expect the vines to overrun that corner of the yard pretty soon. Happy Gardening!! The original watermelon post is here: http://vegetable123.blogspot.com/2009/05/watermelin-seeds-today.html

Green Bean Containers

Yay! We are back in the garden!!! The green beans are starting to grow a lot after some warm weather here. Still have not picked any beans yet, but soon we will get to. In the foreground are the bush cucumber plants. Sure enough they stopped growing at about exactly 2 feet tall. There is one big cuke in the bottom center of the photo. Just waiting for him to get a little bit bigger. Pretty soon the whole garden will be in full production mode. Happy Gardening!!

Long Horn Steer Decoration

Finally heading home after a week in this land. Ran into 2 final giant fiberglass animals, a steer and a bear. Here's the steer staring at my granny-car. Had to get in this dangerous location for the best angle. Luckily now it is time to leave these animals behind and get back to gardening. Yay!

Elephant in the Garden

Ah ha. Tricked you. There's no garden here. But there are plenty of giant fiberglass animals. This is the big eared elephant in pink next to granny-mobile. Not sure why this elephant is here, but now that he's been here so long, everyone expects him to stick around. Hope your gardening is going as well as my hunting for giant fiberglass animals.

Cow on Steroids

Well I am away from the garden this week, but can't seem to get away from the farm. I have discovered a land of giant fiberglass animals. I want to take a series of giant animal photos. Hey if I can't be there to take photos of the garden, I might as well have some fun taking giant animal pics. BTW the rental car people gave me the champagne Granny-car. What's up with that? And yes, you are right. The cow is wearing pink sunglasses. Happy Gardening!!!

R2 Climbs the Bean Stalk

When the bean stalk stops growing, Jack the droid will climb to the world above the clouds. Today Garden Guy flew above the clouds. By the time R2 gets above the clouds, Garden Guy will be back on earth. We're away from the garden for 4 days. Boo hoo. So sad. Hope your gardens are blossoming!!!

Today's Goodies From the Garden

What started as a quick peek in Our Suburban Garden soon became a pick-fest. We have been enjoying homemade strawberry lemonade this week. The zucchini, lettuce, spinach and kale are making great salad. The green peppers and onion are great in our home fried potatoes. Yum yum. Happy Gardening!!

Cukes in Containers

Our bush cucumbers are starting to really fill in. They are supposed to only get a couple feet tall. We'll see... If each flower makes a cucumber, then we are in for a truckload. Happy Gardening!

First Zucchini of the Year

It seems like just last week we had so many zucchini's growing. But alas, it was last year. This photo shows the first ones for this year. Hopefully this is the start of another bumper crop and lots of tasty treats. These guys grow so fast we have to try to pick them before they become 2 feet long. Eventually we need to post another photo to show how the plant is working inside the tomato cage. The stems are very cramped right now inside the cage but we're hoping the cage idea works out so we avoid the overwhelming sprawl of the zucchini plant. Happy Gardening from Our Suburban Garden to yours!

Crowded Cucumber and Carrots

The cucumbers are growing like crazy. And the carrots have become too big for this small space so we had a carrot harvest. Yay! The Spring carrots turned out better than the Winter carrots. Probably due to the massive amount of rocks that were removed in the Spring. Lil Bro helped pull out the carrots. Now we have some space for the cukes to spread out a little bit. Keep your plants happy and they will be happy and tasty!

New Green Bean Patch

We noticed that the sun has shifted and we have another south-facing wall to grow vertically against. We made this little stand from scrap wood. Below is an 8 port drip sprinkler head and each pot has its own tube for automatic irrigation. Takes the daily TLC out of the picture, but we will just have to hand water something else.

We have 3 older green bean containers, the larger plants. Then we planted 2 more containers (top row) about 2 weeks later to space out the harvest. Soon we'll have 5 more green bean containers here for a total of 10. Then we'll see how tall they get. The bottom row has 3 kale containers for right now, but soon we'll move those into a location away from the direct sunlight.

We're so thrilled. Yay!!!!

Cute Cucumber

Some teeny tiny cucumbers are forming under the flowers. My salad bowl is ready for these little guys to grow grow grow. This plant is a Straight 8 cucumber and is planted in the ground. We also have 2 Bush cucumber plants in containers, but the Straight 8 was planted about 2 months earlier and is approaching 24" in height. We're training the Straight 8 to grow vertically up a tomato cage. The training requires a little TLC, but if we don't go vertically, we will have a sprawling jungle.