Char's Gardening"As the Garden Grows, so does the Gardener"

The past two weeks have been so busy for me, that I haven’t even had time, until today, to plant my much anticipated fall garden.  I transplanted my fall seedlings and everything else got directly sown into the garden.  As you can see my second summer crop is doing very well, I have tiny cucumbers and zapallo squash, and blooms on my tomatoes, beans, and winter squash.

Fall Garden

Our weather here is still hot with the highs in the upper 80′s to low 90′s and lows around 70.  When I ordered my seeds from Heirloom Seeds I got a sheet specifically telling me that lettuce won’t germinate in hot weather.  I went ahead and planted my lettuce today but am a little worried it’s still too hot.  Hopefully, they will germinate.  But I figure, what’s to lose, each seed pack comes with hundreds of seeds, enough to last me years in my square foot garden.

While in the garden I noticed I have a helper, no this time it’s not my dog Kahlo, but an insect eating helper.  Non other then a Praying Mantis.  Hopefully, I didn’t scare him off by taking his picture because I sure could use his help.   Do they eat caterpillars?  I hope so.

Praying Mantis

Then much to my dismay in my butterfly garden I found this.

Green Lynx Spider eating Bumble Bee

I have been adding flowers to my garden that attract bees.  I have convinced myself the reason my zucchini and summer squash, in my first summer garden, didn’t produce much fruit was due to a lack of bees.  So to see that the Green Lynx Spider got this bee made me sad.

I thought I would give a little update on how my garden is growing.  In my post What I Did This Weekend I built raised beds for my square foot garden.  It’s been about three weeks and I am quite pleased with the results.  The big tomato plants I bought, the rest were started from seeds.

I know, there is a lot of open space in my beds.  This is because I am anxiously awaiting the time to finally plant my first fall crop.  Most of my fall seedlings have grown enough to place in pots.  I have moved them outside onto my potting bench with a shade cloth curtain in front to protect them from the hot sun.   My plan is to start more fall seeds in about 2 weeks in hopes of having a continuous fall crop.

As I have never planted a fall garden before I am eagerly anticipating the cool weather now more than ever.  But it is still way to hot to plant outside, so I decided to make good use of the second bathroom and start my seeds there.  This seems to be the safest place away from the dog and cats who love to munch on seedlings.   I used scrap wood placing 2 x 4′s across the tub then topping them with plywood.  I purchased a shower curtain rod and hung a shop light from it over the trays.  I planted my seeds last this past Monday and most of them, except the celery and pansies, are looking good and need to be placed in pots.  I am worried that a few look a little leggy, maybe my light is too far away.   But as with everything practice makes perfect.