Garden Update

It has been about a month since the garden went in and it is taking over. In reality I couldn't be happier, everything is doing so well as you can see.


This is my largest garden to date and the very first time growing; corn, cantaloupe and watermelon. Until now I have stuck with the old stand by's; tomato's, cucumbers, squash, peppers and the other usual suspects.

I have never done a traditional garden, I have always used pots, raised beds and this year the big new addition; 3 Garden Patch grow boxes. These are self watering containers large enough to grow just about anything. I had seen a review of them in an article in Mother Earth News and had to have them. So far I LOVE them, they seemed a tad pricey at the time but now seeing how well they work would probably pay double if I had to. They have a 4 gallon reserve in the bottom that you fill and then only refill when close to empty. This allows the plant to have a never ending supply of water. I chose to plant cantaloupes and watermelon in two of the grow boxes, seeing as the main reason they are so hard to grow is the endless amount of water they need to grow those water filled melons.


***This is two Garden Patch Grow Boxes placed in a line next to each other. To the left is one with 6 watermelon plants and to the right 5 cantaloupes and 1 extra watermelon.


Here you can see some cantaloupe blossoms and you can also see the watering hole for the Grow Boxes. I simply stick my watering wand in there and fill. The melons are drinking almost 4 gallons a day!
*sorry blogger keeps turning this photo on it's side and I can not for the life of me figure out why:(



In the third went the corn, I have discovered that kids love to grow corn and why not you plant a seed, one that is actually big enough for them to handle, and off they go like they are in a race. Sailor will look out the window several times a day and say something along the line of "WOW mom look at our corn!!!".




So to date we have:

3 Zucchini's (a few days away from harvesting)


4 Peppers (that need to grow bigger before we eat them)


4 Pear tomato's (that need to turn red)


A hand full of tiny cherry tomato's (just starting out)


And a lot of itty bitty little melons that the kids and I like to play find the melons when we check in on them (though that is very hard to do in the wild jungle that is our melon patch)



I plan on weighing all of our harvest as it comes in so we can have a grand total of how much food we were able to grow. Here is a family really using their yard to grow their food.

Little Homestead in the City