End of the Road

I had high expectations for this blog when I started this venture- I was going to post twice a week, build a community of gardeners and the blog was going to catch on. Well, that didn’t quite happen or even come anywhere close. Due to summer travel, the World Cup and taking on a couple of new volunteer projects, I’ve barely managed to keep up. Such is life, I suppose. Unfortunately, this is going to be the end of the road (Boys II Men chorus going through my head) for the blog this year. Well, maybe one more post after this. Gotta tell you what I learned!

Cucumbers in produce basket

Cucumbers in produce basket

Let me start off with the good. I finally got edible produce from my garden! I pulled two cucumbers from my garden which you can see on the right. One is a healthy green and the other is yellowish. That’s because we got a TON of rain over a week to week and a half period. Too much or too little water can cause the yellow color.

I didn’t care; I finally got to use my produce basket! On the other hand, with all of the money I put into the garden, the cost for each cucumber averages out to about $100. Not exactly cost effective. I cut up the good cucumber and put it in a salad. Delicious if I must say!

That was the mostly good. The bad was that one of my watermelons split open. I believe that this was a result of the heavy rains as well. The garden became saturated and the soil didn’t drain well. I’m down to one watermelon. I’m waiting for it to fall off the vine. I’m sure it will be delicious though.

Next up- telling you what I learned from maintaining my first garden

Salad with my garden cucumber

Salad with my garden cucumber

Split watermelon

Split watermelon

Feeling like a Proud Mama

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted again. Since then, I’ve taken a family vacation to Disney World and made a weekend trip to the beach with girlfriends. Yes I know, my life is hard. But the traveling hasn’t left much time for posting.

Watermelon!

Watermelon!

Before I left for my vacations, I started drafting a post about having second thoughts. I felt like I did in college when I woke up the morning after spending the previous night drinking Boone’s Farm. Thoughts running through my head then and now- what was I thinking? Why did I think that was a good idea? I was very frustrated with my garden. It seemed like a lot of work for no return.

But I’m happy to report that I have fruit growing! With all the rain we’ve had lately, my watermelon are really starting to take off. I feel like a proud mama. All the planting, maintaining and weeding have paid off. It just took awhile. I can also see other water melon starting to come in. In a conversation I had with a coworker the other day, we decided that baby fruits and vegetables are extremely cute. Baby anything, really.

It’s good to know that the hard work is paying off and that I’ll soon have produce to enjoy. I think my carrot is about ready to pick and my cucumbers should start coming in any day. Below are other pictures I took of my garden today.

Baby Watermelon

Baby Watermelon

Garden on August 18

Garden on August 18