The Project is Growing

The garden project has been getting bigger and bigger. I read you can't be a REAL gardener without a compost pile. So we begged four different neighbors for dead leaves and kitchen scraps and got started. The bottom photo is the pile today. I think I'm going to mow over it to chop it up and encourage it to break down even faster because we need to use it.

I know you all see those pallet projects online "Look what you can make out of a pallet! A chair, a bed, an airplane...". So we made a potting table. I LOVE it. No more squatting in the dirt, no more hose in the dirt either. Adam did a great job.

Although, I question his methods.

The strawberries failed. They didn't grow at all. I think they were dead when I bought them. Poo.

So, instead we put in a couple of planter boxes (made from...you guessed it....) and I put green beans in one and Malabar Spinach (climbing variety) in the other.

I will need to speak to the witch about her magic bean garden. The wrong kind of magic is happening over here. Beans are easy to grow but everything bad loves them. The bugs are getting to these. One plant (not shown) is almost completely eaten.

I will be spraying them with a homemade garlic mixture. If that doesn't work, I'll try Neem oil. Yes, I'm trying to be organic.

And this little garden out front is giving me nightmares. I've transplanted bell peppers—which were nearly destroyed by a wind storm. There are also some tomato plants. Two of the determinate (grows bushy, doesn't benefit from pruning) and two of the indeterminate kind (grows tall, pruning yields more fruit). I worry they will suffer what the beans are suffering.

The purple Violetta beans are sick. I think they have blight (lack of nitrogen...I may have to make adam Pee on them....) the bugs are getting to them AND I think they got a bad case of rust. My fault completely. I have learned beans don't like being wet, and they don't like dirt on them—that's how disease spreads—and I allowed it to happen from a storm that kicked up a lot of dirt and didn't wash them off well enough. New growth doesn't even look good which means the whole plant is sick.

I need to pull them, get more nitrogen into the soil (hopefully from the compost) and start over. But it's hard to find the guts to kill plants you've been excitedly nurturing for so many weeks!

On a pleasant note, I created a couple of hanging baskets! Purple flowers tie in with the trellis and look so cute out front. I added potato vines, hopefully they'll get big and bushy, and the Golden Creeping Jenny will get longer and sway in the breeze.