Easy Bloomin' It

Well, the garden so far has had mixed results. The first few squashes formed and promptly fell off and rotted away. And then the plant came down with what I think is powdery mildew.

The lettuce has been a success and I have harvested a little for salads. The spinach just up and died overnight. And the carrots, I think, are going to make it.

So I was jazzed to open a Christmas package from Amanda Stinnett the other day. It was an Easy Bloom Plant Sensor. It will tell you when the plants need water, diagnose problems and help decide which plants to put in empty spots. (Thank you, Amanda, it's AWESOME!)

It's been hard at work since the day we got it. The first day it told me I needed to water every single plant. It literally beeped with everything but the banana trees. Then I set it to monitor mode for the squash. It determined that everything was fine as far as light, water and temperature. (But we have had the coolest week of the year here). The plant sensor is now monitoring the carrots. We'll see what the report is on those.

My lingering problem is getting the squashes not to fall off before they grow. After a little research I found that they weren't getting fertilized. I guess there aren't enough bees around. So next time a male and female flower bloom, I'm gonna have to hand fertilize them. Hopefully that will happen soon!

The garden finally grows!

We had a little soil snafu when we planted the original garden. All the squash and zucchini died and the lettuce and carrots sprouted, but never really grew at all. We figured it must have been the soil because another squash plant in a container was growing like crazy.

So we begrudgingly dug out half of the old soil and replace it with better -- um, more expensive

-- soil and replanted. Everything sprouted really fast and we planted some butternut squash plants that were in small pots. So far so good....

Then yesterday I noticed below one of the squash flowers was.......a tiny squash!!!!!!!!!

I was really beginning to think I'd failed on my first gardening attempt. Our window box lettuce has done really well, too. Hopefully in a few months we'll have carrots, too.

We also have watermelons sprouting as well as spinach, zucchini, and a plethora of pineapple plants.

spinach

watermelon