Vegetable Garden Update: Squash and Melons

The squash and melons also had a rough start. We made some mounds out on the land, outside of the fenced garden area, so in addition to pest like earwigs and worms,  they were pray to rabbits, squirrels and our own chickens.

We planted summer squash, including green and yellow zucchini, winter squash like acorn squash, water melon, honeydew and cantaloupe.As they first started to sprout, they were getting eaten by some sort of pests so Ron protected them with water bottles by cutting off the bottoms and putting over the plants. That helped them get started and once we took the bottles off, the squashes started doing very well. We put some deer netting over them for a while to keep the rabbits, squirrels and chickens off. Now, they are flowering and producing lots of great looking fruit.

The melons on the other hand kept struggling and finally died off.  We planted them a little early and the nights were still a little cold, so Ron started some watermelon seeds in the house. Now they are outside and looking healthy with some deer netting to help keep out critters.

Vegetable Garden Update: Tomatoes and Peppers

The vegetable garden is going great these days. We've got tons of tomatoes and peppers growing in the garden and squash and melons growing on mounds outside of our fenced garden in some mounds we made.

The peppers and tomatoes had a tough beginning, but are doing great now. Here's a summary of what we learned our first year.

1. Starting them in pots in the house worked well. We bought a warming mat and some lights to get them going.

2. When we first put them in the garden, they were getting devoured by the earwigs. We learned NOT to put mulch in the garden when the earwig population is at it's height, which seems to be winter and spring. Of course we had an unusually warm winter this year, with days in the 90s in January and February. The earwig traps worked well at that time too.

3. We didn't stake the tomatoes or peppers and some of them broke with the heavy rains we finally got in May and with the wind. Next year, we will want to be sure to stake them.

4 .Once the nights start getting warm, the plants will go crazy! Another reason to stake them, the tomato plants are so big that they are spreading into the walkways and I am not sure how we will reach all of them.

Spring In the Desert

We are in a very arid area, close to, but not quite the desert. At times, it feels very desert like to me as can be seen in the picture below.

But even in the desert, spring brings lovely flowers.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (and tomatillos)

The tomatoes are gorgeous, I sure hope that no one comes to eat them before we get them!

Pest Control: Earwigs - Round 2

Apparently, earwigs like to live in straw that is used as mulch in your garden. We were providing a safe, comfortable place for the earwigs to live by day with plenty of food to eat by night. Once we got rid of the mulch, the earwig problem became much more manageable. We had added mulch early in the year because we had an unusually warm winter. As summer approaches, we are noticing fewer earwigs in general, so we may try mulching again this summer. We'll see how that goes.

Backyard Birds

Just a couple pictures of some of our feathery backyard visitors.