Update - 8/2/21

I know I haven't been around in a while, but that's because not much is going on in the garden.

Except today, I found a new flower on one of my tomato plants.  It's one of the ones I grew from seeds!  I'm inordinately excited about this.  Now my one baby tiny tomato might soon have a friend.  And my one tiny tomato is just shy of ping-pong ball size.  Yay.  

In zucchini news, none of them are blooming anymore.  But I have the beginnings of new flowers coming out.  Fingers crossed they're female.  AND male.  Because even though I saved some male flowers, I'm iffy about the viability of the pollen.  No word yet on whether the plants I gave a neighbor are doing any better than my pathetic crew.

Also, several of the zucchini have larger and darker leaves.  So I got that going for me.  

Trying to stay positive is hard sometimes.  Some days, I get discouraged enough that I want to rip all the plants out and feed them to the deer.  Then at least somebody would get some nourishment out of this experiment.  I'm already looking to next year and what I can do differently to achieve a better harvest.  (Or a real harvest.)

By the way, once growing season is over for these plants, they will become deer food.  Unless there's some way to over winter them so they can try again next year.  I'll have to look into that.

Zucchini Information

 Okay, so my zucchinis are still flowering, but still no fruits.  A friend of mine sent me this link to help me figure out the answer.  https://www.hgtv.com/outdoors/flowers-and-plants/vegetables/flower-fail-blossoms-arent-pretty-when-zucchini-wont-fruit

Huzzah.  So, zukes have their male and female parts in separate flowers instead all in each flower.  Silly gits.  As far as I can remember... I haven't been outside yet to look again... mine are only producing male flowers.  But I haven't really lifted their skirts up lately, so I could be wrong.  

Since zukes only have their flowers open first thing in the morning, I'll check when it's light out.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

In other news, I do have one tiny tomato.  But none of the rest of them are blooming, so I'm not holding out hope for more.  

Plant sex...  It's a thing.  I really need some bow-chicka-bow-bow going on out there or no fruits for the zukes and tomatoes.  Thank goodness no actual sex is necessary for carrots and lettuce.  Next year, I may plant a sexless garden - adding potatoes and maybe spinach.  Leaves and roots, baby.  You can't go far wrong with leaves and roots.

Update: 7:20am.  All the flowers on my zucchini plants are male.  Not a girl in the bunch.  Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever SEEN a female flower out there.  Which means all my previous attempts at hand-fertilizing was wasted.  It's like the Gay Men's Chorus out there.  Lots of show, but no chance of fertilization.  Now I need to research how to get my plants to make some girl flowers so they can make babies and give me veggies to eat.

Update:  7:40am.  Leaving this link here for future reference: 5 Reasons Your Squash Plants Are Only Producing Male Flowers  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCXSYt6dWUI

Updates - 6/28/21 - First Carrot Harvest

Okay, so after a bunch of research on when to harvest carrots telling me to harvest between 75 and 100 days after planting, I decided today - the 3 month mark - was as good a day as any for the first batch... the ones I never thinned.  

I ended up with a handful of teeny tiny carrots.  Like the biggest one is maybe two inches long and the rest are orange toothpicks.  And only half-sized toothpicks at that.  

The second planting of carrots had got maybe ten or so tops, more judiciously placed.  I'll let them grow longer and see what happens.

In other research, I learned you can eat the carrot greens.  Put them in a salad or dry them and use them like any other herb.  I ate one.  Kinda tart, but might be nice in a soup or stew or mixed in with other greens like lettuce or spinach.  So, right now, the harvest is drying out on the deck table.  I'll bring them in later and clean them up some more.  Eat the little carrots and find a way to preserve the greens.

Additionally, I learned you can eat zucchini leaves and tomato leaves.  Young is best, but any leaves off those two are edible.  Don't take my word for it.  Search 'eating zucchini leaves' or tomato leaves and do your own reading if you're interested.  It wasn't that hard to find how-tos and recipes.  

So, yeah, I'll be eating out of this garden regardless of whether it decides to give me actual veggies or not.  So there.  =op

Update with Pics - 6/10/21

 Good morning!  I know I haven't been here in a while, but that's because nothing major has been going on.  Well, that changed a couple days ago when my zucchinis started blooming!  Yay!

They're going crazy!  Which gives me a decided happy.  Way to go, Zukes!  

In other plant news, the tomatoes are doing well.  Still no blooms on anything but the one I bought and those flowers are gone now.  Hopefully, I'll see tiny fruits start there soon.  

The carrots are okay.  One of the planters where I never separated the seedlings has halfway died.  The others are doing fine.  All the containers planted with single seeds are doing well.  

The lettuces are being eaten a few leaves at a time, mostly on burgers and sandwiches, but are a disappointment.  The lettuce itself is nearly flavorless and easily bruised.  And it wilts quickly.  I won't be doing this species again.  Next year, I'll move to spinach.

In onion news, I am starting to see green on a few members of the set.  Fingers crossed for onions I can actually harvest down the road.

All in all, the container gardening experiment is working.  It's a bit of a pain, but then again, all gardening is.  At least I don't have to worry about critters eating my plants.  The true test will be how much I harvest and whether it was worth it overall.  Time will tell.

Updates 5/27/21 and a Note

Note:  When you pick lettuce, you damn well better eat it right away or it gets wilty.  At least this kind of loose leaf butter lettuce goes wilty.  I had to throw out what I picked a couple days ago.  Bummer.

Updates:  I have buds on several of my zucchini plants now.  The two tomato plants I bought are getting tall and the shorter one has flowers.  The tomatoes I did from seeds are starting to get bigger.  The carrots are growing right along.  

I should probably thin the tomatoes I planted from seed, but I don't have the heart to kill those extra plants.  Silly, I know.  They need thinning to grow big and strong.  Well, for one of them to grow big.  The others would be dead.  See why I don't have the heart to do it?  I'd suck as a farmer.  And this is why we chose not to go into animal husbandry.  I'm pretty sure I could kill a rabbit if I had no other meat to eat, but since I can still get food from the store, I'm not in a position where I need alternative meat sources.  

The other day, I got a wild hair and bought an onion set.  A set is a bunch of baby onion plants.  You plug them into the ground and they grow into big plants with full-sized onions.  I'm planning on putting them in my flower gardens, here and there, to see where they'll grow best.  We'll see how that goes.  If it fails, I'll only have wasted $1.30.  

Speaking of money, I sat down and made a list of everything I've bought strictly for this garden thing.  I'm at about $55.  Not sure if the food I'll grow would've cost that much.  We'll see how this goes, too.  

It's all a learning curve this year.  

Today, we're supposed to get some particularly bad weather.  The plan is to bring everything inside - either in the sun room or in the garage.  Keep your fingers crossed it all goes well.

Updates 05/22/21

Here are the plants today... all in a row.  

Except for the lettuces which are over here:

I've rearranged the deck for optimum growage.  The zucchinis are in the front, because they need horizontal room to spread and the tomatoes and the carrots are in the back because they grow vertically.  The lettuces are in a spot where they get gentle morning sun and by early afternoon, they're in the shade.  Yay.

I also moved out outdoor seating to the east side of the deck, to give more of the sunny spots to the plants.  So we'll be sitting in the shade.  Here's the view from the seating area:

Eventually, the zukes will take over, but I'm okay with that.  There are two doors, so even if the zukes take up all the middle space, we can still get around.  

As the sun dips to the north over the next month or so, I'll have to pull some things more toward the middle of the deck, so they get more sun, but I'm okay with that.  

Updates - May 19, 2021

 Time for some updates.  

Here's a picture of the tomato seedlings:

And here's a pic of the zucchinis, carrots, and the two tomato plants I bought:

Finally, here are the lettuces:

Some of those lettuces should be ready to eat soon.  Then I'll plant more.  

The smaller of the two tomato plants I purchased already has a flower on it, but everything else is ages away from being ready to eat.  

As for the carrots, the three pots I planted of the first variety that I never did thin out are going gangbusters.  I wonder what will happen when I finally get ready to harvest.  I'm hoping for a bunch of small carrots.  We'll see.  This, after all, is a learning curve.  The carrots seeds of the second variety have seedlings already spaced for single growth.  We'll see how the two varieties/planting methods compare when it's all said and done.  

The 17 zucchini plants are getting big.  And I had an 18th plant pop up over the last day or so, I may thin that one.  Thinning plants makes me sad, though, so I might not bother.  

All in all, things are going good.  I've been pulling them back during expected bad weather and sheltering them as best I can.  Then putting them back in the sun when the weather clears.  When they get big, that might not be possible.  With them still being small, I'm happy to move them around as needed.