Dusk in the Garden

I have to admit: I felt a little guilty posting iPhone photos in my post last night. Being a professional photographer, I thought I owed it to my personal blog to make it a bit more decent. Also, it just looks better.

Here's a little more of a peek into what I have planted. I didn't include everything, but close.

Baby Okra plant. I'm assuming those buds have to become flowers before okra, so of course I'm growing impatient.

This bed has a bit of everything. I have 3 types of green beans, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, rainbow swiss chard, kale, mustard greens, collard greens, baby leeks and a few zinnias for good measure.

Baby veggies really are the cutest. This zucchini should be ready to pick soon.

What will eventually take over the garden bed. Young cabbage plant. Yea, I see the slug trails. I'm working on it.

Kentucky Wonder green bean. I love the way these pole beans climb up everything.

My first baby cucumber. This was a particularly exciting find. Already planning pickling methods.

Cucumber tendrils are so needy. They remind me of me with my fiancee. ;)

Ahhh, the tomatoes. This particular variety is called "A Grappoli d'Inverno" and I have no idea what that means.

The tomato bed was a pretty big task. I amended the heck out of it. Before I planted out the seedlings, I worked into the composted soil: 1 lb. cotton seed meal, 1 lb. kelp meal, 1 lb. seaweed fertilizer, and a bunch of earthworm castings with Azomite rock dust. Into each planting hole, I added a cup of garden gypsum and some epsom salts. I was worried about overkill, but the plants LOVE IT. They have grown so big and strong. 

Grew these marigolds from seed, and I'm thrilled that they are blooming. 

Some male spaghetti squash flowers. No female flowers have opened yet, but there is still plenty of time.

Okay. One more okra photo. They're crazy unique to me.

I cannot believe the blue scotch curly kale hasn't waved a white flag in surrender yet. This heat has been crazy, but the kale is still going strong. I hope I can get a harvest or two before it shrivels up in the summer.

I'm not a fan of collard/turnip/mustard greens. Being from New York, I never had cooked southern greens and I didn't care for them when I tried them. However, K loves them, so these mustard greens (and the collard greens behind them) are for her.

Young rainbow swiss chard. The chard isn't growing very quickly, and I'm blaming it on the 85 degree days here in Florida.

Early Prolific yellow straight neck squash. Gonna go harvest these guys today. 

The pepper bed also called for a bit of amending. I only used compost, Azomite rock dust and earthworm castings in here, but it seems to be working out well. Now if only I could keep the aphids off of them...

No. There isn't a prettier herb than basil. I have SO many basil plants because I'm terrified of being without a constant supply this summer. These are about 1/5 of all the basil plants I have right now.

Sick of seeing this cluster of Early Girl tomatoes? Good. GET USED TO IT. (Until I eat them, and then I apologize.)

I generally like banana peppers, but I'm actually growing these to use in the pickling recipe from my Mom's husband's Polish family. They get together once a year to pickle around 100 jars of cucumber pickles and I try to pilfer as many of them as I can.

Overflow of seedlings leads to this. I can't get rid of them, so they live in containers now.

My fiancee is a very patient and forgiving person. ;)

I hope this amends my previous post. I put much more time and effort into it. 

Enjoy the weekend!!