Garden Progress

The secret to progress is getting started - Mark Twain

That quote does remain true to everything in life. To make progress you have to get started. We started our garden early this you (for us at least). The May weather was absolutely beautiful, but now we're into June so let go over the progress of the garden.

It has been a very rainy spring, so the plants every where have really taken root. The main garden is coming along. In this phase of spring I have been taking the buds off of the plant so they use their energy to grow instead of producing right now. This will create more produce later on in the season. It does activate my anxiety doing this because more than anything I want the produce. But it is so early in the season you need the plants to grow more themselves so you have the big harvests in the season.

I also have been pruning the bottom branches of the tomato plants so none are hitting the ground. I've also been doing this with the pepper plants. I've seen a lot of people topping their pepper plants and I'd actually like some feedback on this topic. Do They make your pepper plants bigger and fuller?

Remember to also pluck the sucker off of your tomatoes to promote the growth and help it with its energy growth. Remember as much as you want to have produce off your plants. Spring is time for them to adapt, get rooted, and grow. Early produce might lead to not a lot of produce later on in the season.

We've also made sure to keep it weeded. We make sure to hoe and weed every week, or when we see the weeds coming up. We don't use plastic or landscaping fabric underneath so it could get out of hand if you are not on top of it (This is our preference). If weeds get out of hand it can take away energy from the plants also.

We have eggplant, more cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and jalapeno peppers in pots. These were ones I wanted to watch or they were late plants that we added after the garden was planted. Either way they have rooted very nicely too. The cherry tomatoes are going to be great for my nephew to pick and eat right of the vine. The cucumbers are lemon cucumbers that I wanted to make sure we could handle and produce a lot because it is one of my favorites!

The viney garden, as we call it, is doing great. We turned an old flower garden into this viney garden. The soil is so rich that the plants absolutely love it! ones they're planted they take off. My dad built this trellis system out of bamboo to help it not take over our whole side walk this year (because it did last year). The plants are almost ready to start training around it. I have high hopes for our viney garden, and cannot wait for yummy zucchini, butternut squash, yellow summer squash, and more cucumbers!

I hope your spring has also been full of growth! Remember that to get progress you first have to start. That goes with anything in life. So get started today and get some progress! Happy Gardening!