Garden Nanny

This week we are in charge of garden sitting not one but two of the best gardens in our area. Day One: Plants still appear to be alive- very important criteria in the nanny world. Hopefully they will fare as well in the coming days.

And like all good babysitters everywhere- I helped myself to what was in the fridge... I mean veggie garden. We scored this great mix of tomatoes,which my husband is currently cooking into a marinara sauce, and some awesome petite cucumbers.

We have not had luck growing our own cucumbers. They will sprout, grow and fruit- but the cucumbers always taste bitter. So our cucumber goddess let us in on her secret- Renee's Garden Persian Baby Cucumbers: Green Fingers. I can vouch that I haven't tasted a bitter one yet. They are small but tasty. She shared some seeds with us- so hopefully we can have our own cucumber success soon.

The Really Great Sunflower Project

This is the one sunflower I managed to grow from my free packet of sunflower seeds for the Great Sunflower Project. They are trying to track the number of honey bees in urban areas. As you can see there are two honey bees! How exciting. My very scientific job entails sitting and watching the plant for 30 minutes and counting how many bees land on it. The main issue is finding 30 daylight minutes with my busy bee daughter running around. It was a miracle I found 30 seconds to take this photo. But if I don't get around to in the next few days- this sunflower plant has two more unopened flower buds- I will not let my scientific community down. But so far- so good in the San Antonio organic garden.

Melon Patch

Here is our new melon patch. We planted the Stars and Moon watermelon along with the cantaloupes and they are happily chugging along. We moved the patch to a place with soil we had enhanced with compost and green cover crops. We also buckled down for the unbearable heat and started watering as needed instead of doing rain dances.

Also- the worm bin sprouts more seeds then anything. Every time I go to throw more food scraps in- there are hardy starts sprouting from the dirt. I dug two melons out and am going to try a late melon transplant. Next time I sift through the worm castings- im going to use 1/2 worm castings, 1/2 potting soil to start my seeds and see if i get better results.