Mom and Dad’s giant sunflower

 
 
My Dad has a sunflower that has grown to be a giant! We measured it today at 118 inches tall –  nearly 10 ft. He took a picture of me and Skippy next to it.
 

Mom and Dad’s garden

 
 
On Monday, my parents and I worked a full day in their vegetable garden. We planted tomato, pepper, lettuce, sunflower, basil, cilantro, squashes, marigold, cosmos, daisy and cucumber seedlings. Dad staked his recently planted snow peas. Some type of bug was eating the broccoli, cauliflower and bok choy that we planted a couple weeks ago. My guess it was the green caterpillar of the white cabbage butterfly. I replaced some of the seedlings, searched for green caterpillars (I found one) and then covered the patch with hoops and row cover.…
 

Mom and Dad’s garden

 
 
I’ve been helping my parents with their garden. Early this spring, on a March day that broke records (temperature in the 80’s!), my son and I spread and dug in 3 cubic yards of compost. We also planted peas, lettuce and root vegetables. Last Friday, I brought them more seedlings and seeds. The garden is looking great. Mom is already picking a little new lettuce and using up the kale that overwintered. I got my potatoes and some extra asparagus roots planted at my community plot today, but still no…
 

my parents’ garden

12 Comments
 
 
On Father’s Day, I visited my parents and helped a bit in their garden. My dad hoed the tomatoes and planted beans, I pulled some garlic and labeled plants I gave them earlier in the spring. I also planted nasturtiums and giant sunflower seeds here and there. They have been picking lettuce, spinach, and arugula all spring. They have nice fennel, peas, red cabbage, napa cabbage, beets, and celery coming along. Also tomatoes, peppers, basil, and cucumbers. Arugula and bok choy have gone to seed, with flowers adding color and…
 

Mom and Dad’s vegetable garden

1 Comment
 
 
On Saturday, I helped my parent’s with their garden. Mom is still recuperating, but doing GREAT. She was the supervisor with her captain’s chair. Dad and I got the garden all set for fall. We removed all the old plants: tomatoes, squashes, and cucumbers. Picked green tomatoes. Pulled a few onions that had been hidden. We left the big curly kale plants, a bunch of 4 foot tall bell pepper plants, a nice patch of basil, rows of bright yellow marigolds, a 3 foot sage plant, a big tomatillo plant,…
 

Mom and Dad’s vegetable garden

4 Comments
 
 
Last weekend I brought all sorts of seedlings up to my parents for their garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash … We had a wonderful time planting together. The seedlings we already planted are doing well too.
 

planting Mom and Dad’s garden

4 Comments
 
 
After double digging the new compost into Mom and Dads’ garden, we planted: One row of marigolds, Lemon Boy, Petit mix and Fireball 3 Early seedlings tomatoes with Wall-O-Water on green mulch film One row cabbages: Radicchio, Savoy, Wong Bok and Super Red One row salad greens: Elegance mix, Black seeded Simpson and Red Romaine One double row of onions: Ruby Ring, Frontier, Sweet Yellow Spanish and Ailsa Craig Two long rows of potatoes: Butte, All Blue and Cobbler
 

preparing Mom and Dad’s garden

6 Comments
 
 
Yesterday I went up to my parents house and enjoyed a day in the dirt. I had ordered a truckload of compost to be delivered. I was expecting a morning delivery, but as my luck had it, it was a 5:30 pm delivery. So I had time to do a lot of raking and prep work, but had to scramble to get the dirt spread and turned before dark. My parent’s garden plot is about 15 by 50 feet, by my guess. It is against the woods with a westerly…
 
Menu