Sorry no pics recently.  I’ve got to coordinate my blackberry camera with the cord with my computer.  Right now the cord and the camera aren’t at the same location.  I’ll get that done soon.

And it needs to be done soon - the growth in the garden is startling.  It’s like a rainforest.  Everything is growing like nuts - particularly the potatoes.  They’ve taken over and are dwarfing the other vegetables - the garden is dominated by potato plants.  I’m a bit concerned that they may block the sunlight from some of the other vegetables - but then again this is still very much a learning experience.  So next year I may just not plant potatoes.  The potatoes are probably approaching 18″ high right now.

Still, everuthing else is growing like wildfire too.  Tomatoes don’t have flowers yet, but are getting bigger. Beans, peas, corn, squash and cucumber all growing rapidly.  The swiss chard is growing but was a bit sparce so we replanted some more of that.  And the radishes were a bit sparse as well so I put some more of those in the ground too.  I actually planted the next batch of radishes around the green peppers - the advantage of square foot gardening is that you can double up plants like that.

The second crop of radishes has already sprouted as well.  I planted them a lot less deep so I think I may have planted the radishes and carrots too deep the first time.  Lesson learned.

This week we’re going to buy some of those tomoato cages and stake the two tomato plants.  I’m also going to put a tomato cage around the peas which are starting to climb.  I had originally planned on building a small trellis for the peas, but a tomato cage seems like a lot less work.  So cage it is.

As for harvest - we’ve had some already.  Junior, who continues to check out the garden twice daily, has managed to find two radishes that were big enough to eat.  One last week and one the week before.  Out of the ground , rub on shirt, eat ( no problem because of course these plants have no fertilizer, herbicide, or anything else on them other than dirt and water - another advantage of doing this ourselves).  But here’s the cool part; how difficult is it to get a 12 year old boy to eat vegetables?  My 12 year old is anxiously awaiting more - looking forward to beans, peas, more radishes, carrots…and I personally can’t wait until we have sweet corn we can harvest and make a meal of.  If we pulled the vegetables from a can and put them on his plate he’d have to be pushed to eat half of them.  Now he’s pulling them out of the ground and eating them before anyone else has a chance.  You want your kids to eat vegetables? Have them participate in growing their own.

That reminds me of a story from when I was in university.  My buddy had planted - for no known reason - some peas in a planter at the end of the driveway.  We were university students, so odd behavior required little explanation at the time.  Anyway, the peas took off that summer and were dripping with pods.  We’d grab a couple every time we walked by and munch on them.  So, the doorbell rings one day and it’s the neighbour.  She’s holding a bowl, wants to know if she can pick a bunch of peas.  No problem of course but she explained further. Her youngster wouldn’t touch vegetables.  But those peas growing next door?  Loved them - he’d been pilfering some of them too.  So she harvested a bunch, and I guess her kid had a meal of vegetables that night.  So got a kid that won’t eat vegetables?  Get them involved in a raised bed garden/square foot gardening and watch them them act interested in eating vegetables.