It’s been a month since we planted everything in the garden box, quite a pleasant month actually; the plants seem to be appreciating the warm days and cool nights. Most of the plants, anyway… Our lone eggplant while not dying doesn’t seem to be ding much living either, and the basil has been struggling as well, probably because it is still too cold at night for them. We’re on a nightly watering schedule right now. I don’t know if it matters when you water your plants, I should look into that. During the hottest time of the year we end up watering twice a day, and that doesn’t seem to have an adverse effect.
The plants are all still small, but our tomatoes have already started flowering. I’m tempted to pull the flowers and buds off though as I want the plant to concentrate on getting bigger right now not on producing fruit. A reminder for myself and other gardeners out there when you are watering your plants avoid getting the flowers wet, if you use a drip system this isn’t an issue, as the water will ruin the flowers and they’ll not fertilize or become fruit. I’m thinking in a few weeks our cucumbers and bush beans will start putting out creepers and D and I will have to install the netting for them to crawl up, by that time I’m hoping the zucchini plants have doubled as well. By the end of June and early July I expect we’ll be harvesting fruits and veggies and I’ll have a lot more to talk about when it comes to the garden.
For now though everything seems to be doing fine. Slugs haven’t been as bad as they have in the past (knock on wood) perhaps that is because we got the beer traps out early, or the sluggo we’ve been putting down semi-regularly. I will need to keep my eye out for caterpillars though those things can wreck a garden in a shockingly short amount of time!
Nice lookin’ plants! If the tomatoes were flowering too early, wouldn’t the blooms drop on their own? I don’t know. Your close observation is your best guide I’m sure. Best wishes for continued plant health.