This page will be done Journal style, with latest entries first. Please scroll down for previous entries. This Journal is for the 2006 growing season (let's hope it's a good one!)

10/8 Wow it has been a while since I wrote. I was very busy at work August and September, and my garden is all the worse for lack of attention. Still it was a good year and I enjoyed it. We had great eggplant, cukes, peppers and tomatoes from the hightower until it was ripped by high winds. Funny thing, the sweet potatoes in the hightower flowered and looked great, but did not produce any potatoes. The plants in the front garden produced beautifully.

Most of the work now is getting ready for next year. The strawberries reproduced abundantly, I could not resist and had to enlarge the bed. The soil in the potato bed, which was heavy with rough compost, now looks fabulous and will make a great bed nest Spring.

We still have carrots, Brussel sprouts, cabbages and fennel to look forward to. Perhaps frost this weekend?

8/13 Cooler weather, overnight lows around 50º. The squashes are dying off and the beans are pretty much done producing. The garlic is ready to pick and the potatoes are being eaten weekly. We are soon to get our first eggplant and first big tomato. The High Tower continues to produce bigger and more productive plants. The lettuces are having a hard time as the weather has been dry (at least as far as my raised beds are concerned!)

I am enrolling into the Penn State Master Gardener's program and expect a lot of new links to be added here soon!

8/1 Prediction of a 100º high temp for today! I have transferred this site to a new provider and unfortunately, not being tech savvy enough, lost some of the journal entries. Basically over the past month we have seen the beginnings of the green beans, peppers, cukes and grape tomatoes; saw the spinach and the lettuce bolt; saw the high tower create and Amazon jungle effect, with eggplants that could feed small village to come. Shockingly, I have not had any zucchini yet! The volunteer tomatoes are a small salad type tomato interestingly turning a peach color before they turn red. Quite tasty.

7/9 The problem with doing a garden journal is finding the time! The garden is doing very well, weeds and all. There are a few early potatoes, most of the plants are in bloom. I find it interesting that the red potatoes produce purple flowers and the white produce white. The volunteer tomatoes are getting bigger, not cherries (yeah!). There are a few green peppers, no hot ones yet. The pumpkin plants are doing very well this year. The Sweet Potatoes and Eggplant in the high tower are doing much better than those in the garden. The Tomatoes in the high tower are significantly healthier and larger than their counterparts. We are getting a good crop of peaches and pears in spite of the caterpillar damage, although they do seem to have hurt the apple trees too much. Time to weed and wait.

6/18 Happy Father's Day We now have unseasonably hot weather, hitting the mid nineties today. Very little rain in the forecast. There are flowers on the Sweet Peppers, both in the high tower and out. The Volunteer Tomato plant has tiny little tomatoes and flowers on it. There are two clusters with seven tomatoes each. They are pretty round, so probably not pear or romas. I am hoping they are not cherry tomatoes. Most likely they are a hybrid that reverted. Possibly a smaller salad tomato. The Early Girl Tomatoes in the high tower also have flowers on them. Outside only the Grape Tomatoes have a few flowers.

The potatoes are getting very tall and also have flowers. It is soooo tempting to "grabble" to see if I can find a few potatoes to roast. The only problem is that once we start eating them from the garden we can't stop.

I added some more Basil seed to the high tower tomato bed, Nasturtiums next to the Potatoes and a little more Spinach where the volunteer garlic was.

Most of the Strawberries have been picked. The corn is growing fast and the Sweet Potatoes are recovering from the problems they were having. Everything looks so healthy this time of year.

6/10 Unseasonably cool weather this past week. The Strawberries are ripening fast and most seed is up. The Green Beans are being attacked, I think a little Hot Pepper Spray is in order. The Peach Tree is loaded in spite of the caterpillars.

6/6 Picked the first Strawberry (it always goes to Genevieve) with many more right behind it. The Tomatoes and Peppers in the high tower seem to have a little advantage, they are larger and have more buds. There is even a teeny tiny sweet pepper! Corn is up and most of the beans and squashes. The Potatoes look very healthy (they were surrounded with very rough compost and hay), the raspberries are loaded and heavy with honey bees, sweet potatoes -although stressed outdoors- seem to be hanging in there.

6/4 I could not hold out and purchased a few hot pepper plants a couple of basil plants. At least I didn't replace all I started, so the experiment is still on.

6/3  These caterpillars are disgusting and doing way too much damage. I found an organic pesticide and Bill is spraying.

5/31 The temperatures have been in the 80's this past week. Inside temps have gone over 110º. I have been leaving the front and back flaps open all the time, and each late afternoon I have been soaking the inside of the tower which brings the temperature down closer to outside temperatures. The volunteer tomato has a cluster of buds (Roma? perhaps) and the sweet peppers have buds just starting. I am experimenting with not opening the long sides of the tower to see if the plants retain their buds or drop them. Opening these would mean some repair work for next years' use.

We have been inundated with Tent caterpillars which seem to be fond of cucumber and melon plants. I am waiting to replace these after the caterpillars are gone.

I hate to admit it but none of the plants I started from seed are doing nearly as well as the plants I bought. As tempting as it is to replace them, I am waiting to see if they, and/or the seeds I put it, can catch up. Another experiment for this year.

5/25 The high tower definitely stays warmer at night than the outdoor temps, and heats up very fast when the sun is out. I expect I will be opening the sides soon as the weather is finally starting to get warm. The volunteer tomato I planted (from one of my houseplants that was watered with compost tea!) is doing very well. I am curious to find out what kind of tomato it is. The sweet potatoes love the heat and the cucumber seeds are sprouting. If it is a cool summer, the peppers will be the best. If it is a hot summer I suspect it will be too hot for the peppers...we shall see.

I am on vacation this week and have planted most of the remaining beds once the overnight lows stayed above 50º F.

5/11 An overcast and cool day, I could not get the temperature to go above 50º (60º actual) in the high tower. I had brought home, at Bill's excellent suggestion, a dozen+ empty plastic gallon milk jugs from work; which I filled with warm water and placed closely together in the high tower. The Temperature in just a few minutes went up 5º and an hour later was up 10º. Outside temperature remains steady (56º). Bill had suggested the jugs would help maintain a better overnight temperature (I do remember reading of a greenhouse that used large water tanks for this purpose).

5/10 It seems our thermometer is reading a little low (about 10º) and some of the Tomatoes look a tad fried. I am going to put in a few nursery purchases in to see if they fare better. Also planted 2 Sweet Potatoes started from last year's crop, 4 Watermelons, 6 Cucumber seeds, a few handfuls of Okra and a half dozen Eggplants that were started indoors. I've read that these plants are all heat-loving. Too much heat though can cause the Tomatoes and Peppers to drop their blossoms, something to watch out for. Some Basil in with the Tomatoes rounds out the beds for this Spring.

5/7 High tower planted.

4/29 Planted the Potatoes ( a little late, but it has been cool).

3/25 9 more yams started, all doing well. Started more seeds.

3/12 The yams that remained form last year's crop are sprouting, started 3 in flats.

2/28 Started Tomato and Pepper plants for the High Tower.