July 8th: Race for Garden Domination

Nothing is more exciting for a gardener than discovering that first blossom or first fruit on a plant you have put so much time and energy into helping grow.  And as anyone who grows several types of plants knows, everything has it's own blooming and fruiting schedule.  Well when I was out in the garden on Wednesday I was excited to find pumpkins already forming on two of the three plants!  However, my excitement was followed by confusion.  It is only the beginning of July, so I assumed it would be a bit longer before I saw any pumpkins.  After all, most people don't go pumpkin shopping around here until October, and there are farms were you can go pick your pumpkin straight out of the field!  And those are BIG pumpkins; I planted two small varieties!  If they have already started making pumpkins now, does that mean they will just keep churning out pumpkins till the fall frost does them in?  Will I have hundreds of pumpkins and nothing to do with them?  Will the plants produce so many pumpkins that they roll down the hill and bury the house?  I guess we'll find out!  Anyone want some pumpkins? ;-D

The discovery of the pumpkin fruits, made me wonder about the watermelon.  And sure enough, there was a watermelon fruit starting on the long vine as well!  That doesn't surprise me as much as the pumpkins, though I did think the vines would get a bit longer first.  I was hoping there would be plenty of watermelons, and it is looking like my wish will come true.  G-ma B will be pleased as well!

Good news/ bad news on the garden pest front.  First, the second application of liquid fence seems to be keeping the rabbits out.  Yay!  As long as it stays that way, I will be happy.  The bad news is I discovered there are Flea Beetles eating my cabbage.  The little buggers (pun intended) have put holes in my Chinese Cabbage leaves and are starting to munch on my Cabbage Babies as well.  I plan on asking the people at my local garden store what they would suggest I use on them.  The limited research I did do brought up so many choices that I decided I would just go straight to an expert since I need to go to the garden store anyway.  Will let you know what I end up with and if it works!

Last little tidbit.  The pumpkin and bean vines are competing in the Backyard Garden Domination competition.  I was unaware there was such a competition until both plants clearly showed me differently, with their excessive need for more and more space!  The question is, who will win?  (My money's on the pumpkin plants, but don't tell the beans!  They scare me!)  See the competition, and other photos, in the album below!
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