The End Begins

I planted the last wave of melons in my garden plot today: three charentais and five Tigger. This is the first year I am trying Tigger. The Tigger starts were a bit leggy due to poor light in their infancy, but a few of them had decent root mass that should set quickly.

A healthy Tigger melon start a day before planting.

The first two plantings of melons look great, especially the first wave, Prescott and Korean Star, both of which have set and produced new growth in just four days.

I wish I could say the same for the backyard raised beds. The original four Saskatchewan watermelons died and one of the five Golden Midget watermelons is dead. The four surviving Golden Midgets look healthy but lack vigor. I replaced one Saskatchewan with a new start. I have two more. Another hole was refilled with a Lambkin, which immediately got attacked by slugs. Plural because I picked two three-quarter-inch buggers off the poor bastard this morning. It's too bad because my other two Lambkin starts were planted June 29 in my garden plot and already have started to crawl.

My garden, if you consider the raised beds, plots and food bank, is planted for 2012. There will be some inevitable changes to the lineups, which are updated in the Garden Schematics tab above.

The food bank plots have matched my original expectations the best. None of the first plantings have changed. I'm going to have a lot of beets, green beans, fava beans, zucchini, winter squash, pumpkins and cucumbers. The only weak spots are in the shadow of two volunteer sunflowers: one dead tomato plant and minus-six beets. The sunflowers will be bloomed out in a couple of weeks, so they will come down and the dead spots can be filled with something else. I have a couple of things in the works, but success is more of a thirsty man's mirage than a sane man's reality.