Monday, May 31, 2010

Sweet Corn Ears Forming

My Early Sunglow Sweet Corn plants are doing very well.

They have doubled in height since my last blog post 3 weeks ago.

The corn tassels are starting to spread out. I expect pollen to start flying in the next week.












Lower down on the corn plants, I can see that ears are starting to form.

In the picture to the right, you can see the corn silk emerging. Hopefully, the silk will catch the pollen and I will have lots of corn kernels.

I have also started another corn planting. This time I am planting Bodacious, which is a Sugar Enhanced Sweet Corn. I purchased the seed from Park Seed.

I had to wait until the soil warmed up before I planted the Bodacious seed. Sugar Enhanced Sweet Corn is much more dependent upon soil temperature to germinate than regular Sweet Corn.

Plus, I wanted to spread out the plants in time so that the pollen from the Early Sunglow Sweet Corn would not pollenate the Bodacious corn.

The picture below shows the Bodacious seedlings look today, two weeks after planting. I planted 16 seeds and 12 germinated.


More May Lilies


Last week, I had a couple of Lilies start to bloom (see this blog entry)

This week, I had a couple of more.

The one to the left is called Avonlea and the one on the right is called Gran Cru. Both are from the Lily Garden.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Chantentais Flowering

My Charentais plants are starting to flower. This is the first time that I have grown Charentais and I was surprised as to how small the flowers are. You can barely see them in the picture above.

These are male flowers. I expect female flowers to start appearing in a week or so.

Monday, May 24, 2010

May Lilies


I had two Lilies bloom this weekend.

The one to the left in the picture above is "Big Bang" from the Lily Garden.

I don't know the name of the one to the right. I purchased it from Home Depot a couple of years ago with a bunch of other bulbs.



Sunday, May 23, 2010

First Cherry Tomatoes

I picked my first Cherry Tomatoes today!

These are from the Sun Gold Cherry Tomato plant that I transplanted almost 3 months ago (see this blog entry).

This is the same time that I had my first Cherry Tomatoes last year (see this blog entry). So despite the unseasonably cold weather we have had this spring, I am "on schedule".

This Sun Gold Cherry Tomato plant is now 8 feet tall and is about to out grow the Texas Tomato cage. I need to decide soon as to whether I should cut off the tops to stop it from growing any taller or let it start draping over the cage.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Growing Okinawan Sweet Potatoes in 7 Containers

I have started Okinawan Sweet Potatoes in seven half-whiskey barrel containers.

Last year, I grew Okinawan Sweet Potatoes both in a Raised Bed (see this blog entry) and in a container (see this blog entry).

I found that I got just as much yield from the container as I did from a Raised Bed, but it was so much easier to harvest the Okinawan Sweet Potatoes in the container. It would take me a over an hour to dig up the Raised Bed and find all of the Okinawan Sweet Potatoes. With the container, all I had to do was to dump the container onto some newspapers and the Okinawan Sweet Potatoes would just appear. No digging. No hunting.

This year, I decided to just grow the Okinawan Sweet Potatoes in containers. I reused the fiberglass half-whiskey barrel container from last year and I bought 6 more containers. I got 10 pounds of Okinawan Sweet Potatoes in the container last year, so I hope to get 70 pounds this year.

Okinawan Sweet Potatoes take about 6 months to mature. I started these plants in April and March (see this blog entry). I had wanted to start the plants earlier, but the cool weather we had at the beginning of the yield prevented my cuttings from taking root.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Two Feet Tall Sweet Corn

My Sweet Corn plants are now 2 feet tall. I planted the corn seeds 7 weeks ago (See this blog entry).

I was concerned that the plants were too close together, but they appear to be very healthy.




Thursday, May 6, 2010

Thai Red Dragon Pepper Flowering

I bought a Thai Red Dragon Pepper plant from San Gabriel Nursery for $2.99 a few weeks ago.

I transplanted into a 5 gallon container.

You can see in the picture that it is starting to flower.