Final Post

Hello. Today Is my final blog post and it is kinda sad but all good things have to come to an end. Well, today I would just like to go over a few things that I learned about gardening. I learned that pests, particularly bugs, can be a lot more of a problem than I previously thought. Before I thought that caterpillars can take a little off the edge of some of your plants but then I saw that without pesticides they can completely obliterate a crop. I also learned that Plants can get diseases. I don't know why it had never crossed my mind before, but I had always thaought that diseases were restricted to animals until I saw some tomato plants that had extremely shriveled and bizzarre looking leaves that had turned almost yellow. Finally I learned that vegetable that you grow yourself taste a lot better. Don't know why that is, but they just do. Oh, and that you can definitely make friends with other people while your gardening. All in all, it was definitely a good experience. :)

 Eggplants

 Tomatoes

 Scallions

 Lettuce

 Sunflowers

 Sunflower

Harvest

Harvest Time

Today I harvested as much of my zucchini and beans as I could carry. I also got flowers on my sunflowers.

Now I just have to get the olive oil and breadcrumbs to fry them up. :)

Recipies

I plan to use the zucchini to make some fried zucchini to go on the side of eggplant Parmesan with my eggplant and tomatoes.

Organics and Sustainability

This week in the garden was really the same old same old. I didn't even have to weed or fertilize because, well, I had no weeds and I fertilized last week. My zucchini leaves aren't looking too hot though. They are still producing but they look a little sickly. I think that they are having a white fly problem so I sprayed a bunch of neem on them. Besides that everything is moving along quite well. I can't wait for some tomatoes!

So today I am going to discuss a little bit about sustainability and my own organic eating habits. In short I don't have any organic eating habits. I have no problems eating plants that once had pesticides on them and I generally just pick the food that has the lowest price tag. Whether the difference is $10 or 10 cents, I'm probably going to pick the cheaper one.
Now sustainability is a whole other animal. According to the Union of concerned scientists the most common sustainable agriculture methods are:
Below are some of the most common sustainable agriculture techniques employed by farmers today to achieve the key goals of weed control, pest control, disease control, erosion control and high soil quality:

• Crop Rotation
• Cover Crops
• Soil Enrichment
• Natural Pest Predators
• Bio-intensive Integrated Pest Management

Crop Rotation is growing different crops is succession in the same field.
Cover Crops are crops that are planted between sowing periods that help prevent soil erosion and weeds. They can also help to improve the soil quality.
Soil Enrichment an be attained by leaving some crop residue after a harvest or laying down compost/manure.
Natural Pest Predators are a sophisticated and effective way of helping to control crop pests.
Bio-Integrated Pest Management is one of the most promising technologies is the control of pests through integrated pest management (IPM). This approach relies to the greatest possible extent on biological rather than chemical measures, and emphasizes the prevention of pest problems with crop rotation; the reintroduction of natural, disease-fighting microbes into plants/soil, and release of beneficial organisms that prey on the pests. Once a particular pest problem is identified, responses include the use of sterile males, bio-control agents like ladybugs. Chemical pesticides are only used as a last resort.

Here is a collage of the scavenger hunt we did in the garden....

So this week in the garden was pretty awesome because I got to see some of the fruits of my labor in the form of a huge zucchini that I got! Unfortunately I couldn't eat it because of the pesticides that were sprayed. :( Anyway, all the plants in my garden are doing very well except for the basil...it died... But everything else is starting to get some size to it except the marigold. It is growing just very very very slowly.... I weeded the garden and picked some of the vegetables that were starting to get big because we can't eat them and picking them will make the plants put more effort into other vegetables. I also set up the stringing on my stakes so that my tomatoes have something stable to grow on and don't fall over over when they start growing heavy tomatoes on them. Finally, I will discuss what parts of my plants I will be eating. I will be eating the stem of the corabi, the leaves of the scallions, and lettuce, the fruits (ovaries) if the beans eggplant, zucchini, and tomato, and possibly the seeds of the sunflower (if it ever gets a flower on it...).

 Bean

 Bean Plants

 Eggplants

 Zuchinni

 Sunflowers

 Marigold

 Lettuce

 Corabi

 Scallions

 Tomatoes

 Zucchini

More zucchini

So this week in the garden we did the same things as normal and I rebuilt my mounds. I didn't plant any new plants but some of my plants, especially my zucchini, are doing excellent. My zucchini are actually getting huge flowers on them! I did fertilizer and pesticides like normal, but one of my teachers sprayed some super pesticides all over the plants because our gardens were having a hard time and it worked wonderfully. In class we discussed the different kinds of pests that can inhibit garden growth; these include a lot of insects and protists. I saw a huge caterpillar on one of my classmates plants and I even got a picture of him. I had a significant problem with white flies, but I think that the new pesticide eradicated them pretty effectively. My tomaetos arent dying or shrinking, but they just don't seem to be getting any bigger, I concentrated more fertilizer in their area so we will see if that makes a difference. I also put in the stakes that I will later tie ropes around for by tomatoes to grow on. My basil is doing absolutely terrible though, it just got really droopy all of a sudden, I am wondering if it caught some kind of disease....

 Caterpillar

 Tomatoes

 Eggplant

 Zuchinni with flowers

 Beans

 Pitiful Basil

 Marigold

 Sunflowers

 Scallions

 Lettuce

Corabi

I got a new chord so as promised here are the pictures...

 Tomato

 Zuchinni

 Buds on zuchinni

 Lettuce

 Sunflower

 Beans

 Eggplant

 Scallions

 Basil

 Marigold

Broccoli replacement...