This week in the Garden...

This week in the garden I got to see some significant results in terms of growth of some of my plants.
As you can see there my beans, scallions and sunflowers are growing very well. Although some of sunflowers are being attacked by bugs.... :( So today they gave us some pesticides to help protect our plants. On the other hand, my tomato plants aren't doing so hot... they look kind of pitiful, so I put a ton of fertilizer in the ground around them. They soil in Florida might also be part of the problem; unlike in the rest of the country, our soil lets water drain right through it VERY quickly, this makes it difficult for the overhead sprinkler systems to work efficiently. You can see in the pictures that the soil that is not disturbed almost looks like sand! Anyways, I also got to transplant in some eggplants. I got kind of lucky because I got to get some nice bug ones that had been growing in the greenhouse. :) Finally, I think that that tiny little plant might be a marigold that managed to survive, or a weed... haha. Time will tell.

 

Beans

 Eggplant

 Scallions

 Sunflower

 Marigold?

 Tomato :(

Garden update and a little history of Agriculture

On Tuesday I planted more plants. I got the seeds for my cilantro and my basil, and I will say, basil seeds are not easy to get out of their little containers that they come in off of the basil plant. Meanwhile some of my plants are spouting! In order from the top down they are the beans, sunflowers, scallions and the tomato plants. The zucchini and the marigolds have not sprouted yet.

In class we covered a little bit of the history of plants and plant improvement.

We have evidence that agriculture began around 8000-9000 B.C., and human beings having been shaping the genetic structure of crops ever since. Originally, this was through us using natural selection to our advantage by only breeding the plants that had the highest yield, resistance to diseases and pests, forage quality, and ability to stand up to harsh weather. Today we can include the ability to include into mechanization and flavor. Today we can pick out the individual traits that we want in plants and transfer them into others by picking apart their chromosomes. This has lead to the modern GMO plants. Today we genetically engineer super plants that far surpass the original plants of our ancestors. It is weird to think that thousands of years of artificial and natural selection have created the tomato plant on my garden today!

Seeds vs. Transplants

Today I will be discussing planting seeds vs. transplants and posting photos of my garden.

• Seeds:
• Seeds are much cheaper than trasplants.
• They are certified to be disease free
• When you buy them you can hold on to them a lot longer than a transplant.
• Transplants:
• You can use transplants to help get a jump on the season by not having to wait for them to germinate.
• They are more expensive, and they do have the chance of dying from shock when you move them.

I used seeds for my beans, sunflowers, marigolds, and zuchinni. I used transplants for my tomaetos.
We are waiting for later in the season before we plant the rest of the vegetables.

 

Just planted them so they are still tiny with not much going on right now, but I hope that the fertilizer we used will help them to grow quickly.

Outline of My Garden