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...

Update

So this week we didn't really do much extra. I just used pesticides and fertilizers on my plants. They are all doing pretty well. My zucchini plants are getting some silver stuff all over the leaves. Apparently it is from flies eating other leaves, they do something to the leaves that causes the outermost layer to separate from the rest of the leaf. This causes a layer of air to form in between and the plant leaves cannot as successfully perform for the plant. I also got some leaf rollers. They make some kind of silk to make the leaf sticky and roll it up but to make a cocoon inside but my professor killed them before I got the chance to take a picture. We had a quiz in class so we didn't go over any new material. I have the pictures on my phone but my cable broke so I am trying to get them up but it will be a little longer in a second update. My tomaeto  plants are making a resurgence and my eggplants are making headway. The healthiest plants though are the sunflowers and the beans!

Garden Update....

Hello again. This week I did and learned quite a bit. I'll start off with what I did in the garden. As usual I weeded but today there seemed to be a lot more weeds than normal. I think it might be because of the extra rainfall we have been getting lately. Afterwards I checked out my plants to see how they were doing and was happily surprised to find that they were all doing quite well, especially the tomatoes. One of my tomatoes has completely died but the rest seem to have come back to life from the miserable state they were in. Luckily for me a girl in the other class dropped the class so the instructors let me transplant one of hers to replace my dead one! I also got to plant my lettuce today. After all that I spayed pesticides over all of my plants and rebuilt my garden mounds by hand. Finally I re-fertilized most of my plants....it was a LONG day.

Today we also learned about the essential nutrients that plants need and some of the visible symptoms when they are lacking them. The ones that we were taught what to look for when they are lacking were Nitrogen, Phosporous, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, and Sulphur.
When lacking in:

• Nitrogen plants will experience stunting, yellowing of older leaves and paling leaves towards the bottom of the plant.
• Phosphorous the plant will turn purple.
• Potassium the tips of the leaves will brown.
• Calcium the growing tips will dieback and the fruits will decay from the blossom end.
• Magnesium will get splochy interval yellowing and the leaves might start to curl up.
• Sulphur the newer leaves will yellow.

None of my plants seem to be experiencing these symptoms anymore since I started to heavily fertilize them.

 Tomato

 Lettuce

 Zucchini

 Eggplant

 Beans

 Basil

 Sunflower

 Marigold?

 Scallions