Pea seedlings

This post was drafted June 15th. From this knowledge, I will say peas are ready to harvest for seeds by the end of the summer. Harvesting pea seeds is pretty simple. Once the pod begins to yellow, you can pull the pod up and hang it upside down to dry. The pod will become brittle like dried out paper. You can pop open the dried pod and discover the above seeds inside all wrinkled because they are ready to be planted once again. This is when you can store them in a dry place for future planting.

Summer Garden

Marigold

Pepper plant

These were taken May 29th, and all I have to say is the end of May is waaaayyyy too early for peppers!!!! Patience is the key when it comes to peppers around here. It was too cold for the peppers and the weather to unpredictable.
I ended up planting this garden bed twice because the first planting came up due to the warm weather I planted them in only to wilt. These plants like weather that is above 80 from my experience this spring!

June 14, 2014

Yesterday was the last day to plant by the lunar cycle for summer. The dates were roughly, May 30 - June 14. I kept putting it off, but late last evening went ahead and weeded the garden before planting. I replanted most of garden bed 6 as last month's planting turned out to be too cold for the seeds. Note to NC gardeners. Plant your peppers and hot weather seeds in summer or as close to the beginning of summer as possible. The ground and weather here is simply to cold for them to successfully germinate before summer.
I ended up planting some pole beans as well. We will see how successful they are.

Blog posts and Harvesting Lettuce Seeds

A short note on blog posts is in order. I have not forgotten to post. The next few days there will be a ton of posts from spring and summer on here. It's hard to believe it is time to prep for the fall garden almost. For my fourth year of NC planting, I must say I've been more successful. Still a lot of mishaps, disappointments, and triumphs, but I am happy with everything I have learned.

I did want to write what I did today though. I immediately fell in love with harvesting lettuce seeds, when I learned how. To me, the experience was like finding a wonderful surprise, uncovering a puzzle....not sure how to describe it. As below, you see the plant bloom in yellow flowers, much like a dandelion does. These petals will fall off leaving a white fuzz, much like a dandelion once again. It is with this flower fuzz that you find the seeds.

• Pinch off the white, fuzz of flower with it's stem.
• Carefully  pinch off the stem along with the bottom part of the flower.
• As you pinch from the bottom of the flower, you will discover the seeds fall from the white fuzz

Lettuce in bloom

harvesting lettuce seeds

Inside the floral pod

Zuchini, Cucumber, HoneyDew

Cucumber

Honey Dew

This post was meant to be published back in the early spring, as are many of these posts, :/ Initially, when my zucchini, cucumber, and honey dew were planted I could not tell them apart. They all come up fairly quickly. They all sport a cluster of large leaves. Their leaves all look green, large, and corrugated. Upon closer look, you can differentiate each plant by the shape of their leaves.

Cucumber has a heart shape to their leaves, so to speak. They have sharp points.

Honey Dew, on the other hand, have more of a ruffled look to their shape. They offer many sharp points, instead of one main point.

Zucchini eventually crop up into long stems. I will admit though, they are a bit confusing when they first produce their leaves.

Zucchini

Carrot Harvesting

Lettuce Head

Carrots enjoy well drained soil! As the soil temperature warmed up the carrots sprouted. They took quite a bit of time because I planted them too early.When carrots are ready, their tops push through the top of the soil. You see this carrot top is slightly green. When the carrot top is orange in  contrast to its green leaves, it is ready to pull.
I tried cutting off the tops an inch below the leaves and replanting the tops, but I was unsuccessful. Instead, I left a few carrots in the ground as it takes two years for carrots to produce their seeds.So far the heat of summer has not bothered them a bit.

Harvesting Lettuce

Romaine Lettuce

I read the trick was to pick them first thing in the morning before the heat of the day wilts them. This is true. I picked them from the stem and stuck them in a bowl of ice water. They last a week at room temperature in the early spring. As the house warmed up they would wilt inside at around 75 degrees, after two days.

I tried uprooting a plant and sticking it in a glass of water inside.....not sure if the vent dried out the leaves or what, but it did not work for me.
The romaine lettuce survived through 90 degree weather, surprisingly.I covered the lettuce in six inches deep worth of wood shavings and the heat did not bother this plant. The romaine was also planted on the shaded side of the garden where it only received 4 hours of direct sunlight from 10 am to 2 pm.

Summer Blooms

Blueberry Bush

Celery Blooms

Summer is simply my favorite time of year! In NC there is no exception. To me, it seems summers in NC are the season of fruity treats. Once again, my plums did not survive. The blueberries become ripe the end of June throughout April. The flower from the celery plant is just now dying off. The flowers beneath the climbing roses are in full glory.

Banana Plant Mutilation

My kids have mutilated my deck plants so many times by now it is not even funny! We brought these plants in during May when the nights would dip below 60s. One Sunday afternoon, we came out to the living room to a sight of a banana tree shredded to bits.
I about cried. It takes this plant 3 years to produce bananas. We have YET to have a plant make it to that third year. The longest we have kept one from being frost bit or mutilated by the kids is two years. I will say, they self propagate very easily!
Simply expose some of a bananas root and it will produce another plant. We are almost up to 11 plants this year. So far the one original plant we have bought produces 11 plants. of those 11, a handful survived our elements. From those 3 that survived we have had many more. Now if one could survive until its harvest!

Magnolia Update

I added rotten tomatoes and covered it with pine wood chips. As the spring rain, summer hurricanes, and warm weather has come, the magnolia ended up blossoming well. Most of the bottom leaves turned a deep green.
Our Magnolia looks great. I will try to cover it with mulch this fall. See if that keeps the branches from dying if it is a cold winter again.