The Vegetable Garden

My vegetable garden has finally started to take off! We had a very slow start and had to replant a bit, but we've ended up with quite a few things growing! Even things we didn't expect!

Shortly after planting the vegetable garden and cactus seeds we had a major rainout and unfortunately, a lot of my seeds washed away!

My DIY Cactus Garden that was growing in my Jiffy Greenhouse was a complete bust! I left it on my back porch to soak up the sun and all it ended up soaking up was a ton of water. Even with the lid on! I have a feeling that when I dumped the water out, the seeds went with it. Oops.

My vegetable garden also got washed away! Only two pumpkin plants and two (what we thought were) honeydew ended up surviving, along with three sunflowers. None of the cantaloupes came up at all.

 On a positive note, we have tons of full-size cucumbers growing! And no, we didn't plant any cucumbers this year! Or last year even! I honestly think that the honeydew seeds were actually cucumber seeds that were mispackaged.

We did end up getting four already-sprouted Iroquois Cantaloupes from Main's Garden in New Haven during their annual half off sale to replace the seeds. They're doing well so far and flowering, but still no fruit yet. Iroquois is supposedly one of the easiest kinds to grow, so that's good for us!

I'm not mad about all the failures in my garden this year. I'm sure that even Martha Stewart has had her share of gardening mishaps! It's all part of the learning process! For as many failures as we had this year, we've had just as many successes! And I am very excited that my pumpkins are doing so well! I can't wait for Fall!

I had my suspicions when I saw this that it wasn't a honeydew! I've grown enough pickles to know what a cucumber blossom looks like!

The cucumbers are probably doing the best out of everything we planted!

Here's one that's almost ready!

This is one of the Iroquois Cantaloupes that we planted.

Here's a tiny pumpkin just sprouting out of it's orange blossom! I've got several more at this stage right now.

This is the biggest pumpkin so far. They are all the mini pumpkins so it won't get too much bigger than this. I am curious if it's going to be white or orange. It's still too hard to tell at this stage.

This was the poor cactus garden after it's rainout. I may try it again if I can find some more cactus seeds!

Here's one of my beautiful sunflowers!

Grow Your Own Cactus!

 
Cacti are definitely having a moment right now! Everywhere I look, I see a cute little cactus in a cute little pot. On TV, on Instagram, on Pinterest, and even at Walmart.

 I decided I needed one. Or several! I want to make a little cactus garden! While searching for seeds for my garden this spring, I actually came across cactus seeds! I knew immediately that I was going to give it a try. It'd be a lot cheaper to grow them yourself ~ and more fun too!

I love a good cactus. When I was 19, my friend and I went to Saguaro National Park in Arizona and I have been obsessed with cacti big and small ever since! If you are ever in the Tucson area, I highly recommend visiting! It is gorgeous and probably the only place in America where you can get your picture taken with a real fifty foot tall cactus!

My souvenir from my Arizona trip was a small cactus garden with three or four different kinds of cacti in it. I wish I still had it, but unfortunately, my green thumb only seems to apply to outdoor plants! In all honesty, I really want to go back to Arizona, mostly so I can get another cactus garden!

Since a trip to Arizona is not on the horizon anytime soon, I'm going to give these cactus seeds a shot! If all else fails, I'll just buy some cacti at the store and make a cactus garden that way! Next up, I've got to find an awesome pot to put them it!

I had this Jiffy Greenhouse left over from a few years ago when I started some seeds indoors. I thought it was perfect for my cactus experiment, but I'm sure starting them in any kind of pot would work.

These Jiffy pods are awesome! They start out as these little tabs of dry, compressed dirt and all you do is put water on them and they grow!

Just pour water over them until they open up and drain the pan.

Next up, it was time to plant the seeds. They were so tiny!

All I did was make a small divot with my finger and set at least two seeds in the pod. I then kinda smooshed them down a bit and covered the seeds with a bit of the dirt.

All set and ready to grow!

Lastly, I covered them up. See how the "greenhouse effect" is happening already with the top steaming up? Here's hoping these work out! I will be so excited if I even get one cactus out of this! Check back for more updates as the cactus garden grows!