Garden Update

The garden has been neglected lately, so yesterday while the 2-year-old napped, the 4-year-old and I went outside. He rode his bike (and he is really getting good without his training wheels), and I weeded and tamed the tomatoes. There is still a lot to do, but we spent several hours outside. When the 2-year-old woke up, we sat and ate peas. Every once in awhile, he'd get one that was a little old, and would say "Yuck!".
As I was outside I noticed these mushrooms growing in the lawn by the tomato bed. I don't know what kind they are, so all mushroom experts can chime in. There is a row of them all the way through the lawn.


Here is one of the potato plants that I put in buckets. The other bucket has two plants in it, but they are not as big. I think I will have to start using unfinished compost to fill the buckets because the plants are growing too fast and I don't have any spare dirt. They need to be covered so that I will get more spuds. It will be neat to dump the whole bucket out in the fall and have it be filled with potatoes. This is my first attempt growing potatoes so who knows how it will turn out.

One of the neighbors is a little jealous that my tomatoes are bigger than his. He said if I get tomatoes before he does, he's sneaking over with some plant killer (I haven't thought about using anything non-organic for such a long time, that I have forgotten what the stuff is called....). He was joking (or at least he better be!).

A few weeks ago we came home from vacation and found that the tomatoes had died. Not completely, but they weren't looking good. A gardening friend suggested that they might have early blight. I mixed up some compost tea and sprayed the plants well, It seemed to help, the plants didn't get any worse, and after I cut all the dead stuff out, they looked pretty good (a little skinny, but good). I've recently learned that while we were away, the overnight temperatures were below freezing. My tomatoes probably never had blight. Just a bit of frostbite.