cantaloupe — 2014 — The 21st Century Matriarch

The deck garden has changed quite a lot since my post in May. The sweet potato has a lot more leaves ad may be overwhelming the bell pepper plant in the same trough pot; the pepper plant has a small pepper …. but will it grow big enough to be edible?

The watermelon and cantaloupe are blooming - I look each day for a small melon beginning to form but it hasn’t happened yet.

The tomato plants have a lot of green tomatoes. In the pot next to the peacock pot, a lot of peppers that sprouted from kitchen compost are overwhelming the cilantro that I’ve already harvested once. The spaghetti squash in the peacock pot has been blooming but I have not found any small squash forming yet.

It’s the same story for the zucchini squash.

I’ve harvested mint for the second time this year - from the big round pot and the turtle sandbox. The harvest is already dried and in the crock beside the tea maker.

In the meantime - the beans are growing rapidly in the jug that originally held cat litter and the cucumber that was severely damaged by hail is hanging on - blooming! The shallow bins with miscellaneous flowers are just beginning to bloom. The morning glory has quite a ‘glow.’

I am enlarging my deck garden this year and done some planting in small pots indoors to be ready. It was finally warm enough here late last week for them to all go outdoors. I’ve planted combinations of plants in larger pots - one that will spill out over the side and one that will grow upward….or one that makes a large root and one that grows tall. I’m not sure it will work or not, but at least the deck will look interesting this summer and I’ll do a monthly post about the deck garden until the fall. I supplied the plants I had started from seed with potted plants bought at Home Depot once they were sale priced. The mint that wintered on the deck has already sprouted so I simply added something else to those pots. I have pots or troughs of: