Lettuce, Mushrooms and Corn...Oh My!

Baby lettuce growing between the mature heads.

The stuff we planted in late March is coming along nicely. The lettuce was planted last season and we decided to let it stay. It has continued to bloom and provide well for our meals (condiment on hamburgers and salads mostly). We've planted newer crops between  the old ones and they are sprouting up nicely too.

The corn, as it did last season, it blazing a trail towards the sun. It is by far the fastest growing crop I've ever seen (and I've been gardening TWO whole seasons!) It has done so well that we will be buying more seed from the same company just to store it away (haven't learned how to save seeds yet).

Peas from last season on the left (producing nicely too).

The only problems we had last season with the corn was little larvae looking worms inside the ears. You couldn't really see where they had dug in from but once you peeled away all the layers, you could see the little boogers lounging in a dark whole on the ear.

Still not seeing much action on the potatoes and carrots. There is a possible sprout of potato but were not sure. I'll take a picture of it and post it. Maybe someone can identify it for us. Half of the block wall garden is stocked with potatoes, the other half is corn. We left two little pea plants from last season to see what they'd do (they're doing better now than last season).

The carrots are sprouting up but only ONE stem in each of the TWO 3x3' raised-box gardens dedicated entirely to carrots. Pretty disappointing. I still have hope that they're just still below the surface but I've seen plenty of cat pawing in the same boxes. I also wonder if seeds were washed away since they're planted just under the soil surface. I planted purple carrots and traditional orange from seed.


The third raised-box is nursing wounded strawberries. I planted five transplants from Home Depot. They were sporting berries when I bought them. I got them planted in the boxes and sure enough, the kids ate the berries within days. The berries were barely bigger than a chocolate chip! Argh!



"We're here for your water!"

 You can see in the picture how they are turning brown. There are some new buds coming out though so we'll keep our fingers crossed.  My gardening neighbor told me he planted the same thing and all the original leaves turned brown and fell off but were soon followed by healthy green ones.

I pulled some mushrooms up from the carrot beds. I was told it was possibly a sign that I was watering too much.