Our Fourth of July celebration is small and modest which leaves me ample time to fit in some gardening today. For some reason some of my tomatoes are looking yellow. This would typically mean lack of iron so I decided to give them a feeding of 'fish emulsion tea'. Plants seem to love fish emulsion and so do all the neighborhood flies. That seems to be the downside but I definitely don't want to use chemical fertilizers on my vegetable plants.
I used 2 tablespoons of fish emulsion per gallon of water. My watering can holds just about 2 gallons so I just plopped in 4 tablespoons and shot in water using my hose sprayer. The thick fish goo doesn't want to dissolve unless it gets mixed in well from the force of the water. If you don't mix it then the last plant you water may get a nasty little pile of glop which just attracts more flies and looks pretty disgusting.
Using a watering can is the slow way to do this but it gives me good control so that I just get my solution around the plant base and not all over the plant too. I don't want to burn the leaves.
Although it's pretty late we're most likely into a long warm year so I'm pretty confident there is plenty of time left to grow a few things like filet beans and arugula.
I bought these from Renee's Garden, a source I love. I've never grown this variety before but Renee seems to think these are the best 'haricot vert' available. They are bush style beans which I prefer because although I've gardened for years now my staking abilities are not as they should be. I got these in the ground using the suggested planting of 1 bean every 4", 1" deep with rows about 2' apart.
Germination Time: These little guys should be showing their little green heads in just 5-10 days. One of the many reasons I love growing beans, almost instant gratification.
I like the pretty serrated leaf of this peppery green. I've grown this variety before. It looks different than the arugula you typically find in the U.S. This green is great served with just a little bit of olive oil, lemon juice and salt. The seed which looks large in the picture above is actually quite tiny. They are so tiny it's almost impossible to place 1 seed per two inches as directed. The little devils stick to your fingers so I'm sure there are more like 3 per 2 inches. We can always thin the plants later.
I planted the arugula between the two rows of beans. I'm guessing the arugula will be up and ready to eat well before the beans are ready.
Germination time: our arugula plants should start appearing in 7-10 days. Our day time temps are in the high 80's right now so I'm sure they'll be up in no time.
This was a good gardening day. I hope to see an improvement with those tomato plants although I'm not convinced something else might be going on; like some kind of blight. I'll have to wait and see. I'm really looking forward to seeing my beans and arugula come up.
For now, happy gardening to all!
The arugula sprouted in 5 days and the beans shortly after. Here is the garden bed now, 12, days after planting. Hooray for warm weather! The filet beans are the left and right rows, arugula in the center. The plant in the center front of bed is a little watercress plant grown from a grocery store hydroponic plant (read all about growing watercress from hydroponic roots)