Garden Update: Week 23

It's week 23 of my garden.

Here's the container garden this morning.  It was very cloudy and rainy.

Let's see.....this week I picked 2 yellow toms.  One was splitting but I still ate it.  :)

I picked 5 chili peppers.  I gave them to a co-worker.  He said he's going to hang them and let them dry out and then crush them up.  

Here's a pretty zucchini blossom with a happy little bee.

My spaghetti squash, I picked last week had a ugly white worm (gourd worm?) in it when I cut into it and I noticed some small holes on the bottom.  I was highly disappointed.  I threw the whole thing out.  The worm made me want to gag.  Gives me shivers thinking about it.  BLECH!!!!  

I do still have this spaghetti squash growing though.  I hope it ripens for us to eat and without worms.

I turned it over so the other side can get some sunlight.  So far there's nothing but dirt on it.  I will keep an eye on it.

My cucumbers should be ready in a few days.

This is my latest sunflower earlier in the week.

Here it is this morning with some pollinators.

I have a few more that will be popping soon.

And another....with an ant.

I planted some other sunflowers later and they are in the garden.  They seem to look different that the other ones I've been growing even though the seeds were from the same packet.  I need to stake it b/c it keeps falling over.

I have some more roses on my rose bush.  The rose from last week has since died and been plucked.

I have a new eggplant growing.  So exciting!!  :)

A new pea flower.  Peas are seriously so easy to grow.  If you're thinking about trying to start a garden I would recommend that you start with peas.  :)

I saw a little pea pod that looked like it was going to explode so I picked it.

The pea inside was huge....and I ate it.  :)

My beef stake tomato plant is looking horrible and brown.  I talked to a friend at work who does a lot of gardening and she suggested picking the tomatoes off the plant to save them from rotting and then just letting them ripen in a window sill.  I did just that.  I picked all the tomatoes off.  (I left a teeny tiny one)

Here's all the tomatoes I picked.  8 total.

I put them in the kitchen window so they would ripen from the sun.

Just a few days later........This is what they look like.  (this morning)  Most are red already.  :)

I decided to do some cleaning up in the garden this evening.  I cut off old dead leaves and just tidied up the deck.  I gave each plant attention and love and inspected for bugs.  When I was cleaning the tomato plant I accidentally cut the branch that had some new healthy green growth.  :(  

We'll see if it does anymore growing.  It's probably done now.

While cleaning up the dead sunflowers I noticed a seed that had fallen onto the deck.

I inspected the sunflower and saw another seed that was poking out.  I was happy to see the seed.  I never thought about saving any of the seeds from the sunflowers I grew.  I guess I didn't realize how many seeds the sunflower held.  This was my first sunflower that I ever grew from seed so it makes sense to save some of the seeds.  :)

Here's the head of the sunflower.

I peeled back the petals exposing more seeds.

I then picked all the petals and brushed my garden gloved hand over the middle of the head of the sunflower.  Look at how there's still yellow pollen all fluffed up on the flower.

This is all the seeds I collected.

I can't wait to plant these next year.  I might plant these in ground in a row.  We'll see.

I put the seeds in a ziploc bag.  I will add them to my seed bank.

Here's the container garden all cleaned up.  :)