Jill's Garden Venture: It's looking very green :)

It was so exciting to see my garden today! There was so much green!
I got down on my hands and knees and weeded...despite it now being fall, it was probably the hottest day yet out in the garden . Then I took a hoe and loosened the soil in the walkways so that I could build up the beds of soil better. I love how "tidy" it looks now!

Every other week I will fertilize the plants...did it last week! I did apply Thuricide (BT) to the leaves of the eggplant, peppers, and beans to keep caterpillars away. And I applied Neem to the leaves of cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes to keep small flies and aphids away.

The carrots are the only seeds that haven't germinated yet, so I replanted those.
The tomatoes are taller (maybe even 6 inches taller than last week!) and fuller. They leaves are a dark green color, which I think means they are pretty healthy! I saw a flower on one of the tomato plants!

The pepper plants are taller and look healthier than last week. The zucchini, squash, and cucumber are so much bigger; I'm glad I spaced them like I did and not any closer to each other! They each have lots of big, healthy leaves. My okra plants are above ground now; they each have a little stem with two leaves. You could see little green sugar snap pea plants peaking through the soil...next week I should be able to see the stems. My bean plants are taller, fuller, and a rich green healthy-looking color. They are pretty close together, so I might have to thin out that area.

The sunflower plants are huge! No buds yet, but they look really healthy. The marigolds and zinnias are growing at a slow and steady pace.

We discussed plant nutrients during lecture. There are three different of categories of essential (we need ALL of them) nutients.
Environmental: Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (make up 95% of soil)
Macronutients: Nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and sulfur
Micronutrients (just need small amounts): Iron, zinc, chlorine, copper, boron, maganase, sodium, nickel, molybdenum, and sulfur

There are different "hunger signs" that indicate that there is some lacking of a specific nutrient.
Some of my tomato plants had lower leaves that were yellow, which indicates a deficiency in nitrogen.

The optimal pH for soil is 6.5. Our soil is 7.5, which is still ok.
*An interesting concept I learned is that there isn't growth in a plant just because the nutrient content in soil is high...the nutrient content needs to be AVAILABLE in the soil!