Well, 6 out of 7 of my Carolina Cross watermelon plants are up as of this morning.... which makes me happy because I didn't think I was gonna get any. The back of the seed card said they'd be up in 7-10 days. HAHAHA... yeah, closer to seven weeks maybe. I've been trying to do a lot of research on how to grow these things and it looks like I'm going to have to be really diligent on watering and such if I plan to get anywhere near a 200lb watermelon.

Yesterday, my cat Murky made his greatest attempt at destroying one of my pepper plants. He took a flying leap from the counter to the top shelf, missed, and snagged a plant on his way down. (Don't worry, he's fine ) I'm still trying to figure out how he managed to bend it about 100 degrees over and not snap it off. Anyways, it's a little worse for the wear having lost a few leaves and being poked full of holes, and now it's a sort of z-shape, but IT SURVIVED!!

Watch it produce some mutant hybrid peppers now. . . that would be awesome

I still want pictures of your watermelon sprouts, FK

If it doesn't stop raining, I'll never get my garden started over spring break. . . unless I want to grow rice

Well, I have a new issue to deal with. Two of my pepper plants that I dug from last year, my jalapeno and habanero, have become infested with ant colonies. My husband noticed a few weeks ago when I brought them in on a particularly cold night that a few ants were crawling around. I took a mental note of the problem, but being so busy, I didn't try to deal with it immediately and now whenever I water those peppers, ants just swarm.

So I have stashed my greenhouse lots of sugar water mixed with Borax (boric acid) in the hopes that the colonies will be wiped out. But it takes two weeks to a month to potentially wipe out a whole colony, and I'm hoping they don't kill my plants by then. If they do I'm going to be most displeased.

In other much more exciting news, here are my watermelons.

I've been doing a lot of reading and research on how to produce 200lb watermelons out of these little guys, and I'm admittedly a bit intimidated, but I'm up for the challenge as well. (Lots of consistent watering and pruning and fertilizing involved )

One thing you might try, is a fertilizer spike, FK. It shouldn't hurt the plant (in fact, it'll probably help it), and the chemicals inside of it should also irritate the ant colony to the point where it may want to evacuate. The only downside to this is that your plants will no longer be considered "organic."

Your idea of Boric Acid mixed with sugar water is also a good idea.

My seeds arrived in the mail today! I've planted several seeds in three pots. Guess we'll see what comes up. I need to water any time it feels dry right?

I need to water any time it feels dry right?

*nods authoritatively*

I hope these work out for you, Kat! I know that you've had a lot of trouble just getting the seeds

It's kind of funny how much gardening stuff is going on in my little world when gardening season hasn't started yet for most people around here.

Good stuff: The peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, celery, and watermelons look awesome!! I need to go take some more pictures to update on here.
All but one of my tomatoes is up now, and I'm hoping within the next couple days the last one I'm waiting on will be up as well.
Also my tomatillos that I had to replant are all up now as well. Yay!
My sister helped me replant the last of the peppers that weren't up yesterday so I'm hoping in the next two weeks those will all be up as well.

Annoying stuff: My pepper plants from last year are still packed full of ants. The Borax sugar solution didn't seem to work too well as it gelled when I put it out in my greenhouse and the ants either didn't seem interested, or got glued to it. So now I've put out a mixture of peanut butter and borax, that seems to be working a lot better. I've found several ants on it and around it.
The other annoying thing is that I'm just having rotten luck with my broccoli and cauliflower. They're all still alive, but I wouldn't say doing well. They just look sick. My sister thought that they're not getting enough sun, but I think they're getting too hot when I do put them out in the sun. At any rate, I'm going to be replanting some in a couple weeks straight outdoors. I figured it's no big deal if we end up with too much broccoli. If it all dies, oh well.

My seeds arrived in the mail today!

Hooray!! I'm still waiting on Burpee to send me my onion sets. I'm expecting them any day as they could probably go in the ground now.

Here in two weeks, I'm going to start planting. I've got my potatoes ready to go (we got Yukon Gold, Russets, and a new one, Red La Soda) and I also plant to plant garlic, onions, leafy greens, and brussel sprouts (and probably broccoli and cauliflower again as well ). That's all going to be out on the in-law's farm. In my backyard, I think I'll just be planting the leafy greens and onions.

Oh, and one last thing, my herb garden is coming back to life. The chives and garlic are up, underneath the straw the oregano and thyme look awesome. Peppermint's coming up, sage is turning green again, and I've got a billion little cilantro coming up as well. Haven't seen any dill yet, but that's sure to be close behind. Also my rhubarb and strawberries are poking up as well.

Spring is here!! I'm so excited!!

Yesterday was the first official day of Spring I believe. Though it almost felt more like summer.

Over the weekend we tilled part of the garden and we'll till more later on, but there's a lovely infestation of quack grass I'm going to be going to war with as soon as it starts greens up. Then I'll finish tilling.

We unburied the herbs. They look great. My rhubarb is going bonkers and so are the strawberries.

Of course, this leads to my big concern.... we're still a month out from our last frost date. I'm worried at (as always) we're gonna get hit with a hard frost between now and mid-April and everything will die back off again. Most of my stuff will be fine (I can just cover it back up) but the local fruit trees and farmers always get hit hard.

I have a few questions for the gardening experts. I'm trying to decide if I should do a container garden this year. I usually do peppers, tomatoes (I can't remember exactly which kind. I think they have "Girl" or "Boy" in their name), cherry tomatoes (when the plants labeled cherry tomatoes actually produce cherry tomatoes instead of some other kind), and cucumbers. My stuff never grows as big as the labels say they should. The regular tomatoes always end up very small and often have bad spots. The cucumbers are always small and usually bitter (I think I pick them too late). I don't start my own plants; I buy them already started. I live in an apartment building. I have a balcony that gets the morning sun. Several people in my building use their balconies as a place to smoke so during the warmer months the back of the building smells of smoke. So my questions are:
1. Should I even bother with trying to grow things?
2. Any suggestions for me if I do continue to try to grow things?
3. Is there something that it is easier to grow well?
4. Will it hurt the plants to be exposed to cigarette smoke?

Amazing to read of all this green stuff growing when there's still 6 inches of snow outside and more is on the way.

A couple thoughts, Pattertwigs Pal, though they're pretty generic... Tomatoes especially are heat-loving plants, so a western or southern exposure would probably be better for them (though I'm speaking as someone from a cool climate; if you live in the deep South with hot summers, it's probably warm enough). But they love the sunshine, so it's possible they're not getting enough with an eastern exposure. And in my experience, cherry tomatoes might be easier to grow than the regular ones, under these conditions.

Tomatoes also seem to be sensitive to how they're watered...a hot dry spell can make the fruit split open, but too much water isn't good either.

I'm not sure about how harmful the cigarette smoke might be; while it's not good for the plants, the fact that they're outside means a light breeze may help reduce the effect.

Our more-experienced gardeners may have some more-helpful info.

@Pattertwigs Pal, Interesting that a lot of the stuff you grow I don't think of as good container gardening plants. But that's not to say you can't do that. I'd start researching determinate tomato plants. (All that means is that they grow to a certain size, produce once, and then they're usually done. Indeterminate continue to grow and produce until a hard freeze, which is great, but maybe not for a balcony.) Here's an example.

Peppers would be fine in containers.

Cucumbers are another plant that in my experience like to vine and grow all over the place so I'm not sure those are best suited to a balcony either. Maybe they also come in bush form? I'm not sure.

I have a cousin that lives in New York City and she grows leafy greens and some kind of root vegetable in containers (I want to say carrots or beets) and they do very well there.

And as to your last question, here's an article I found on cigarette smoke affecting plants...
http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4937678_cigarette-smoke-affect-growth-plants.html

Tomatoes also seem to be sensitive to how they're watered...a hot dry spell can make the fruit split open, but too much water isn't good either.

This is probably what you meant, but usually what happens is it'll be dry, and then we'll get a rain, the plants pull in all that water and the tomatoes burst open. I've been known to run out and pick tomatoes in a rain storm because of this.

So lets see, last weekend I got garlic and 2/3 of my potatoes planted out at the farm (the Russets and Red La Soda) but then a massive cold front rolled in and it was raining ice, so we decided to hold off on getting the Yukons in the ground.

I made the mistake of visiting a greenhouse and ended up buy a ton of herbs (I was gonna get those anyways) and a couple Raspberry plants (which I didn't need ) because we just haven't had the best luck with fruit and we're trying again.

Aravanna got a job at a greenhouse/nursery and she's currently living with us... she came home with some weird kind of plant water that I guess has bacteria and organisms in it that are supposed to thrive in compost? So all of my plants have been bacteriafied and are supposedly doing even better than they were before.... yeah.

I started the long process of repotting my tomato plants yesterday. I finished 22 of them before I ran out of potting soil. Then I realized I also didn't have enough pots even if I did have more soil. So there was a trip to Wal-Mart last night to buy a HUGE bag of potting soil and some more pots. I'm hoping to finish repotting today.

Oh, and uh.... my peppers are getting ready to bloom. It's still March..... and literally outside right now it's 36F..... I love my greenhouse.

PP, I know that Burpee sells cucumber bushes, but if you're planting cucumber plants, then you will not have any luck at all. My cucumbers usually start out as seeds, and within five weeks they are ten foot vines. Cucumbers grow FAST!

How big are the pots in which you are planting your tomatoes? A cherry tomato plant will do quite well in a fifty gallon barrel, but could probably get by in a slightly smaller barrel. But tomatoes need a lot of sunlight, so if you're not in a place where they can get a siginificant amount per day (at least seven hours or so), then you're not going to have much luck with them.

One thing that I've heard of appartment dwellers doing, is to get a trellis and put it on one side of their balcony. At the bottom of the trellis, they plant peas, and the peas climb up the trelis. It actually works quite well, because peas don't need quite as much sunlight (and a good dose of heat has always killed mine). So that's an option. Another option is peppers; however, large peppers (like bell peppers) really don't do well in pots. Instead go with smaller peppers, or longer peppers. Hungarian Wax, Banana, Jalapeno: All of these should do well in two-gallon pots.

FK, it looks like you're going to have to self-polinate, as I highly doubt there will be any hymenopteran activity any time soon

This is probably what you meant, but usually what happens is it'll be dry, and then we'll get a rain, the plants pull in all that water and the tomatoes burst open. I've been known to run out and pick tomatoes in a rain storm because of this.

Aye, that's the ticket. We also discovered that same effect if they're over-watered 'artificially' during a hot, dry spell.

Several people I know tried those topsy-turvy hanging tomato plants you may have seen advertised, with mixed results. One offered few tomatoes, but the plants were in a place with too much shade. Another had pretty good luck with them. Those might be another option if your space is limited.

Other options might be to try growing carrots or herbs.

Wooooo.... got a TON of stuff done this weekend.

At my house I got my brand new Montmorency Cherry Tree planted along with my three new Nanking Cherry Bushes.

I'm on hold doing anything in the garden until the evil Quack Grass of doom (knoxious weed) wakes up enough to where I can really hit it hard with some Round up and kill it off. It's literally choking out my entire backyard. No point in planting stuff until it's gone.

But the vast majority of stuff took place out at my in-law's farm this weekend. Here's what we got done.

~All of the potatoes are planted.
~Green onions are planted.
~My dad had some leftover sweet red onions that we planted out there.
~Spring Turnips planted.
~Radishes are planted.
~Loose leaf lettuce is planted.
~Spinach is planted.
~The existing fruit trees out at the farm had gone wild with no pruning whatsoever. We pruned them back as much as we felt comfortable doing in the spring. This fall, we're going to hit them hard.
~Same with the existing grape vines.
~Planted the other Montmorency cherry tree as well as two Liberty apple trees.

I do have to say I am a teeny tiny bit worried about the trees and whatnot around here. Yesterday afternoon we set a new record high of 94F and then a massive cold front came through (complete with crazy storms and 40+mph wind gusts) and it's supposed to hit freezing tonight. Spring in Kansas is something else.

Ok, gardening updates. I had a little aphid problem in my greenhouse. I bought a bag of 2000 ladybugs and released them inside.

Aphid extermination took place shortly thereafter. Seriously, I'm not finding very many now whereas before there were colonies of them on my peppers. I'm really excited about how well that worked. I'm definitely going to keep it in mind for the future.

My herb garden looks great (I don't have a picture right now). The oregano, thyme, and tarragon have really taken off. I got my two parsley plants in the ground. My rosemary (which I've always had horrid luck with) has been moved to a pot so we'll see if it can thrive a little more this year. The only thing left to do now in that area is plant the basil, but I haven't decided quite where I want it yet.

I got my onions in the ground. Hopefully they're doing well.

My broccoli and cauliflower finally ate it so I've put them out of their misery. I'll buy some healthy stalks from greenhouses from now on since I sure can't seem to get them going from seed. On the other hand, now I've put the celery in the greenhouse and it looks really good.

Nearly all of my peppers and tomatoes are blooming. Two of my pepper plants from last year that I wintered over are already growing new peppers.

Oh, we discovered that two of the blueberry plants from last year had survived much to our surprise so I dug those up and potted them as well.

The only really bad thing going on right now is that we're having a drought. Need some serious spring thunderstorms to come rolling through!