Week 10

This week I noticed that there were some small holes in some of my plants, particularly my eggplant. This made me wonder if bugs had gotten into my garden and began chewing away at some of the plants. For this reason, it is important that I have pest control in my garden. This week, I was able to plant a few new plants. I made sure to use compost for their optimum growth rather than planting them in regular dirt. I also added fertilizer to each of the new plants to aid in their growth. This was the last week of planting in the class, so I am hoping that all of the plants I currently have are solid and will continue growing. It is my hope that many of them will be ready to harvest by Thanksgiving so I can use them in preparing thanksgiving dinner with my family. For the plants that are not going to be ready, I plan on transplanting them to another plot of land. I am interested in joining the horticultural club so I can have a permanent space in the garden. So far all of the plants are looking pretty good and I continue to look forward to harvesting more vegetables. 

Week 9

This week I got to harvest my first vegetable! A few weeks back I planted radishes and this past week, I noticed that one of them was growing and the red vegetable was poking out of the ground. When I saw it, I was extremely happy and honestly kind of shocked that it worked since this is my first time growing food. The radish was very small but it was still awesome. Unfortunately, I left the radish on a shelf in my kitchen for a few days and it shriveled up. Next time, I think it will help to put it in the refrigerator.  I also put together my hydroponics system and planted kale in the system. This is also my first time creating a hydroponics system so I am excited to learn about it in practice and see if I can get my kale to grow big and yummy! I have not yet watered it, but now that I think of it, I will do it today. Currently, I have my hydroponics system outside by the side of my house where it can get plenty of sunlight to stay strong. I am thoroughly enjoying how much I am learning in this class and cannot wait to continue harvesting more veggies.

Week 8

I have not yet harvested my own food, but I am anticipating the moment that I do. I will feel a sense of pride as bring vegetables that I grew from my garden to my kitchen. This will be my first time harvest any vegetables, so I am sure I will be very excited. Already, this week in the garden I was excited to see the growth of my plants. Most notably, my onions were doing fantastic! The last time I saw them, they were just stubs. Now they are sprouting and have grown quite tall. I cannot wait for the day where I can harvest them. I am hopeful that most of my plants will be successful and I will be able to harvest them. This week I pulled all of the weeds out of my garden and laid down hay to try and prevent them from growing so quickly in the future. I also planted collards, brussel sprouts and broccoli, all of which I am anticipating harvesting. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I am hoping that I will be able to use some of the vegetables from my garden for cooking at thanksgiving. It will be awesome to be able to say I grew the food that everyone is enjoying!

Week 7

This week it rained immediately as we got into the garden, so unfortunately I was not able to check on my plants to see the progress of the germination. I wish it had not rained because I wanted to see how much my plants had grown, since I was unable to attend class the previous week. I plan to stop by the garden so that I can check on my plants and see if germination has begun. I also know that I have a few things to catch up on in the garden such as pulling weeds and putting down the hay to prevent them from growing again. I believe I also need to tie bamboo to some of my transplants. When I go to my garden later today, I hope to see that my transplants are strong and the seeds are beginning to sprout. I am really looking forward to this process of caring for the plant and  then seeing the end result and harvesting the vegetables. I am already learning so much hands on about gardening and I am happy I can continue practicing and learning each class. I hope to use this knowledge to scale my gardening and plant even more vegetables to be able to feed the people around me.