Look how much the tomato plants have grown! Thirty to forty inches!

Jude’s corn is, of course, doing what Iowa corn does in the summer… but it is still amazing to consider what a little corn seed grew into.

The boys’ gardens are full and lush. We look back at pictures of their newly planted gardens where you can still see dirt in each square. Green beans and pea plants have spread out and up. Herbs have filled out their squares. And some plants – the tomatoes and cucumbers, of course – can dominate their space and move into others. We are having a great growing season!

REX	June 4	June 11	*June 26	July 4	*July 17
Tomato	11-½”	19” (1’7”)	32” (2’8”)	42” 9 toms	46” 9 toms
Chili Red Pepper	10”	12”	4 peppers 4 flowers	7 peppers 4 flowers	7 peppers

“My peppers are turning red. I’m growing more and more cucumbers. ...I’m going to be so sad when there’s no plants in our garden…” –Rex

JUDE	June 4	June 11	*June 26	July 4	*July 17
Tomato	11-½”	12.5”	24”	35” 3 blooms	47” 8 toms
Corn	1”	13”	50” !!!	57”	69”
Eggplant	6-¾”	7.5”	1 Purple flower	3 flowers	5 flowers

“My corn is HUUUGE!”–Jude

MORRIS	June 4	June 11	*June 26	July 4	*July 17
Tomato	9”	15” (1’3”)	34” (1’10”	42”	49” 15 toms

“I love my cabbage.”–Morris

Thought a corn comparison might be interesting.

Here is Jude, next to his corn on Tuesday, July 19.

The picture on the right was taken Tuesday, July 5. Wow!

And isn’t it lovely, by the way?

 

One morning, I noticed some nibbling on my tomato plant. It looked as if a deer had wandered a little closer to our home and had an early morning snack. But he obviously didn’t stay long because for his size, he just ate the ends of about seven shoots and a few tiny tomatoes. Hmmm. Maybe he’d been scared off by a hissing cat or noticed lights coming on in the house in the morning.

Later that afternoon, I visited the garden again, and I wondered if more had been nibbled…Had I been less observant in the morning? Upon closer inspection, I found a critter I now consider to be both fascinating and frightening. Hanging upside down on a tomato branch, perfectly camouflaged and munching away, was a GIANT caterpillar.

I ran into the house and called out the boys. There was shock. There was fascination. There was the inevitable pulling the critter off because it had to be held. This guy was no shorter than five inches long, and it was about as thick as a nickel is wide. And, it had horns. Rex found a miniature one near it and removed it as well.

We didn’t know what these were at first, but we knew we didn’t want them around. Rex chucked both far into the yard. (Someone told me later we should have chopped it up into a million pieces or squashed it. My boys would have liked that, but it was awfully big, and therefore, lots of guts. Plus, it was kinda cool.)

Upon quick research, we found out we’d come upon two tomato hornworms, the caterpillar of the five-spotted hawk moth. Youtube videos revealed that these suckers can devour a tomato plant in about two days.

Now, we are on patrol, carefully watching for any questionable nibbling. If more are found, I’m all for dissecting it, or whatever the boys want to do. And, I’ve also purchased some much-needed, human-safe insecticide.

Today Jude and Morris harvested peas and green beans! Morris collected peas from his garden and mine: 9 gathered, many munched. Jude collected over thirty green beans, and countless were eaten before being counted.

Then, Morris sat next to his dad and counted the beans into groups of ten. He proudly made three piles.

We divided them up for supper! Fresh and delicious.

The boys know worms are healthy for a garden. According to the website harvesttotable.com, worms do the following:

• Earthworms burrow through the soil creating space for air to reach plant roots.
• Earthworms create tunnels that allow rain and irrigation water to penetrate the soil.
• Earthworms break up hardpan—dense soil that is inhospitable to plant roots. Earthworms can burrow to as deep as 6 feet in the soil.
• Earthworms leave behind excrement or castings containing from 5 to 11 times the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium they have ingested.

Etc.

So, today when I was digging holes in the yard to plant some lilies, I yelled inside the house and told the boys to come out and search the clumps for worms for their gardens. Jude sprinted to the door with a panicked excitement on his face; I think he was afraid they’d slither away and he LOVES worms.

As I unearthed, the boys collected and tossed the wigglers into their gardens. Jude collected over 20, and Rex collected over 10. Morris grabbed what he could.

 

Thought I’d conduct a few interviews from the boys to hear what they’re thinking about gardening.

REX, Age 9

1.What is your favorite plant in your garden and why?

Peppermint because it grows awesomely and harvesting is once every week.

2. What do you like about having a garden?

Everything. I don’t have a favorite. Maybe when my peppermint started bursting.

3. What is your least favorite part of gardening?

The caterpillars. They eat my brother’s cabbage.

4. What have you learned about plants or your garden that you didn’t know before?

That there was such a thing as a peppermint plant.

5. What is your favorite veggie to eat?

The pea pods.

 

JUDE, Age 7

1.What is your favorite plant in your garden and why?

Probably my corn. It’s the tallest of them all and it’s growing so well.

2.What do you like about having a garden?

I like to get the worms and put them in the garden. I also like seeing my cucumber plant grow and I can’t wait to get a big cucumber. –Whoa! Look at this cucumber! He’s lost his bud. Cucumbers can really be sneaky. You may think it’s too early for them to be grown and then there’s this HUGE one at the bottom.

3.What is your least favorite part of gardening?

The weeds. I don’t like weeds. I like almost anything about gardening.

4.What have you learned about plants or your garden that you didn’t know before?

About that big, giant, tomato-biting caterpillar. He was a big, fat thief, stealing our food when he didn’t ask. That’s a thief.

5.What is your favorite veggie to eat?

Cucumbers. Potatoes actually. Potatoes are my favorite vegetable, actually.

 

MORRIS, Age 4

1.What is your favorite plant in your garden and why?

The cabbage because I like it. It’s yummy.

2.What do you like about having a garden?

You eat a lot of stuff.

3.What is your least favorite part of gardening?

It’s not fun watering it.

4.What have you learned about plants or your garden that you didn’t know before?

Worms grow with water. They do, don’t they, Mom?

5.What is your favorite veggie to eat?

Cabbage.

Every time we leave for the weekend, we return and find the garden has a surprise or two for us. Earlier in the summer, we found our bean seeds had sprouted and peeked out of the dirt. Later, yellow buds opened on the tomato plants. Sometimes we’ve been surprised by how much taller a plant has grown or where it’s spread.

Today, upon our return from Okoboji, Rex found a full-size cucumber hiding under the shade of the plant’s leaves: the first of the season! It was about 7 inches long and ready to be eaten for supper. When we left on Friday, the cucumbers were only about an inch long, and many of them still had the yellow flower on the tip. Still babies. But today – Sunday – we found a full grown treat!

It was the perfect veggie to nibble on with our pizza Sunday night.

The boys notice their dill plants are tall and starting to sprout flowers. Their basil plants are full and ready to be thinned out. The mint and sage are spreading, and the chive is bursting in all directions. It’s time to harvest some herbs.

Each boy picks from his garden and brings the bounty inside. They wash each kind of herb in a colander, then lay them on a dishtowel to dry. All the while, they’re plotting: How can they make money on this? They conclude that they need to fill little baggies with their herbs and try to sell them at the end of our driveway, or at the family business, if Grandpa says it’s okay. Jude can also sell some of the geodes he’s collected from our driveway. They think they can make about twenty bucks…which they will certainly spend on Legos.

Rex called it. He noticed the white-winged butterflies fluttering through our gardens and called them the culprits of the holes munched in our cabbage plants. I wasn’t certain. How were they responsible? They were just flitting around, wandering through, and then flying out to the yard beyond.

And then Jude found a few green caterpillars on the cabbage leaves, and I finally did some research:

“Found throughout the U.S., the cabbage worm is the larva of a common white butterfly with three to four black spots on its wings. The damage done by these caterpillars is similar to that of the cabbage looper — the pests chew large, ragged holes in the leaves of cabbages, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower.” (garden.org)

Aha! I told the boys about the caterpillars, and they were all over it. They filled a yogurt container with soapy water and got to work.

Jude is an expert bug and creepy crawler finder. He started plucking the plump camouflaged caterpillars off the front and backs of cabbage leaves, inside the tightly folded center, and along the stem. Each find was raised in the air and celebrated: “Number 12!” He handed them over to Rex, who dropped them into the water. Here are the stats, all found in about 20 minutes:

18 cabbage worms

2 cabbage worm cocoons

2 slugs

When no other culprits could be found, all three boys proudly admired their collection.

Thankfully, we have not had any other pests invade our gardens…that we know of. Rabbits stay away thanks to our four ever-prowling cats: Minnie, Coco, Uno, and Cloud. The gardens are close enough to the house that deer dare not come close…and if they did, they would be enthusiastically screamed and stomped at by three little boys. Nothing messes with their gardens.

Yep, there’s no stopping them!  Look at the changes in height in the tomato plants and the corn. Some plants are not necessarily growing up, they’re flowering, filling out, or actually growing vegetables. Some of the herbs – the cilantro and dill – and the spinach are going to seed. (I had to change the chart a little.)

REX	June 4	June 11	*June 26	July 4
Tomato	11-½”	19” (1’7”)	32” (2’8”)	42” 9 toms
Chili  Pepper	10”	12”	4 peppers 4 flowers	7 peppers 4 flowers

*Two weeks later

JUDE	June 4	June 11	*June 26	July 4
Tomato	11-½”	12.5”	24”	35” 3 blooms
Corn	1”	13”	50” !!!	57”
Eggplant	6-¾”	7.5”	1 Purple flower	3 flowers
Sage	5-¼”	5.5”	Filling out	3.5” leaf

 

MORRIS	June 4	June 11	*June 26	July 4
Tomato	9”	15” (1’3”)	34” (1’10”	42”
Cabbage	4”	7”	Center folding	Center folding

The boys notice so much! Once they get into the garden, it’s as if they push play and start an audio tour of their turf. They don’t even care if anyone is listening; they talk over each other and to each other, not really expecting an answer. But I love what I hear: observations of growth, one plant stealing sunlight from another, time to harvest certain herbs, a surprise wandering of pole beans’ vines, curiosity about how big the carrots are under their tops, and on and on. It all makes me smile.