A great square dance

We had a great time square dancing Friday night. It's always fun. From the left, that's my husband, Mark, caller Jay, and me. It's not all twangy country music. Last night included "Wagon Wheel" (Rock Me Mama), "Pink Cadillac" and "Play that Funky Music"(White Boy). I think we even danced to Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff." Go Jay!

Garden snapshots

Patty pan squash are doing well. Cucumbers are not bearing yet. Potatoes got their first bloom, meaning there are little potatoes forming underground. Tomatoes are growing like crazy and providing great snacks for the squirrels.

50 tomato plants are doing well
and bearing great clusters of tomatoes,
some with nine tomatoes in a cluster

Pole beans are bearing like crazy. Cantaloupes have a lot of blooms but no fruit yet. I'm taking it on faith that the sweet potatoes are doing something underground.

First try at cantaloupe

Cantaloupe 10 days after planting seeds. Why do my things take longer than the Todds'? But notice the cute marker. It denotes that this is cantaloupe planting date #1 (of 3) and that I planted on 3/21/14. I like to label things.

Cantaloupe on 5/9/14, 19 days after seeds were planted. I mulched with oak leaves.

This year I am trying cantaloupe after hearing a rave review from a gardener who knows what she's doing. "They go crazy. You won't believe how many you'll get," she said. So I thought, why not.

I planted Hale's Best Jumbo seeds on 3/21/14. The Brazoria County Master Gardeners suggest this variety: Ambrosia. The only one I could get seeds for around here was Hale's Best Jumbo. The seeds cost me $1.35 and I put a lot of thought and new technique into it, but I might as well experiment, right?

Oh those crazy tomatoes

Seven weeks ago I planted sad, spindly, 2-inch-tall tomato plants. Now look at them -- some are over 3 feet high! Realistically speaking they'll probably reach 8 feet. Radioactive soil? That's certainly possible but I sincerely hope not. Rather, credit goes to the mushroom compost I had brought in this year. Seven cubic yards and enough men to till it in and build my rows.

Half of my tomatoes are from seeds I started indoors in Dixie cups. The others were seedlings I bought when I lost faith in the Dixie-cup batch, which rallied when I decided to plant them in the garden.

So this year I have 50 tomato plants, way too many for just two people, so if you stay on my good side and you're local, I might turn my garden into a freebie U-pick zone. Stay tuned.

Here are the tomato varieties I have: 24 Better Boy, seven Fresh Salsa Hybrid, six Bush Early Girl Hybrid, eight SuperSauce Hybrid and five Celebrity Hybrid.

Before I counted today, I had given away six plants to my friends Joyce and Francis, though I'm not sure if they (the tomatoes) survived. There's something sad about gently pulling out a giant tomato plant and sending it home with someone else, because those babies almost immediately wilt. It's a little like sending your children out into the world: They may wilt at first, but you hope all the effort and prayer and years and tears have given them strong roots on which to build the rest of their lives. Amen.

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More about tomatoes:

Determinate vs. indeterminate tomatoes

How to remove suckers

How to tie up tomatoes

Stem bumps

Crop report: Pole beans

Pole beans are green beans that develop feelers
that reach out and grasp anything they can
climb on. Naturally, they like to climb pretty high. 

For garden structures, I ordinarily just make do with whatever I have, but decided to splurge on two Burpee's Pole Bean and Pea Towers. I'm glad I did, because the beans sure are happy.
I took this photo before I strung up the towers. The craft sticks marked where I planted the seeds so I would know where to water. Beans like to be kept moist (but not wet)
as they work their magic underground.

This is from my pole beans a year ago. Let beans soak overnight in a bowl of water, then plant them

two to a hole. This makes germination more of a sure thing.

Beans are notorious for not cooperating with the gardener. Once germinated, though, green beans are a very easy crop.

The beans put out feelers and start
climbing. It's really kind of creepy.

Here they are climbing the strings.

A nice healthy green

The ones on the left are climbing 

while the ones on the right are germinating.

First blooms

First bean

First harvest

First "mess" of green beans. They turned out delicious

except that I let them get too big and they had the

strings of old-fashioned string beans. I learned to pick

them earlier. In cooking them, I like to keep them a bright green so they don't get mushy. I acknowledge that this picture is at an odd angle. I really don't cook on a slope. It is very flat here.

The pole beans have been yielding well the last two weeks or so but have slowed down. Today I added some fertilizer to maybe get them going again.

Any tips for growing green beans? Click on the comment link below this post. You can comment anonymously, with just your first name or nickname, or with your full name.

How to make organic pest control spray

If you don't mind your plants having garlic breath, you can't beat this organic mix that you blend up and spray on your beleaguered plants.

Put these things in the blender and chop as finely as you can:

3 garlic bulbs (six to 10 cloves each)

6 large hot peppers

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

A little less than 1 teaspoon liquid dish detergent

3 cups water

Strain this stinky mixture through a coffee filter, cheese cloth or muslin. Stir in four more cups of water. Keep it away from your eyes as you inhale the fresh aroma.

Put what you need right now in a labeled spray bottle. Save the rest in labeled jars.

Experiment and see if your garlic spray is working on the bugs. You can dilute it if necessary or change the ingredients slightly.