Family Organic Garden Update

Cilantro
What a difference three short weeks can make in the garden!  I can finally spot the delicate cilantro poking up in one raised bed.





How Not to Plant Lettuce
Mine Needed Thinning

We ate some delicate freckled lettuce microgreens.  That's a fancy way of saying the lettuce was really small.  I have to admit to planting the lettuce too densely and needing to thin it.  So we went ahead and harvested some while thinning until most of the small plants were their proper 6-inch distance from each other.
Harvesting Microgreen Freckles Lettuce











Heirloom Tomato Plant








Several tomato plants keep looking better and better, yet we're concerned about the slow-growing pepper plants.

The beans have not quite started wrapping their green tendrils around the bamboo poles.
Lazy Wife Greasy Pole Bean
We've found a few tiny trespassers that had to go.  I picked off this caterpillar or cutworm and relocated it.  I also grabbed the neem oil spray to reapply to some trouble spots, but I'm feeling more confident that we can grow food without any synthetic pesticides.
Cutworm Caterpillar on Young Lettuce Leaf
This golden, winged visitor was perched on a bean leaf.  I couldn't see that it was doing any harm, and I suspect it's both a pollinator and a predator of tiny insects like aphids that might otherwise eat our plants.  So the yellow fly and I did a little photo shoot.  Maybe someone can tell me exactly what it is.
 
My preschooler was interested for a while during morning weeding and watering. She started playing inquisitive scientist and asking me serious questions like, "Why do plants need water?" and "Why do plants need dirt?"  I noticed that the freckles lettuce that Sow True Seed gave us is also part of a seed gift collection called a Children's Garden.  You might want to check it out for the young botanist in your life.


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