Monday, October 15, 2018 – I am really pleased at how well our fall vegetable garden is doing. Some of what I planted are not fall vegetable/fruits, like the watermelons and cantaloupes, but it was seeds from giant watermelons and delicious cantaloupe so why not, they didn’t cost us anything! The cantaloupe vines have several flowers. The watermelons have dozens of flowers on long 10 foot plus vines with four little bitty watermelons forming! The biggest watermelon was like a marble yesterday and today it is the shape it will eventually be like a pecan. I planted a couple of peanuts down by those plants just to see what would happen. They have sprouted and have several leaves already!
The marble size watermelon
The regular garden has grown and grown. I’ve already harvested a dozen nice size radishes and several green onions. Where I pulled those vegetables out, I planted new seeds and in the case of the green onions new onion sets. One vegetable that did absolutely very very little was green onion seeds. I cleared those out and planted additional bell peppers.
The cucumber vines, okra plants and tomato plants are doing fabulous!
These were taken about three weeks ago. 
These were from yesterday. The cucumber vines are at the bottom of the picture. They are growing up multi colored ribbons leading to a wire thing where the cucumbers can grab on to as they grow. The three Big Boy tomatoes are on the right and the okra are to the left near the other end.
The okra are well over a foot high and needed some support so we located what we had around the house (tall sticks) to put next to each plant. A couple of our medal hangers for the hummingbird feeders are holding two of the plants up. It’s an odd collection but it works!
I am also growing bell peppers, lettuce, green onions, carrots, turnips, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and broccoli. The only plant that wasn’t started from seeds are the tomato plants. 
I know that it might have been too late to start some of these vegetables from seed but it’s been a wonderful learning experience so far. My brain has had to work really hard researching all of what’s involved in growing each of these plants and that’s a really good thing! I am happy to be able to still do that, for now! If the lessons I am learning now make me better prepared to plant them next year at the right time, that’s a good thing. If they do grow and produce this year before our first frost that’s a great thing! I read a lot about tips for growing the different vegetables.
One thing I thought was cool but I ended up doing wrong was with the bell peppers. I read that they need additional sulphur in the soil and that you can put a match stick upside down with the sulfur end in the group near the plant. My plants were tiny and I put the match stick too close to the tiny plant and the little bell pepper plants withered, from I guess too much sulfur too close.
I have been surprised at how much effort it takes to keep this little garden going well. Just pulling weeds is a daily job. The compost and manure in the soil make the weeds go wild with growing! I have everything growing on hills and am not sure they all should be. That’s another matter to be researched.
Anyone with tips to help our little produce do as best they can, please share! Next year I am planning on planting peanuts, potatoes, egg plants and some of the ones we are growing now. Any recommendations on what to plant in the spring in the south, let us know!!!
Ya’ll come back now, ya’ hear!
BECAUSE HE LIVES 