My son made the last change to the hoses. We put a split/Y coupler on the faucet so one hose was moved to the front of the house for the sprayer head, leaving  us one hose short in the back. I told my son that the next day, I would bring home a new solid hose, but he found a second sprinkler in the garage and decided that it could run through the back of the house. This would water the four potato plants set between those ugly round bushes (that are coming out this fall!) but it also wastes about half the water on the lawn (yes, I said waste — I’d garden it all for vegetables if I had the time, and next year just might). I agreed, thinking that at least four potato plants would then be preserved if for some reason I didn’t get beyond turning on the hoses on some evenings.

Well, today, I turned on the hoses, watered the containers, and happened to walk around to the little garden patch along the side of the house. Beyond the first three or four feet of the soaker hose, nothing was being watered. The hose behind the potatoes and bushes and along that stretch of grass was going gangbusters, leaving nothing for the two lengths of hose along the side.

This is what has happened for three weeks. So far, it hasn’t impacted the veggies on the side negatively, for we’ve had regular rains, but it does answer a question as to why the potato plants are so tall and lush.

I know that the two hoses on the side will work together if there is solid hose all the way to the soaker (the original sprinkler then follows), so tomorrow I will bring home the solid hose that I intended to get in the first place, and all will be well.

Truly, I hadn’t considered that all the water pressure might get out in the first hose and leave nothing for the last two. Another lesson learned.

I planted a length of garden alongside my house about 3′ wide and I would estimate 30′ to 35′ long. There, I am growing Kentucky wonder beans, bush wax beans, carrots, turnips, beets, roma tomatoes, sweet million tomatoes, big boy tomatoes, hot wax peppers, green bell peppers, cucumbers, and zuchinni.

In back of the house, I planted potatoes between the shrubs, for four plants total there. In containers on the patio, I have four better girl tomatoes and four more potatoes (all potatoes are yukon gold).

The pole beans are doing well (you can see a bit of them in the first photo, on the poles to the right near the front). Looks like bugs got the lower leaves. I’ve applied sevin dust twice, but it doesn’t seem to help. However, the leaves from 6″ above the ground are absolutely beautiful with about half of the 12 to 15 plants already topping the 6′ poles and the others at least two-thirds up the poles. I will go another round with the sevin though I don’t know if anything will belp at this point. The wax beans aren’t doing as well but were planted about three weeks later. There are gaps, so I’m thinking something got the seed. Next week I will fill in the spots and add another couple rows (very short rows, about 6′ long).

The root veggies are doing great. We’ve already had the green onions, as said earlier. I am putting out a plot of beets and onions in an empty flower bed at the back of the house for a later crop.

Tomatoes are doing fantastic. All have a fair number of blooms though I’m hoping for a little more. Keeping the suckers trimmed out. Peppers are coming along, already have a bell pepper on the way as you can see in the photo.

Potatoes grew like gangbusters. I hilled them up four times and now they’ve got loads of blooms. Hope we get at least 8 pounds of potatoes from 8 plants.

Cukes and zukes have loads of big and beautiful green leaves. No blooms yet, but they went out a little late.

I have incorporated some elements of companion planting, as I will do with the onions and beets together in the last plot. I have lettuce growing around my sweet million tomatoes to shade the roots, basil growing around all tomatoes, cukes and zukes close enough to run together, and a scattering throughout the little garden of nasturtium, marigold, and radishes to help with insects.

Along the other side of the house, spaced here and there among perennial flowers, are a few herb plants. Dill and parsley started outdoors from seed are coming along but probably won’t net any leaves for picking for at least another two months. Those started from transplants include the usual kitchen basics of rosemary, thyme, oregano, spearmint, basil, and sage, and all are doing really well.

I’ll attempt to do better on my next round of pics — get some from the ground level to show the plant better. I took these as a video on my little Flip camera, then cut out the still shots from that. Next time, I’ll use the regular still camera and get different angles and such.