The New Gardener: Surprises galore and several unexpected growths

Note: Everybody Gardens videographer Jess Levo will be chronicling her adventures as a first-time gardener under the guidance of Doug Oster this year.

My summertime garden has been full of surprises. I honestly don’t know where to start.

The mishaps:

My Easter lilies were getting ready to bloom with huge buds, when I came home one day and discovered they were all gone, except for one. They were eaten clean off! I assumed it was deer, but I’ve seen a couple basketball-sized rabbits running around my yard, so now I think they might have had something to do with it.

The good news is, I had Bobbex (available here) on hand and managed to save the one lily left.

lilies

My beans, cucumbers and zucchini are absolutely out of control. I knew I planted everything too close together in the spring, and I’m finally seeing the consequences. My zucchini leaves are way too big and are shadowing the strawberries. Guess those are done for the year.

wide

My cucumbers are more vine-y than I expected. They are taking over the beans. Check out this cool picture of how the cucumber is wrapping itself around the beanstalk.

cucumber vine

Unfortunately, my beans are getting too tall and are collapsing. I guess I need some stakes and string?

collapsing beans

Let’s talk about one more mishap, then onto the good surprises.

My radicchio is one of the first things I planted. One afternoon, I looked out to find it absolutely wilted. Disappointed, I stuck it in the shade and gave it some water. Mere hours later I found it completely recovered. Yay!

raddicchio surprises

Some other cool surprises:

My very first post about gardening was about feeding the birds. Turns out, a few of the sunflower seeds from my feeder planted themselves in the ground and they’re actually growing. Look how beautiful!

sunflowers