Spring is in the air!

Outdoor gardening is in full fledge here at A Painted Pumpkin!  We started all the seeds indoors, in paper towels and the little plantable peat containers.  They were moved to the dirt at the beginning of the month. The pumpkins of course, are planted out to make a cool path, and hoping to have some different colors! My compost box took off with potatoes, beans, peppers, buttercup squash, a cabbage and a kale!  My yellow watermelons and my NEW LOOFAH were doing fantastic, until I made a horrible mistake.  I burned up my babies with tea tree oil on accident, after reading that tea tree oil could be used as pesticide. It probably would have done fine if I had only sprayed around the plants, but it ate up the leaves.  Now, as a nonprofit, I have to go against my wishes to be organic as always, and use this pesticide thats available to me..because something is eating my plants right now.

 I did buy fertilizer this year, Miracle grow. I have always had great yields, but my melons last year did not do well.  This is because I planted that area too much without replenishing the nutrients in the soil.  So, this year, Ive made that melon corner my new spot to dump the compost scraps.  As that breaks down, it becomes new, healthy soil!

Again, Giddeon has entered his second Lil Growers competition for the the Luling Watermelon Thump.  He has a row of red Jubilee melons, started on March 2.  We will compete in showmamship and weight, both to be judged the last sunday in June.