This evening I took a walk around my yard with my little girl and my camera. We planted a few potatoes in an old dirt pile (for lack of garden space and having extra seed potatoes), planted a couple of cucumbers and transplanted a few tomatoes (left over from Grandma’s greenhouse), caught a frog and watched a giant beetle, and through it all – took lots of pictures. So here are a few highlights – at least the ones that were in focus…

The Garden

Our journey started in the garden where the peas are starting to pop up. This is the spot that was lawn last year, so I’m thinking it may be a bit grassy/weedy this year.

Our raspberries that we transplanted last year are coming along.

The sunflowers have made their appearance.

The squash is a little nervous about showing it’s face.

My pumpkin, hit by frost on May 26th, may actually recover.

The Yard

The mosquitoes are out enjoying the blossoms of my Ethel Pink Mayday.

This ladybug posed for us on the tip of a Tiger Lily.

We quickly snapped this picture of this bumble bee before it buzzed off.

The Pasture

These buffalo beans grow all around this area.

These shooting stars are scattered around the wetlands.

None of my close-up shots worked very well, but these little purple wildflowers sure looked pretty – even the dandelions seemed to fit in.

Well, I hope you enjoyed seeing these pictures almost as much as I did taking them. Oh wait, let me show you one more. It’s my favorite, but I’m biased…

Over the past few days I’ve noticed two things. First, my cucumber seedlings have a tendency to die for some reason. Secondly, many of my plants have a growing yellow tint. Some tiny spots on the leaves have gone brown. Like this…

This hadn’t happened in the two previous years of starting seedlings indoors, so I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong.
So I did a little research on the internet and it wasn’t hard to find the answer. It was… lack of fertilizer. As I was reading several articles that explained this to me, I realize that I had neglected to fertilize my seedlings this year! So, today I gave them a healthy dose of fertilizer (though I was tempted to do extra, I refrained…). We’ll see how long it takes for them to recover and if my problem was actually what I think it was.

If you’ve got a more accurate understanding of the problem, let me know!