Moved into a new apartment, I’m now living in north Jersey as a Nursery specialist! I was only able to bring half of my garden, and obviously had to leave behind my berries and vegetables, but here are pictures of the plants I have now.

Ive been posting stuff to instagram related to plants, but not necessarily my garden. Feel free to enjoy that site as well http://instagram.com/alcleme1 My garden is coming along nicely, things are growing great and pests havent been too bad. Ive had a run in with 2 types of beetles, one was making a mess of my goji berry leaves while the other, I believe the black flea beetle, has made swiss cheese of my golden pearl plant leaves. Luckily they all seem to lose their leaves and get scraggly once berries appear anyway. You shall see below in the pictures. The beetles, my only real pest/problem so far, has been dealt with using hot pepper wax. The wax worked great and after one application the beetles vanished. I did not include my tomatoes in this update, one I killed off due to a virus or something (I blame working at a nursery). I still have a few tomatoes growing/ripening so at least ill be able to try the wild tomato and green zebra tomato. Ive had a strangely difficult time to get cucumbers, but I finally have one growing and ripening, hopefully that means more to follow. http://instagram.com/alcleme1 Without further ado, here is my garden! ttt

Garden has been making a lot of progress!! not much else to say, just take a look and feel free to ask me any questions!

Finally able to edit! here are the new pictures from my garden!! My berry garden (blackberries in particular) have started to bloom!! soon I will be able to start cross pollinating some plants! 😀

Winter is almost at an end and its not coming soon enough. I don’t have enough window space nor grow lights. I started my vegetables and have been planning my garden for this spring. This year will bring a much larger harvest. Especially with the knowledge ive been gaining in the master gardeners program.

The winter months are always the hardest; the dirt doesn’t dry out very fast and almost killed my mimosa. Tho I saved it, I also have to deal with spider mites and with a large variety of plants (some of which are like candy to the bastards) its hard to keep the plants pest free. This has luckily taught me much about pesticide application. Learned several things this winter for pesticides; Spray at night when the plant wont be in direct sunlight (chemicals wont be cooked into the plant or burn the plant as bad), spray lightly and often (once a day to every other day), Trimming is important, cutting off any leaf that is yellow or looks dead, along with any leaves that hang to the side and usually don’t get sprayed. Overall the winter is looking great! Soon it will be time to plant vegetables for the spring! Im missing a picture of my “golden pearl” seedlings and new telegraph seedling as well. In addition, there are several clementine seeds planted at the base of the Spanish lime that I am hoping to germinate. Finally, I am waiting for my Camilia sinesis and cashew seeds in the mail. Sadly my old Camilia managed to be killed by a mushroom (fungus) and so I had to re-order

This summer taught me alot about what grows well around my house on the shore. I have a lack of pollinators so ill have to pollinate some of my own plants next year, like squash. Next year I will be growing the three sisters in one garden box; Corn, beans and squash as they all grow well here. the rest has not been planned yet, but I know these grow well where I live on the shore; Beans, Peas, Corn, Tomatoes, Lichi Tomatoes, Okra, Carrots, Cucumber (Recommend Burpless), Squash (hand pollination is a must), Peppers do OK with occasional flowers falling off. Sadly eggplant seem to do pretty poorly here, they dont reach the appropriate size, nor do the fruit. Squash I have to be careful as they seem to be the most pest attractant in the garden, second being broccoli family.

Ok, So after some research, and looking back i have figured out whats going on with my garden I planted the left 2 boxes first, and the right 2 a month-ish later. This explains the size difference in my garden boxes. Additionally, there have been no pollinators for zucchini or cucumber, and i started doing it myself about a week ago. I started to get squash but still waiting on the cucumber; it doesnt seem to like me pollinating the cucumbers. The final 2 problems! Heat wave: Knocked all the flowers off my peppers, not a huge deal, still getting peppers and flowers are begining to return. Broccoli: Not sure why this hasn’t started to flower. Preliminary research suggests it could have been the heat wave Overall I therefore believe I am doing amazingly well with my garden, if you excuse the lack of bee’s! I have learned TONS this season and next year the garden will be 100x better than it is this summer! already cant wait!! but for now I have planted fall crops and plants i plan on growing indoors over the winter and am learning how to graft, to make eggmatos! (to save room and sell in the spring!)