A fairy ring of carrots

Blue jade corn seedling, 10/4/12
(zea mays)

I haven't spent much time in the garden this week, between the scorching heat Sunday through Tuesday, the mysterious cold everyone seems to be getting, and the advent of midterms.  It looks like it's benefitting from my salutary neglect, though.  I'm going home for a few days, having convinced one of my roommates to water A4, and when I went out for one final watering and check this afternoon, I saw some small but important signs of progress.  The four melons all now have two good-size true leaves, instead of the one apiece they were sporting on Monday.  The sunflowers are taller and bushier.  Almost all of the corn I planted has germinated and is growing fast--I never expected it to be this successful!  If anything, I thought my lettuce would be reliable and the corn a possible failure, but the lettuce has been 100% unsuccessful while the corn is leaving everything else in the dust.  Today, the corn seedlings are also taller and leafier, looking less like spiky aliens poking out of the ground and more like the grasses they are.  In the sub-plot where I planted the pumpkins, one or two pumpkins and about thirty volunteer sunflowers have germinated.  Sigh.  I never thought they'd be so successful.  They're growing like weeds!  The pumpkin seedling is all by itself, off in a corner, which should be good--it won't steamroller everything else.  I think I'll point it toward the extra sunflowers.  Fight to the death, where the mighty pumpkin tramples all in its path, or, the long and flimsy pumpkin vines climb up the sturdy sunflower stalks.

Carrots developing true leaves, 10/4/12
(Daucus carota)

Speaking of volunteers and--ahem--sowing one's own problems, the first of the carrots are getting frilly little true leaves.  They seem to be growing mainly in a circular area about two feet in diameter, with a few loners scattered around elsewhere.  Most sources seem to agree that dill, radishes, and parsnips are bad companions with carrots, but I'm not worried, since I'm not planning on planting any of those here in sunny SoCal: I can't really justify growing root vegetables here, given the sandy soil and constant sunshine all the leafy greens and tropicals love so much.  As for dill, I'm one of those rare people who will eat just about everything (no, really--octopus, rutabagas, reindeer, kohlrabi, raw milk, etc.) but is totally impartial to dill.  The carrots will go just fine with everything I'm planning to grow, even if they aren't in neat rows like most of the others.  Whatever, I've never really been big on rows anyway--it's just one convenient way to organize, and when it stops being convenient, it makes sense to use some other formation, even if that formation is a fairy ring of carrots.

I hope everything keeps up this growth and success while I'm away, and doesn't die of heat.  Hopefully my roommate can help in that department.  In the meantime, I'm excited to be getting home to see my family and the original garden that started this.  I'll be saving seeds from radishes and lettuce, harvesting the last of the potatoes, planting garlic, and making hot sauce out of the summer's bumper crop of Thai chiles.  I might also get to try the sugar pumpkin I grew this summer from seed I saved last Thanksgiving.  Should be a fun few days at home!