Going vertical

My plants are starting to get big enough that they need some support. This picture shows my cucumbers starting to grow up the trellis. I "train" them at the beginning of the season using plant twist ties and then their own vining tendrils take over and they'll end up covering the trellis.

I always struggle to find the best way to stake my tomato plants. I'm never quite satisfied with the methods I've chosen. This year I'm borrowing an idea I got from my friend Vicki at work. I'm using the triangular cages (opened up) like I did with my tomatoes in 2008. But I am combining them with stakes added for support. The cages in 2008 turned out to be too flimsy and fell over under the weight of the tomatoes by August. Then in 2009 and 2010 I used stakes but I didn't like how they don't allow the plant to spread out. Maybe combining the two will be the best of both worlds. So this morning I went out and got my cages and stakes out of the mini barn and set them up with my tomatoes. Here is a picture of my two Cherokee Purple plants with a basil plant in the middle The cage is tied to the stakes and then the tomatoes are tied to the cage.


And just for fun (not vertical) my zucchinis have blossoms! I know they are still a little ways off from producing zucchinis, but they are getting there! I love this time of year!


Today's weather:
High temp: 82 F
Low temp: 67 F
Humid, cloudy, chance of scattered showers

So far, so good

This is one of my Cherokee Purple tomato plants. I planted it in the garden about three weeks ago. Obviously it is loving its new home! Lots of rain and now hot temps are making them flourish! The other tomato plants look almost as good.


In this photo you can see my sweet bell peppers in the foreground and my cucumbers in the background under the trellis. I have two Big Bertha bell pepper plants (they make great stuffed peppers!). I also have two Chocolate Beauty bells. This is a new variety for me this year. Apparently the peppers turn a chocolate color when they are ripe and they are very sweet. I have two varieties of cucumbers planted. I lost a couple of plants early on when the weather was still cool and stormy. But those that survived have gotten much stronger and are really growing. They will be growing up the trellis in no time!

I planted Fordhook Lima Bush Beans today. I still need to plant the pole beans, but I am going to wait until next weekend for that. I realize that means I'll have a late harvest this year, but it just can't be helped.

Here's a photo of my garden today. I'm pretty happy with how it is coming along, especially considering how I've neglected it more than usual this year.


And here is a photo of my backyard, looking at it from the patio. Plans are in the works to make a perennial flower bed just to the left of the patio, encircling the birdbath and the corner of the patio. We are making the vegetable garden the priority right now, but once it is in we will focus on the perennial bed more.


Today's weather:
High temp: 84 F
Low temp: 67 F
Cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms

I needed support

The focus of today's garden work was creating structural support for my growing plants. I built two of the supports pictured above for my pole beans. I was late getting them planted so they are probably behind other people's beans.

I also got in my minibarn and dug out cages for my bell pepper plants and my tomatoes. Here are a couple of tomato plants in their new cages:


I had already gotten all the plants in the garden (finally!) but then I've had a couple of casualties. One of the two Burpless Cucumbers that I planted died. So I replaced it with two General Lee cucumbers. Also, two of my four Big Bertha Bell Pepper plants don't seem to be doing so well so I replaced them with two California Wonder Bells. I have been gradually adding grass clippings as mulch to the garden and I'm not finished yet. All the seeds have sprouted and all the plants are growing. Here is what my garden looks like on the evening of June 6:


Today's weather:
High temp: 78 F
Low temp: 62 F
Partly cloudy and breezy (a.k.a. perfect!)

The garden is in!

It is as hot and humid as late July outside! I worked out in the garden for about an hour and a half this morning and I finally had to come in. I can't take the heat! But the good news is all of my plants are in. I still need to plant the bush bean and pole bean seeds and I plan to toss a few pumpkin seeds on the compost pile and see if anything comes up. But the transplants are in. All total I spent exactly $50 on plants this year. I don't remember exactly what I spent on seeds, but I think it was in the neighborhood of $6 or so. I still need to buy supplies to make a cucumber trellis as well as bean and tomato supports, but expenses so far have been relatively low (thankfully!).

In the top picture today you can see how my two broccoli plants have grown since I put them in. Also, the nasturtiums I planted between the broccoli are up and growing. Behind the broccoli are the two cucumber plants I bought this weekend. I went back to the variety I tried two summers ago: Burpless Hybrid. They were long and skinny and the taste was the best I've ever tasted in a cucumber. I think my trellis-building will have to wait until after graduation next weekend. Oh, and also in this picture you can see the snow peas flowering and climbing up their trellis. The chives are still in bloom although I think the flowers are on their way out.


Take a look here at my root crops. The beets are really growing. And the green onions and carrots are starting to make a respectable showing.


Here are my hot peppers tucked in behind the flowering sage. I have planted one banana pepper, one poblano, two jalepeno, and four serrano. Also toward the back is a rosemary plant that I tucked into the only available spare place in the garden.


So here is the garden today. Jeff mowed the lawn this morning so I had him pile the grass clippings in the back. Once they cool off and start decomposing, I'll spread them around my plants (tomatoes first!) as mulch. Other things I've added to the garden today that I haven't mentioned yet are Beauregard sweet potatoes (twice as many as last year), two Italian oregano plants, two curly parsley plants, two butternut squash plants, and four Big Bertha sweet bell pepper plants.

Today's weather:
High temp 86 F
Low temp 65 F
Sunny with 10% humidity (which feel like a lot more than that if you ask me!)

Planting time!

My lone zucchini plant. I didn't grow zucchini last year and missed it so I decided to grow it again this year.

I have had this day designated as my planting day for weeks now so I didn't let a sick kid or the threat of rain deter me. So this morning I left Jeff at home to tend the sick kid and took my 13 year old down to the Bloomington Farmer's Market in search of plants for my garden. I'd made a list based on my garden plan. That place was packed with vendors and shoppers. I ended up spending $17 and I got 4 tomato plants (2 Cherokee Purples, 1 Beefy Boy, and 1 Roma), 4 hot pepper plants (2 Jalepeno, 1 Banana Pepper, and 1 Poblano), 1 zucchini plant, 4 Sweet Genovese Basil plants, and 1 rosemary plant. I was disappointed that I couldn't find any cucumber or butternut squash plants, and the only sweet bell pepper plants I could find were California Wonder and I want Big Bertha. I also didn't buy any oregano or parsley because I was out of cash. So obviously I am not done shopping for plants although I am done for today. I am thinking of making a trip to Cox's Plant Farm near Clayton, Indiana. Next to the farmer's market, it is my favorite place to buy plants.


Above is a photo of one of the tomato plants I bought alongside a basil plant. (Returning readers will remember that I plant basil among my tomatoes to attract parasitic wasps in order to control the disgusting tomato pest, the Tomato Hornworm.) I am a bit torn about the tomato situation. I only bought 4 tomato plants today and interplanted them with basil. I am trying to learn from past mistakes and last year I learned two things about tomatoes. One is that I prefer to let my tomatoes sprawl with minor support instead of staking and pruning. I find I get more tomatoes that way. The other thing I learned is that you can't crowd tomatoes. They need their room, especially if you let them sprawl. So my 4 tomato plants and basil plants take up all the room I have for them in the garden. But 4 tomato plants is not many at all. I want to make salsa and tomato sauce and I just don't think 4 plants will cut it. But I don't know where I could fit any more in. I need to think about that a while.

My garden planting isn't done. Here's what I've planted so far: lots of snow peas (now flowering), butterhead lettuces (almost ready to start harvesting), 4 rows of beets (2 inches tall), two rows of green onions and one row of carrots (all about 1 inch tall), 2 broccoli transplants, nasturtium seeds (two sets of leaves each so far), a row of sunflowers (about 4-5 inches tall), dill seeds (sprouting), kale seeds (sprouting), 4 tomato plants, 4 basil plants, 4 hot pepper plants, 1 rosemary plant, 1 zucchini plant, and yarrow seeds (the last 6 items planted today). I have already got bush bean and pole bean seeds but I'm holding off on planting those because I'm exhausted. Still need to buy 1 oregano plant, 1 parsley plant, 2 cucumber plants, 1 butternut squash plant, 3-4 bell pepper plants, and 1-2 sweet potato plants. My perennial chives, sage, coreopsis, and lavender are coming back again. Here's what my garden looked like today when I finished (just as the rain was starting, by the way.):


Today's weather:
High temp: 68 F
Low temp: 55 F
Showers.

Finally all planted!

After many delays, I have finally got my sweet potatoes in the ground. Whew! I can't wait for September and the harvest!

Meanwhile, here's a picture of my peas today:As you can see, they are full of pea pods that are filling up with peas. It won't be long now before my first harvest!

My corn is also up. I have 4 rows of 5 plants and they are about 4 inches tall now. Here's a photo I took today before I mulched them:

I was so excited when I went outside this morning to find several of my bean plants are poking their heads out of the ground! My cucumber plants have also grown. And look, one of my Roma tomato plants has the first blossom of the season on it!

We've had quite a bit of rain lately and a cold spell that killed my basil seedlings. Today is much warmer and nicer and hopefully the cold is behind us. I plan to replace the basil plants and then I should be set. All I have to worry about now are pests and disease!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 55 F
Sunny and fair

My Garden is almost all planted

I have spent the better part of the last 3 days working in my garden and I almost have it all planted. I almost said I was almost done, but garden work is never really done. Anyway, it is going to have quite a different look this year. I am adding two things I didn't have much of last year: color and height. I have planted many flowers. You can see the yellow Tickseed in the near right corner along with the red geranium and purple violet I got for Mother's Day. My chives and sage are still blooming. And I have planted Cosmos, Nasturtiums, Marigolds, Indian Blankets, Bee Balm and flowering herbs like dill and anise hyssop. Those beneficial insects will be swarming! I also have the pea trellises (you can see the peas are now half-way up the trellises I built). There are several small peas popping out on the plants and they should be ready to pick in the next week or two. I also had my 7yo son help me build the 7 teepees for the pole beans in front.

Besides the flowers and herbs I already mentioned, here's a list of what I've planted this year:

* Tomatoes - Cherokee Purple (3)
* Tomatoes - Brandywines (2)
* Tomatoes - Roma (4)
* Tomatoes - Black Cherry (1)
* Tomatoes - Golden Nugget (1)
* Tomatoes - Green Zebra (1)
* Tomatoes - mystery (1) - I forgot by the time I got it home what it is
* Pepper - bell "Big Bertha" (4)
* Pepper - Sweet Banana peppers (4)
* Pepper - Habeneros (4)
* Pepper - Jalepenos (4)
* Eggplant - Black Beauty (3)
* Peas - approx. 80 plants
* Beans - green bush "Blue Lake" (1 row so far)
* Beans - black bush "Black Turtle" (2 rows)
* Beans - green pole "Kentucky Wonder" (63 plants)
* Corn - sweet yellow "Country Gentleman" (4 rows in a block)
* Cucumber - (forgot the variety) (2)
* Beets - Tall Top Early Wonder (2 rows)
* Radishes - Crimson Giant (1 row inside pea trellis)
* Lettuce - mixture (1 row inside pea trellis)
* Broccoli - (1)
* Cauliflower - (4)
* Cabbage - (2)
* Garlic - (4)

I have to admit, I've bought Beauregard Sweet Potatoes, but they have been on the bottom of my priority list and I'm too exhausted to put them in tonight. But I will do it tomorrow definitely!

Here are some more photos I took today:
Sage in bloom.

Pea trellis with plants growing half-way up to the top. Also the sage is a lot bigger in this photo than the last one I took.

My one surviving broccoli plant. I don't know if it will produce much to eat, but isn't it pretty?

One of my eggplants. This photo shows two things I've done to organically help along my garden. First, I used bathroom dixie cups with their bottoms cut out to make cutworm collars for my eggplants. This should prevent cutworms from severing the stem at the surface of the ground while the plant is young and vulnerable. Also, I am mulching all of my established plants with grass clippings from lawnmowing. It does an amazing job of keeping the soil moist as the sun is already beating down on us. Unmulched soil is caked and cracked like concrete. But when I scraped away the grass clippings just next to the cracked soil, it was cool and moist and loamy. Perfect!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 78 F
Low temp: 58 F
Sunny and warm

End of July Garden Update

So technically I'm a day late, but it is time for the monthly garden review.

First of all, I finally have a new blog header picture! I've been waiting for that particular bunch of cherry tomatoes to ripen for weeks solely for the photo op. I've had them pegged for my blog header for a while and today they were finally picture-worthy in my opinion.

I have to admit, the end of this month finds me in kind of a sad gardening mood. I realize now that the early part of the summer was easy on us. July has been much more difficult. Challenges that passed us by early on have started to hit us hard the last couple of weeks of the month.

Here's a plant-by-plant update:

* July started with bitter lettuces being dug up and added to compost. Their former bed sat empty for most of the month of July. For fall crops, I direct sowed some broccoli and cauliflower in that spot and so far I've only seen one broccoli seedling.
* Carrots are still in the garden and we've harvested a few, but generally I've decided I planted them too close together and didn't thin them out enough. They haven't had adequate room to grow to a useful size.
* The green onions have been slow to grow, but the ones I've pulled up to use in salads have been good. Next year I want to plant a bigger crop of these. We go through green onions faster than what this crop has allowed.
* My two zucchini plants provided us with lots and lots of zucchini. Most of it has been shredded and frozen. A week ago one plant succumbed to the squash vine borer and I fear that today the same thing is happening to the remaining plant. I think zucchini is done for this year.
* My potatoes didn't make it this year. I planted both Red Norland and Irish Cobblers. They started out impressively enough. But I didn't have a lot of soil to mound on them properly. What really did them in, though, is the amount of rain we had this May and June. It rained and rained and rained and area rivers and ponds flooded. Many people lost their homes so I guess I'm lucky that I only lost my potatoes. The tops turned yellow and died off way early and when I dug them up, the potatoes I found were rotten. I'd heard that potatoes were "really easy" to grow, but I don't think I'll try them again next year.
* My sweet potato plant looks healthy as ever. It has been vining out all over the place and will probably take over the area previously occupied by its next door neighbor: the zucchini. Still no idea how it is doing underground, but if the foliage is any clue, it's doing well.
* My yellow onions started to fall over which I took as a sign to harvest. I pulled about every other one up and was really disappointed with how small they were. I expected bigger. Maybe I planted them too closely together. I left the other half of onions in the ground to see if they'll grow anymore and the other ones are drying on my back patio before I store them.
* The bush beans did really well. We had two fairly large harvests and they tasted great. I plan to do pole beans next year. I might plant more bush beans too to provide us a harvest before the pole beans are ready.
* The pumpkins have become a thorn in my side, so to speak. The main reason I'm growing them is because of my husband thinking it would be neat to have our own pumpkin to carve at Halloween. Meanwhile, the pumpkins have provided me more worries than the rest of the garden combined. They are huge and are growing into the neighboring beds. There is no longer a walkway between the pumpkins and the tomatoes and bell peppers. Plus, I am tormented by an infestation of squash bugs and squash vine borers. I have to go out and kill bugs and tear off leaves with eggs every day. And now my pumpkins are covered with a nasty case of powdery mildew.The good news is that I seem to have several pumpkins set (3 different kinds) and if the plants hold out, we should have a decent harvest.
* We have three watermelons growing on the vine and the first one looks almost ready.
* We have had 8 muskmelons growing on the vines and so far I have picked two. The first one turned out to be not quite ripe yet. The second one, however, is delicious and juicy.
* I have been overwhelmed by the cucumbers my two little plants have produced so far. I have put up 10 pints of dill pickles and 8 pints of bread and butter pickles and I have a big collection of cucumbers in my fridge that I think I'm going to do as dill spears sometime this weekend. Not only are they plentiful, but they taste really good too. My mom says she's never tasted a better cucumber. At the nursery they were just labeled as "burpless cucumbers".
* We have been harvesting green bell peppers once every couple of days for use in salads or as a seasoning. I have ten bell pepper plants and one has already produced all of its peppers and I pulled it for the compost bin. The other plants are still full of small but growing peppers.
* My spaghetti squash plants have been making me proud. I have 9 spaghetti squash in various stages of development. I think the first one is about done.However, my leaves are turning yellow and the plants don't look good. I don't know if the problem is squash vine borer, powdery mildew, or just lack of a good watering, but I worry that the plants won't last long enough for the squash to ripen.
* The tomatoes are doing well (knock on wood). I have been bringing in a bowl of ripe tomatoes every morning. Most of them are cherry tomatoes, but some of the bigger ones have started turning. Last night we sliced and ate our first Cherokee Purple with dinner and it was delicious!

I suppose I should consider myself lucky and remember all the positive things that have come out of the garden so far. It has been a pretty good garden, especially when you consider this is my first real garden. And nothing is perfect. There will always be problems. I guess the trick is to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and never let them get the upper hand.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 90 F
Low temp: 66 F
Partly cloudy with thunderstorms this evening.

Organic solution for powdery mildew

The hot and humid weather of late July in Indiana has come and along with it, Powdery Mildew in my garden. My spaghetti squash, zucchini, and especially pumpkins are all affected. So this morning I made up a mixture of 1 cup of skim milk to 9 cups of water and filled a spray bottle so that I could organically get rid of the powdery mildew. It was a lot of work and not very enjoyable since at 10:00am it is already about 80 degrees and 74% humidity. But I managed to refill my spray bottle three times and douse all the affected plants. According to the website I just linked to, a weekly application should be in order. Sigh. I'm still worried about the possibility of squash vine borer infestation, but for now it doesn't seem to be a problem (with the exception of one lost zucchini plant).

Meanwhile, the harvest continues. I continue to get at least 2-3 cucumbers a day. This morning I picked 3, one of which is a record breaker in length at a whopping 16 inches.
Also, here is a photo that is representative of the tomatoes I'm harvesting each day lately.This isn't a huge amount, but we're getting that much every day. It's starting to be more than we can eat. This particular example shows one Better Boy, two Romas, several large grape tomatoes, and scads of cherry tomatoes. At this point, the majority are still cherry tomatoes. They are the Sweet 100 variety and they live up to their name. When I buy tomatoes at the grocery store, grape tomatoes are always sweeter than cherry tomatoes. But in these homegrown tomatoes, the cherry are far sweeter than the grape. I am going to cut back on the number of mini tomatoes I grow next year, and I think I'll stick solely to the Sweet 100 cherries.

As for dealing with the backlog of cherry tomatoes, I discovered via the internet that you can dry cherry tomatoes to save for later use. The other day I sliced a cookie tray full of cherry tomatoes, laid them cut side up on the tray, and baked them in the oven at 200 degrees for at least 4 hours. They probably could have gone a little longer, but I had to leave the house and didn't want to leave the oven on. So I put them in a baggie and put it in the freezer. That should be fine. I can rehydrate them and add them to soups for seasoning this winter. I'll probably end up doing that again as the cherries continue to ripen. The number of green cherries still on the vine far outnumbers what I've picked so far.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 86 F
Low temp: 68 F
Hot and very humid

Big Salad

This is what I harvested from my garden last night:

* 4 large grape tomatoes
* 8 cherry tomatoes
* 6 long cucumbers
* 2 large zucchini
* 1 green bell pepper
* 3 green onions
* 2 carrots (my first two this year!)

I had to buy the lettuce and spinach at the store, but I combined them with the tomatoes, half a cucumber, the bell pepper, the green onions, and the carrots to make a big salad to go with dinner. This is exactly what I had in mind when I planted all these salad veggies! It's too bad I couldn't provide the lettuce and spinach too. But timing is everything in gardening.

The carrots were a risk. I'd checked on the carrots before and they were no bigger than toothpicks. But I'd been purposely avoiding them hoping they were growing. I decided to try again yesterday and I got two plump carrots that were about 4" each. The variety is St. Valery (heirloom) which I got from Seeds of Change. According to the seed packet and the website, these should be at least 8" long, but I attribute their length to my soil. I imagine it is pretty dense down deep and I didn't have the equipment necessary to dig deep enough. But I'm not complaining. 4" carrots are fine with me. A bigger carrot problem, in my opinion, is I had trouble thinning them and I worry that some of the remaining carrots are so close together that they won't grow very much as a result. I've thinned a couple of times, but it is hard to reach in there. Part of the problem is that the carrots are on the interior of their bed and are a little harder for me to comfortably reach. More lessons for next year.

So I now have 11 cucumbers in my fridge. I also have 9 zucchini. I've decided that today I'm going to shred the zucchini and freeze it for future zucchini breads.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 79 F
Low temp: 59 F
Sunny and clear

Looking ahead to fall

These are the dog days of summer where daytime highs are in the upper 80's to lower 90's. My garden has become a jungle and every day offers something to harvest. But I am beginning to think about transitioning to fall.

Yesterday I picked the second and final batch of beans from my Blue Lake bush beans. I was surprised that the second batch was almost as big as the first was a week ago. I simmered them on the stove for a couple of hours and we had them with dinner last night. They were delicious, but I really wished I'd gone the pole bean route because two batches of green beans just aren't enough for me or for the family. But, the bush beans are spent for the season, so when I harvested the beans, I pulled the plants up and put them in the compost bin. This clears an area for some fall plantings that I plan to make around August 1.The space along the left (just next to the onions) is where the beans had been. Across the path from them is the area where my lettuce was earlier in the summer. I've already planted broccoli and cauliflower seeds in the former lettuce bed. They haven't germinated yet but it has only just been 7 days. Any day now...

Here's something that has me excited: my spaghetti squash. I have 8 spaghetti squash set so far. I love them and can't wait to begin harvesting them. The rest of my family isn't so fond of them. I'll have a lot to eat myself one of these days. Of course, I haven't figured out how or where I'm going to store them. I really wish I had a root cellar. This picture is a closeup (complete with morning rain still on) of the largest of my 8 spaghetti squash:

Finally, it is only Tuesday and I'm already thinking this coming Friday will be Pickle Day part 2. In the time since Saturday I have accumulated 5 huge cucumbers in my fridge and there are at least 3-4 more out there today. By Friday I will have enough for more pickles. I love looking at my two plants that have vined all over the garden fence and take up probably 15 feet of its length. Isn't it pretty?

Today's local weather:
High temp: 84 F
Low temp: 62 F
Partly cloudy, chance of showers this afternoon

Pickle Day

Today was my first ever canning experience. I'm thrilled to say that my two cucumber plants that worried me back in May are now officially out of control. In the past week I have collected 18 foot-long cucumbers. And yes, foot-long is long but lest you think I'm letting them get too big, that is the size this particular variety gets. They are absolutely delicious. I never want a store-bought cucumber again.

Alas, what is one to do with this many cucumbers? Make pickles!

I began by slicing the cucumbers. Slicing was easier than spears since the cucumbers were so long. Besides, I like pickles on my burgers.
The recipe I used called for 7 pounds of cucumbers. It seemed like a huge amount (and did turn out to be too many in the end), but we had the cucumbers for it.So once the cukes were sliced, I packed them into the pint jars we'd been warming in the dishwasher. Here my 6yo son watches the excitement.After I packed the jars with cucumbers, I handed them to my mom who ladled in the pickling liquid (vinegar and spices).Once filled, we put on the lids and rings and put them into a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Now that they're finished, all 10 pints of kosher dill pickles sit cooling on my kitchen counter.Once they cool for 24 hours, I can store them. Then I have to wait 4-6 weeks before they're ready to eat. But they should keep for up to a year.

The thing is, I may have enough cucumbers to do this again next Friday! I may end up giving away pickles as Christmas presents this year!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 86 F
Low temp: 70 F
Partly cloudy

End of June Garden Update

I was surfing around through some garden blogs and it occurred to me that I should post an overall garden update what with it being the last day in June and all. I don't have my camera right now so pictures will have to wait, but here's the lowdown on my edible backyard:

Veggie garden:
* lettuce has turned bitter and tonight I will dig them up for the compost pile
* carrots are getting bigger but still not big enough to eat
* green onions, like carrots, not big enough to eat but they're getting there
* zucchini plants (2) each plant grows 3-4 zucchini at a time; they have been staying small and then turning yellow and deflating so just yesterday morning I started hand pollinating them
* Red Norland and Irish Cobbler potatoes don't look so good; growth seems stunted and plants are turning yellow; don't know if it is time to harvest
* sweet potato plant has leaves that look healthy and are spreading; don't know what is going on underground since I didn't know to separate the slips when I planted
* yellow onions are tall, robust, and starting to flower
* bush beans look healthy, lots of flowers, and I noticed the first tiny bean today
* pumpkins have prominent male blooms every morning and lots of vines with immature blooms just waiting to open (I'm hoping they're female blooms)
* baby watermelon vines are spreading out every day with lots of pale yellow flowers and several pea-sized fruits
* muskmelon vines are spreading out like the watermelon with slightly darker yellow flowers and today my son found our first fruit - it's the size of a large kiwi!
* cucumber plants (2) are spreading out and growing up the side of my fence with lots of flowers and tiny baby cucumberlets; today I saw two different large cucumbers in the later stages of ripening
* bell pepper plants (10) have lots of tiny buds and most plants have one ripening pepper
* spaghetti squash plants (4) are vining out and are smaller than the other squashes since I planted them later from seed, but they are making good progress
* tomatoes are out of control due to fertilizer; plants are more like bushes and every single plant has a least a few green tomatoes on them; I am starting to worry about what to do with all the cherry and grape tomatoes once they ripen because there are LOTS; also lots of romas (I think I'll be canning this year)

Berry garden:
* strawberries continue to ripen berries on a regular basis although they wouldn't win a marathon
* blueberries are taking forever to ripen but finally a few ripen each day
* blackberries just started turning and we haven't been able to pick any yet
* raspberries are ripening one or two handfuls of berries per day; I pick them and freeze them until I get enough to do something with them

Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 55 F
Sunny and breezy

Hail Damage

Yesterday we had a storm come through and it started out with about 10 minutes of pea-to-nickel sized hail. I stood helplessly at my sliding glass door watching my garden get pelted with ice balls. This morning I went out to investigate the damage.
This is a pumpkin leaf that obviously became perforated by the hail. Several of the large leaves were like this.
Here you can see how one of my cucumber plants was damaged. It has the same holes in the leaves as the pumpkin, and it also has a broken vine. I hope that doesn't keep it from growing.

Overall the damage could have been much worse. Most of the plants showed no damage at all and those that were damaged look like they can probably shake it off and survive. I was lucky. This pumpkin still looks pretty good, don't you think?


Today's local weather:
High temp: 75 F
Low temp: 56 F
Sunshine and mixed clouds with slight possibility of thunderstorm

Signs of life

I just took this picture about 15 minutes ago. It is one of two zucchini plants that are getting huge. They each are 2-3 feet in diameter and now this morning this one has a huge flower. Yesterday I also saw these signs of life:
Two weeks ago I thought this cucumber plant was a goner. The base of its stem had gotten white and brittle. I posted a picture of it at its worst at the top of my May 31, 2008 post. However, I noticed that the leafy growth on top was still green and growing so I left it alone. Yesterday I noticed two healthy-looking yellow flowers on it. The other plant has flowers too. Talk about Phoenix rising from the ashes!

This muskmelon plant also has several flowers.


One of my garden tasks yesterday was to tie the tomato plants to the trellis. They are getting big and bushy (thanks to the fertilizer I added a couple of weeks ago) and will topple over soon without support. Anyway, while twining I found this - my first green roma tomato. See it there in the middle just below the horizontal trellis bar? All of my plants have blooms on them and one of the grape tomato plants has three little tomatoes. I'm expecting more every day.

I'm so overjoyed because I've tried gardening in the past, but I just wasn't doing it right. My plants, if they lived at all, were spindly, unhealthy, and bore little fruit. This year the plants are doing what they're supposed to! Everything is getting bigger and bigger each day. The things that I think have made the biggest difference are 1) the fence has kept rabbits out of the garden, 2) the organic fertilizer has really fed all the plants, and the neem oil soap has kept the little bugs off of the plants.

We have recently been deluged with rain. In fact, south of us towns were underwater. We lucked out and only got drenched and then the water ran off. It has been raining a lot more than usual for several weeks now. While this has had horrible consequences for many homeowners in my area, my garden has benefited. I haven't had to water my garden for a couple of weeks now. Mother Nature is taking care of it for me. And those steady, deep rains are far better than anything I can do with my hose.

Today's local weather:
High temp: 90 F
Low temp: 72 F
Partly cloudy, hot and humid.