Thursday, July 1, 2010

The State of the Garden Post

Last weekend I took shots of how the garden was progressing in late June. Here's the main corner yard with the bush cucumbers in front, followed by bush cantaloupe in the first long box. It's not really doing much. There were a few female flowers that I know were pollinated, but they're not putting on any weight. The second long box has all of the zucchini. I'm slowly weeding out plants as they die back. Skip the path and you've got two 3x3 boxes with squash, both of which will likely be torn out today as they're both yellow from the squash bugs and SVBs. The back bed with the trellis has bush beans which will be picked today and the left side of the trellis has Fortex pole beans which are flowering and the right has lima beans which haven't started flowering yet, but are looking very nice, even in this heat.
This is the new garden we put in this year. The left bed has jalapenos and eggplants which have stopped flowering and cucumber vines which aren't putting out any straight cucumbers, only oddly shaped ones. I know they're getting pollinated as the trellis is always so swarmed with bees that you can't get near it. Don't worry, I've got a back up plan. The right bed has KW pole beans and used to have the Dragon Tongue beans which played out.
This is the other corner yard with peppers, yellow pear tomatoes and little squash in the front two boxes. I'm a bit surprised at the okra which hasn't done anything yet, nor has it really put on any height. Perhaps next month. The peppers each have 1-2 bells on them, so that's exciting.
This is the man's burn pit. In it is the zucchini I pulled after it had SVB damage and hadn't flowered in a week. Now that it's in the burn pit, it's flowered every day. Go figure. ;)
Here's the side yard with all of the tomatoes. Dan, these are the CP seeds you sent me on the very right and left. They're doing great! If you look at the second plant you can see red!
Finally, the other bed on the side yard has more tomatoes and the back up cucumbers. These cucumbers seem to be doing better and I'm thinking if they do, that I'll grow the cucumbers over here next year. They make a nice screen to cover this retaining wall.
So, there you have it! Things are nice and green, but again, the heat has mostly stopped everything from flowering or putting weight on the produce, so we'll just have to let the heat play out in July and August, hope for a reprieve and either plant a second round of summer crops in mid July or just hold out until fall....I'm debating if I really need more zucchini..... HA!

8 comments:

  1. Gasp.... you took over the MAN'S fire pit???

    Ribbit, your garden looks awesome! Can't wait till my cuke and pole bean trellises are loaded with vines and fruit!!!

    Your new beds look great!

    More zucchini? I didn't plant any this year. So many people do here in my little town... and then they have more than they can handle!

    I DO LOVE zucchini bread though....

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  2. The ash in the burn pit must be doing something wonderful.

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  3. Taking over the man's firepit is completely uncalled for, in my opinion...ha! Ya know...I have not seen a single squashbug yet...weird.

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  4. Hey now, I was INSTRUCTED by the man to throw the garden waste in the burn pit. I'm just following directions. ;)

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  5. I love the stuff growing in the firepit LOL! I have potatoes growing out the bottom of my compost pile. My cucumbers are funny looking too. Everything looks great!

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  6. If I had that neat burn pit, I'd fill it with cow poop and plant a big hill of butternut squash . Who needs a fire pit in the hot summer weather, anyway?

    Your garden is doing great! I have one red cherry tomato, but my CPs are still a long way off.

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  7. Oh I love how your squash got a second life in the burn pit. The rest of your garden looks so neat and abundant! My raised garden beds are looking rather bare right now after I pulled out all the plants that got chewed up by the bunnies and/or bolted in the heat. :(

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  8. I am STILL trying to catch up on posts that I missed while out of town. I have 2 types of okra growing in my garden. They both came from the same package though. Go figure! The seeds this year came from the same package that I used last year. Here is what I discovered. The first kind is the one that I have always planted in the past. It grows a tall skinny plant and starts to produce early. As for the other kind, I only planted one of those seeds last year and I almost pulled the plant several times. It was bushy and took forever to start producing. It had branches growing out between every leaf and the main stem. (Think suckers for tomatoes.) I had never seen this before in all the years I had planted okra. BUT when it started producing WOW!! It more than made up for lost time. So don't give up on your okra. This year I have several of both kinds of okra and know no to panic.

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