The Garden

Today's Harvest

A cucumber arch

The garden is going well.  We started to have some good tomato harvests.  Kathleen loves the little sun gold tomatoes.  I think she stops in the garden each morning on the way to the gymn to pick a couple.  The little yellow pear shaped tomatoes are soft and fleshy. We don't like them very much.  I'll probably use the canner Kathleen gave me at Christmas and make them into tomato sauce.  The romas taste like I imagine Italy: Rich and warm and friendly.  We have other varieties growing but I don't know what they are since that kid removed all the signs.

We have been eating yellow squash for a few days but last night a squirrel got into the plant and ate what we were going to pick today.  You'll remember that I planted several seeds but only one came up.  So a couple of days ago Kathleen and I went to a nursery to buy some green house-started summer squash plants.  They wee sold out so we bought zucchini.  We didn't have any room left in the planter boxes so we planted them in big pots.   I think I am starting to regret not planting any butternut or acorn squash this year. 

The cucumber vine survived the thrips.  Sadly, the cucumbers on the vine were shriveled and had to be composted.  But there are lots and lots of new flowers on the vine so there will be plenty of cucumbers later.  Oh!  Speaking of cucumbers:  We have been watching a British gardner named Monty Don on Netflix, and have followed his advice to "cram them in there".  So, between some of our tomato plants we planted more cucumber vines.  They came up last Saturday, and yesterday we used rebar and garden hose to make arches for them to climb. Altogether, we have 11 cucumber vines growing amongst the tomatoes in the three raised beds.  I foresee a lot of pickles in our future.  Oh, that reminds me:  The dill is taller than I am now.

The marigold seeds I planted never came up.  I'm a little bit disappointed by that.  The camomile seeds I planted around the onions sprouted but most of the seedlings died in the heat of the last three days.  Speaking of onions; Kathleen talked me into pulling one up a few days ago to see if they were ready to harvest.  It was still small, about the size of a large head of garlic.  But I used it with butter and herbs de provence to cook some squash and it was marvelous.  I do not think I have ever tasted a better onion.

We had an infestation of spider mites so last week we released 3,000 ladybugs in the garden.  They ate all the spider mites in two days and flew away to find more food.  Only one tomato plant seems to have been seriously damaged.  We caught the pests just in the nick of time.  Ladybugs might be my favorite bugs.

We haven't seen many pollinators in the garden.  A few carpenter bees.  A few wasps.  I think I've only seen 2 butterflies.  Only one honey bee.  no mason bees.  I think I might have seen one bumble bee.  It is worrisome.  Next February, I think, I'll buy a bunch of bumble bee queens and set them loose in the neighborhood.  Maybe, I can get a good population going.

The pumpkin patch is going crazy!  Its only June and we are trying to figure out what to do with the vines.  There are two vollyball-sized pumpkins and several softball sized pumpkins, and many many female flowers which, I hope, will grow into pumpkins.  It is growing in the bit of ground my youngest son and I broke up a few months ago.

The Pumpkin Patch

 The ground is mostly dense clay.  To that we added some of our compost and an ammonia & phosphate fertilizer.  I know, some people will freak out that it isn't organic, but ammonia is a naturally occurring molecule and phosphate is dug out of the ground, so I am not worried.  We also have some red onions and volunteer beets and tomatoes, growing in the patch but I think the pumpkin vines are going to take their share of the sunlight pretty soon.  None of the sunflowers I planted along the wooden fence at the back of the patch came up.

I also planted a pepper seed in one of the raised beds.  It sprouted and is now about 8 inches tall.  But I can't remember if it is bell pepper or jalapeño pepper.  Either way, I'll be happy at harvest time.