This is a busy season for us, so i haven't been posting much. My gardens are doing pretty well this year, although with the recent rain blight has showed up on my tomatoes and the cucumber beetles and squash vine borers have been terrible. i've already pulled three tomatoes that spontaneously died, and 3 squash that wilted. i had to burn a couple of my squash plants, and dug vine borers out of 3 others.
Despite a few set backs, i am still harvesting a good amount of food.
This photo was taken around July 9th. It was my morning harvest for the day. The red potatoes came out of my kid's garden, and i picked the green beans, kale, Swiss chard and broccoli for dinner. We used the blackberries for dessert in some greek yogurt, and i attempted sauerkraut for the first time with the red cabbage.
i'm thrilled to see my tee pee trellises actually work this year. Last year the beans i purchased were mislabeled. They were bush beans instead of pole beans, so they looked really silly growing at the base of my elaborate trellis. :) These tee pees have purple pole beans on the twine between each tee pee, cucumbers on the twine between the poles and scarlet runners going up the actual poles. So far they are working well, and look amazing!
i had a couple cucumber come up randomly, and they looked so healthy i decided to leave them where they were and put together this decorative trellis, just for fun. So far it is working really well, and looks neat...but i suspect the cucs may eventually tear it down. Cucumbers do not have to be trellised. i personally prefer to keep them up off the ground, so it is easier to spot cucumber beetles and pickle worms. :)
i planted a ton of squash this year, anticipating problems with the squash vine borers and cucumber beetles. i've been harvesting the dark green zucchini for a couple of weeks now, and am just now begining to harvest grey zucchini. Zucchini is one of those plants that can be planted every three weeks during the summer. Most varieties only require about 55 days until harvest, so i like to plant up until August. This way if you lose a few plants to disease or pests, you have new plants just begining to produce, and more new plants just coming up. i also planted patty pans, yellow squash, winter squash and pumpkins.
Many of my greens are still doing fairly well. The lettuce in my cold crop garden bolted is all bitter, so i've left it to go to seed. i had planted a few other rows in garden #2, and they are still producing well and haven't gotten terribly bitter yet. i also have several varieties of kale growing in this bed.
Another morning harvest picture, this one from July 16th. i dug a few more red potatoes from garden #2. We are still getting planty of swiss chard, and kale. i'm still getting a bit of lettuce, although most of it has gotten too bitter to eat. i'm still harvesting a few florets from the broccoli, and getting a small handful of sugar snap peas. We are just beginning to get some ripe tomatoes, but we've been enjoying may of them fried green. We are getting lots of purple beans, and i've been working to get them frozen. i'm also hoping to get some canned this year as well. We are still getting lots of eggs from our ladies and we are picking lots of blackberries too! i've made two batches of jam so far, and hope to make at least one more.
We've been enjoying our summer so far, and i'm going to be really sad to see it end. It has felt extremely short this year, and i'm already beginning to dread the fall.
i'm hoping my tomatoes pull through so i can get a bunch of them canned. i was going through my cupboard and i only have a couple of last year's homemade pasta sauce left! Ack!
How is your garden growing??
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