Pulling Plants

Yesterday I pulled the rest of the corn, zucchini, squash, and spaghetti squash plants out. They were finished producing. I also pulled 5 tomato plants that had fully died. I then took the push mower and mowed all of the weeds down as short as I could. I'm trying to figure out if I'd like to try a plot of raised beds in this area for the Fall season. I think I could get some more lettuce, radish, and onions in (onions only if I can find some more sets at the store). I may even be able to plant a few more green beans. I'm still planning this.

We still have a few green beans, a few cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe & peppers.

Jalapenos!

Although we are still getting veggies out of the garden, it just really didn't seem to be a great growing season overall. Tonight I picked some Fourth of July Tomatoes and my first Jalapenos! The Fourth of July Tomatoes seem to be the only tomatoes doing very well this year. This is fine because they're close to the size of a baseball so they're pretty good for sandwiches or snacks.

The weeds have fully taken over the garden now and I'm just letting them go. I've worked very hard to keep them out and it hasn't seemed to matter, so at the end of this season, we'll take down the fence, mow and let it go over the winter. It seems for the past few years the tomatoes have caught a touch of blight, the corn has been tasseling very quickly and not producing and we can't grow peppers or any of the more delicate veggies. Time to start over.

We did get a cantaloupe this evening and cut it. It didn't really have any flavor, but it sure looked good!

Tonight's harvest: 2 cucumbers, tomatoes, and jalapenos!

Mid-July Update

The garden has produced fairly well this year. We still have our normal problems with the corn and I'm beginning to tear it out today. The temp today will be near 90 and the humidity is high, so it's going to be off-and-on work today in the garden. Finally we've overcome our bitter cucumbers this year, but the crabgrass is relentless!!! There isn't any possible way to keep up with it out there. I'm trying to keep it away from the plants themselves and just let it fill in the gaps to walk on. Incredible!

Here are some highlights of where we're at:

• Strawberries - Japanese Beetles took over. Luckily they waited until the fruit was harvested. They seem to be gone now, but they left their ugly trail of brown leaves behind.
• Yellow Squash - Harvested MANY of these. They are ending their growing season since we put them in the ground so early. A few runners are trying to re-root and have blooms. We may see a few more.
• Spaghetti Squash - Vines have died. We didn't get as many this year as next. This may be something to make sure to buy new seed packets for yearly.
• Zucchini - Plants have wilted. Didn't get too many this year.
• Corn - Looks terrible. Today I'm pulling the stalks and picking the tiny ears that are salvageable. It looks as though the raccoons had quite a feast over the past few days.
• Tomatoes - FINALLY RIPENING! There's nothing like a garden-fresh tomato!
• Green Beans - Outstanding as usual. Still picking twice a week and getting a plastic grocery sack full each time.
• Hot Peppers - Starting to form. So far I see Jalapenos and Chili's from the hot pepper mix.
• Watermelon - 1 large one and another few medium ones. I don't know how to tell when they're ripe! I keep "thumping" the big one, but that tells me nothing!
• Cantaloupe - 4 or 5 pretty good sized ones starting to develop their outer rind. This variety we planted is larger than what we've had in the past.
• Broccoli - Never formed, but I left the plants to hopefully keep pests on those and not my other veggies.
• Cucumbers - Finally... a good crop! I've been waiting for about 4 years to eat a non-bitter cucumber from my garden.

And that's my update. Now, I'm off to fight some more crabgrass!

Lettuce Finished, Tomatoes Turning

Over the past few weeks, we've been busy picking about 4 yellow squash for every zucchini we pick. Each evening could give us 3 or 4 squash and 3 or 4 cucumbers. We've had about 2-3 gallons of green beans each week as well. The Spaghetti Squash are doing fairly well, and the vines are beginning to die off. They'll be finished soon.

Our Tomatoes are just now beginning to turn a bright orange so in a few more days we should have ripe tomatoes!