Late Summer Garden

Late summer garden photo

With my planting window for the fall garden rapidly closing and the summer harvest starting to taper off, I thought I'd do a status update for the community garden. 

Squash vine borer hole at the base of my mystery squash

The summer squashes are still producing, despite evidence of both borers and squash bugs in the garden.  They seem to prefer attacking my mystery squash, which seems to be able to take the abuse.  It is also still producing, though I've cut it back a lot in the hopes of squeezing another watermelon out of the season.  The watermelon vines got a little overrun by mystery squash and basil, so they are limping along.  The basil has outperformed my wildest expectations; there is still some left in the garden after two large harvests!

My peppers are still doing well, but are under attack by some sort of stink/soldier beetle.  I've really never had problems with pests on my peppers before, but I suppose there's a first time for everything - especially bugs.

I've got five rounds of carrots in the garden right now.  Some that I planted in the spring, some from my June planting, and three rounds that I planted for the fall. The spring ones can be picked whenever I like, and the June carrots are filling out.  I planted an entire bed for the fall garden, hoping to grow some to leave in the ground for winter like last year.  It's been challenging keeping them watered, even with the weather's cooperation.

The cucumbers are just about finished, but I've been putting off pulling them out because I don't have anything else to plant in their bed and I'd rather not leave the soil bare.  The onion bed is mostly bare, and the soil there is as hard as a rock, even with all the rain we've been having.  The eggplants are just limping along as well, still under attach by the flea beetles.  It looks like I'll get at least two more rosa biancas, though.

Broccoli plant - see the half-eaten leaves?

I transplanted several broccoli back in July, and they have been under pretty serious attack by cabbage moths.  Four or five have survived, but comparing their size and vigor to the ones we had in the spring, I think any heads they produce will be disappointing.  I've transplanted a bunch more and covered them, so we'll see.  According to the almighty HG16 it is too late to plant broccoli, but I think I'd rather plant them and have them not produce anything until spring than leave the soil bare.

Tall tomato plants

I've pulled out four of the tomato plants, hoping the others would have a better chance at ripening their remaining fruit.  We've reached the part of the season when I pick a large bowl of tomatoes every time we go to the garden, and they sit on our table waiting to be turned into sauce.  There was something very odd about the way the tomatoes grew this year - when I look at them from the main path, both beds are shortest on the left, then get progressively taller and bushier as I look to the right.  Why?  I don't know.  Maybe the left gets marginally more light?  Less wind?

A wide row of beans

The green beans R and I planted in July are putting out their first beans!  Yay!  I do like planting these later much better than watching them rust and struggle through the heat and dryness and not produce anything.  It's also nice to have something just coming into crop at this time of year.

The snap peas are up - the first generation are about three inches tall, while the second are about 1 inch.  I've transplanted a whole lot of lettuces into the former potato bed, some simpson and some valerie, and one little romaine has reached survivable size, with more little ones to go in the bed this week.

I'm glad the fall planting is almost finished.  It feels like the fall weather is coming early this year, and I'm anxious to start cleaning and packing things away.  I've also decided to convert more grass to garden at the house, so it will be nice to have some more time to work on that.  (Funny how I'm even looking forward to picking less!)  But more on that project another time.

Where Did Shaela Go?

It has been an eventful couple of weeks.  After overlapping visits by my mother-in-law, mother, and grandmother-in-law, N and I took the boys down to Virginia to a huge cabin N's mother rented at Fairy Stones State Park.  (Which, by the way, was everything a state park ought to be.  I liked it a lot.)  Then R went south with N's parents while N and I took A home.  I quickly washed laundry, repacked, made a quick trip out to the garden, then A and I flew to Omaha and drove down to my sister's farm in Missouri.  (Sadly, they are experiencing a nasty drought right now.  It was more than 100 degrees and very, very dry for most of my visit.)  Meanwhile N worked for a few days, then flew to Louisiana, where he met his parents and R to watch his brother's graduation.  (Go K!)  A and I flew home Sunday, while N and R drove home, arriving about 3pm Monday.

All in all, it was a crazy couple of weeks and we are happy to be home, though we did have buckets of fun and my sister's new baby twins are just amazingly precious.

Did I mention that our phone line was struck by lightning two days before we left?  They fixed the line while we were away, but it also fried our phone line, phone jack, router, and a computer.  There is even a nickel-sized black spot on the floor of the office where a phone cord split open and electric current jumped down to our floor.  (There is a metal conduit running under that room...)  Since we returned, N rigged up some very sketchy phone junctions in the basement, I replaced the phone jack, and I finally got Verizon to send me a new router.  N's working on the franken-puter.  Luckily it was just a cobbled-together desktop he built from bits of old computers, so he's mostly just trying to salvage the hard drive.  (Which is good, because he says that's about all that's left.)  We have been putting off installing new phone lines down in the crawlspace for more than a year, and now I suppose that will have to get done soon.  As it stands right now we can either have internet access, or phone access, but not both.  (Sorry, if you are trying to call me right now.)

So, lots has gone on in the garden that has not been reported here.  I've been there every day since I got back, cleaning up, watering, and hurrying to finish the fall planting.  R has been a huge help, and I think he is starting to genuinely enjoy the garden.  (Partly because he suddenly conceived of the notion that the garden paths are kind of like a maze!)  More news to come.

Garden Update

The garden is coming along nicely in spite of my recent neglect. Check out my first ever sunflower blossom! (And to give you some idea of how much trouble these have given me, recall that when I planted this one I used the last two seeds in the package! They are just too tasty to the slugs.) I have lots of things to harvest tonight, so stay tuned for a picture of my first big harvest from the new garden.