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| Monarda. |
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| Morning glory almost all the way to the top. |
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| Morning glory flower. |
Well, Early Girl is gone. I took her down last week since there's no way she'll get over the blight. Mel's mix definitely prove true in that it doesn't compact. And the plot does look a lot better after. I also pruned both Mr Stripey's of their diseased leaves and hope that they'll be okay. It's been raining many evenings for the past week but I think tonight will be a good time to spray more baking soda.
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| Early Girl was on the right. RIP. Nah, good riddance blight! |
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| Also, cleared some of the edamame that was also blighted. |
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| One of my prettier Mr. Stripey fruit. |
One of my biggest disappointments in my vegetable garden was that my long anticipated mutant tomato turned out to be rotten. The flower garden has been floundering for a while in this summer heat that I've just decided to pretty much give it up to the basic law of nature: survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, a lot of my flowering plants are not the fittest. Gloomy post for a gloomy day even though I do like the rain.
My other big concern is that the tomato plants, potato plants, green beans and cucumbers are succumbing to blight or some other fungal disease. I'm spraying with baking soda and neem oil but I think I really need to just go in there and cut off any and everything that looks sick. I've been holding off to let the tomatoes ripen but I might just have to man up to that loss. Eh, I'll give it a few more days.
tomatoes can still ripen on the vine even while the plant is dying. My Early Girl is almost dead - most of her leaves have shriveled and turned brown - but her fruits are still turning red. Just today I harvested 7 pretty globes. I think she might have leaf spot or some other fungal disease so I dosed her and the other tomato plants with milk and then I'm going to do a baking soda treatment tomorrow.
Other produce harvested from the garden today:
3 cucumbers
3 edamame
8 eggplants
5 green beans
For some reason the green beans are not producing very well. The vines are lush except for the leaves at the top that were eaten by Japanese beetles a few weeks back, and there are flowers but not a lot of beans. And the beans that are there are too bulge-y (because I spot them too late) for eating so I'm letting them go to seed on the plant.
As for the eggplants, Ryan cut up 5 of them and made tempura. Super yummy!
Also, right after I got stuff done in the garden, it started to rain again. Now that Ryan is done building his desktop, we hung out in the middle room and watched the rain. It was quite nice; even the doggies decided to join us. And then, guess what? A rainbow appeared.
Other produce harvested from the garden today:
3 cucumbers
3 edamame
8 eggplants
5 green beans
For some reason the green beans are not producing very well. The vines are lush except for the leaves at the top that were eaten by Japanese beetles a few weeks back, and there are flowers but not a lot of beans. And the beans that are there are too bulge-y (because I spot them too late) for eating so I'm letting them go to seed on the plant.
As for the eggplants, Ryan cut up 5 of them and made tempura. Super yummy!
Also, right after I got stuff done in the garden, it started to rain again. Now that Ryan is done building his desktop, we hung out in the middle room and watched the rain. It was quite nice; even the doggies decided to join us. And then, guess what? A rainbow appeared.
Two things: An herb spiral and a small pond.
The herb spiral basically takes advantage of the microclimates created by having a spiraling wall containing soil. The top/middle of the spiral is most suited to herbs that like dry and hot conditions like thyme and rosemary and as you work your way down and out the spiral, you can plant more-water-loving ones like basil. Herb spiral links:
As for the small pond, it will go in at the end of the spiral which will be the final destination of the spiraling water. It was difficult to find instructions on how to add a pond at the bottom and the best site that I came across was this one with rather bad English but extremely detailed and thorough: http://havasahasi.com/building-instructions-for-a-herb-spiral/
Instead of using a pool liner, I am going to use a big bucket/tub. My research on this led me to websites on half-whiskey barrel ponds and they are super cool! My favorite link: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/8/5/122020/0511
Even though I won't be using a half-barrel, the principles should be the same. I have already posted a wanted e-mail on freecycle asking for bricks or rocks for the walls of the spiral and a bucket/tub for the pond. If someone comes through that would be great, otherwise, I will have to wait till next month as I will still need to purchase topsoil for the spiral.
I am also having an internal debate about doing some bokashi "composting" (it's in quotes because it's actually an anaerobic process a.k.a. fermentation). This method involves collecting all food waste including meat and dairy in an air-tight bucket and layering with bokashi (mixture of bran, molasses and special microorganisms called EM-1), letting it ferment for 2 weeks and burying the product, which will become compost in about a month. The two major selling points for me is that all food waste can be used and there is no loss of mass (still trying to figure out this part). But doing this will involve buying a bucket with an airtight lid (one with a spigot is best, to drain the liquid) and the bokashi (since making your own is quite an involved process). One day I will definitely do it, I just don't know when. This goes for the herb spiral and the pond too. Sigh.
I hate to leave on a depressing note, so let me give you a vegetable count (this is cumulative from when I first started keeping count):
Cucumbers: 8
Tomatoes: 14
Eggplants: 3
everything else is unchanged.
One of the garden blogs that I visited recently weigh all their garden produce. Inspired, I ordered a scale from amazon last week which will get here at the end of the month. In the mean time, I will do my best to give you an idea of the garden yield thus far.
* If it's not obvious, the carrot variety is called Little Finger. My largest carrot was about 6 inches long even with the kink in it.
- Tomatoes: 3 round too-small-to-juggle globes
- Carrots: 2 fat little finger* that got soft (which Bonnie still happily ate) and 3 fat little fingers that can only belong to an orange giant
- Cucumbers: 5 more-prickly-than-you-would-think green oblongs, small to medium length
- Edamame: 1 serving's worth from an expensive Japanese restaurant
- Green beans: 2.37 dinner-worthy batches for two (me and Ryan), enough for dinner and next day's lunch
- Lettuce: Only enough to satisfy Miss Bonita's appetite if she ate only 3 leaves every other day for 3 weeks (Calculated after estimating overall yield and dividing by the appropriate numbers etc.)
* If it's not obvious, the carrot variety is called Little Finger. My largest carrot was about 6 inches long even with the kink in it.
1. Cucumber flowers are very pollen-y.
2. Green beans are masters at camouflage. Try to pick out the green beans in the picture below.
3. Do not underestimate small things. They might grow bigger eventually. That's my hope, at least, for my pepper plant.
4. Edamame's are very secretive. Even though Agent Tomato seems to be winning, Edamame has already secretly produced fruits ready for harvest.
5. Carrots are still very satisfying to pull up.
6. It is always a good idea to wear gloves as things that look fuzzy are actually quite prickly. And it is also always a good idea to put on bug spray even if you think you're only going to be outside for a few minutes. Truth is, you'll notice more and more things that need to be done and will only go back inside when your husband calls you in for dinner.
7. Sweet peas really don't like the heat. Good-bye for now, dear friends. Next year, we will try again and help you to flower.
8. We're constantly surrounded by life and death. In the garden, leaves die to be replaced by new leaves and flowers fall to make way for fruit and seeds. But then there are deaths that should not have happened; all it needed was just a little more water, just a little more care, just a little more thought. And then there are those that are somewhere in the middle. Some deaths hurt more than others.
2. Green beans are masters at camouflage. Try to pick out the green beans in the picture below.
3. Do not underestimate small things. They might grow bigger eventually. That's my hope, at least, for my pepper plant.
4. Edamame's are very secretive. Even though Agent Tomato seems to be winning, Edamame has already secretly produced fruits ready for harvest.
5. Carrots are still very satisfying to pull up.
6. It is always a good idea to wear gloves as things that look fuzzy are actually quite prickly. And it is also always a good idea to put on bug spray even if you think you're only going to be outside for a few minutes. Truth is, you'll notice more and more things that need to be done and will only go back inside when your husband calls you in for dinner.
7. Sweet peas really don't like the heat. Good-bye for now, dear friends. Next year, we will try again and help you to flower.
8. We're constantly surrounded by life and death. In the garden, leaves die to be replaced by new leaves and flowers fall to make way for fruit and seeds. But then there are deaths that should not have happened; all it needed was just a little more water, just a little more care, just a little more thought. And then there are those that are somewhere in the middle. Some deaths hurt more than others.
Kinda cool but kinda gross. The mold is not harmful but I removed as much as I could anyway.
And here's some pretty flowers to off-set the mold:
Hostas, annual lobelia, morning glory and moon flower.
Yup, the vegetable garden has grown:
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| Hostas are blooming and even though you can't really see it, the morning glory and moon flower are growing up the fishing lines. I've had to untangle the vines a couple of times but they are on their way up up up. |
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| A view of the vegetable garden from the left side of the house. I don't think I've captured it from this angle before. |
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| Morning glory growing up one of the branches I stole *ahem* repurposed from the trail around the neighborhood. The white stuff is de (diatomaceous earth) for the slugs. I really can't stand slugs. Ugh! |
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| Besides the morning glory in front, there are 3 other plants that are doing okay, though not as well. They got de too, for the battle against the slugs. |
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| Right most garden bed. Borage at the front, starting to flower. |
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| Still right most bed, crazy beans and cucumbers. Sweet peas not doing too hot though. |
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| Leeks! I need to add more soil to blanch the shaft... okay, that sounded wrong. But it's necessary to get the white part longer than the green part. Okay, that still sounded wrong. I give up. |
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| Cucumber flower. |
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| Bean flower. |
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| Look at those beans. Kinda creepy but also sad at how the tendrils are reaching out, trying to catch onto something that's not there. |
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| Middle garden bed. All you can see is Mr Stripey, the tomato plant but there's the bell pepper on the left of the Mr Stripey and carrots under the tomato leaves. |
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| Borage flowers. They're purple but I took this on a bright Saturday afternoon that it looks almost white. |
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| Beauty through adversity. Nah, not really. Just alyssum poking through a dying borage leaf, just a little morbid. |
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| There's the bell pepper plant. Remember how I was worried the pepper plants being stunted. |
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| Tomatoes. I counted 21! These are actually on Early Girl in the left garden bed. |
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| Remember the cabbage worms (which is actually a caterpillar) that seemed to be winning against my kale? Look! |
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| My biggest patch of alyssum, that's starting to overflow over the edges of the bed. |
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| Onions. Can you see the bulbs? |
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| While the bell pepper plant is growing, the jalapeno isn't doing so great. |
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| Left most garden bed. Tomato plants winning again. I've had to trim them back a bunch. Even the tomato plant that I mutilated two-thirds of in May is turning into a monster plant. |
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| Sweet potatoes. And potato behind them. |
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| Raspberry plants still producing. |
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| Lavender, just in. |
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| Tarragon. |
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| Strawberries. (See next post for pictures of strawberries.) |
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| Sunflowers. There's a zombie on our lawn, there's a zombie on our lawn, we don't want zombies... um, sorry, got carried away. |
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| Thyme. 'Nuff said. |
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| Ryan's, I mean, my crocs with the pineapple sage. |
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| Daylilies. See the stalks poking through? Flowers on the way! |
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| Last but not least, iris. So pretty. *melt* |
So, what's the prevalence of human-eating tomato plants?
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