Is That A Cucumber In Your Garden, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Still getting four or five tomatoes a day out of the garden. The carrots are ready to harvest, I’ve picked a few okra pods and have a few more developing. The sunflowers are probably never going to develop into any seed producing heads, and if they do I think the stems will be too weak to support them. But this morning they were open and full of tiny little bees. The marigolds, sunflowers and nasturnum have all been good pollenator draws, and I’ve seen lots of bees and butterflies and bugs digging around the blossoms, and also going to the vegetable blossoms.

The squash bugs seem to be gone, but the vine borers are here in their place. They have just about killed the zucchini plant without me getting a single zuch off of it. It still has blooms, so I’m going to let it continue to struggle, but there isn’t much I can do with it. I don’t see evidence that they have hit the yellow squash yet, and I have a second crop of squash growing on them. Keeping an eye on them.

The collards have never prospered and I think it is just too hot. Collards tend to grow better in cooler weather, the explosive collard growth at the farm not withstanding. The basil has finally strengthened and flourished. I have been religiously pinching the buds off and the bushes are getting quite full. Not enough for a pint of pesto yet, but I expect to be able to start trimming them and keeping them active and producing well into the fall. I have two watermelons on the vines, each about the size of an orange. Now is the time to make sure they get plenty of water, and do it consistantly to allow for good, even growth without splitting or getting mushy inside. For this, the rain barrel is ideal.

I put up teepee shaped trelisses for the cucumber vines and tried to curtail their wandering through the garden. They don’t seem to like the bamboo and won’t curl their tendrils around it, opting to weave around each other or other plants. It takes some daily rearranging to try and train them to go up the treliss. I’ve gotten a couple of large cucs of the vines so far, and the promising little buds of many more, but like with everything in my garden it seems to be slow growing. My garden next year is going to pay more attention to the placement and set up of trelisses. Trelisses block sunlight to other plants, so I keep them in the back. But I’ve learned that companion plants that don’t like it too hot or sunny can use the shade from a treliss to prosper.

I won’t be getting enough out of the garden to fill a pantry this year, but I’m learning quite a bit and think things will be much improved for next season.