What's Up, Doc?

I harvested all my carrots this week. There were not a lot, about twenty or so. They were a mix of traditional orange and Cosmic purple. They had grown very well despite not having been thinned properly. I would guess from the hundreds of tiny carrot seeds I planted, only a small portion of them came up. Never the less, they suffered no blight or parasites or pests. I don’t know what the rabbits are eating in the garden, if anything. They are not eating carrots. But I am.

The carrots grew quickly through the 10-12 inches of soil in the raised bed and began to burrow into the earth below. When I tried to pull them out, the first few snapped off in the hard clay. So I got a spade and carefully dug them out and washed them off. My fridge is becoming quite a larder now for the vegetables I’m collecting. From the chef’s garden at the farm I collected three ears of still-a-bit-young corn which was free of bugs or mold and sweet and delicious, more okra than I can fill a gumbo with, bunches of tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers, ground cherries, some basil, and a final few squash.

What the squash bugs didn’t get the vine borers have. My towering and mighty squash plants have been decimated, tell-tale sawdust blisters on the stems. The plant have withered and mostly died. I cut into a few stems and found fat wiggling larve throughout. Such a shame. No one I have yet spoken with has had any idea how to naturally defeat these pests. Seven Dust is everyone’s answer but I want to avoid that. Most farmers say they just plant large amounts of squash with the idea that the bugs can’t kill all the plants. My little garden is not so lucky. Upon coming home and inspecting my own squash plants I saw they were victims of the borers as well. I cut open several vines and killed the larve, but I didn’t have much hope. Today I noticed that a couple of the plants seemed to have sprung back with new growth, but no flowers. If I can find some sturdy-looking pepper plants I may just pull the squash out and replant both gardens.

Watermelons are not plentiful, but I have two here and two at the farm. Naturally the ones at the farm are growing faster. One of mine here appears to have blossom rot, which I have not seen in my melons before. Terri’s sweet potato vines have almost taken over one bed of the garden.

It is not too soon to turn my thoughts toward fall and winter crops, but it is so blasted hot, with little rain and high humidity that I don’t know exactly how to proceed. I haven’t set up a nursery in the garage like I planned, but that would be the best way to grow plants until they are strong enough to go into the garden. I will look into crops like cabbage, kale, beets, and pumpkins.