June 28, 2009 A Few Days of Neglect

So we've been away for a few days. It was a long drive, but well worth the fun. I had a chance to meet a lot of really nice, gracious, and fun people. I now know more snail jokes, vermin stories, and puns than anyone this side of the Brandywine River! Cheers to everyone in Rochester, Montrose, and Washington County!

In the time we were away it was apparently the hottest and driest days of June so far, and everything in the garden showed it. The ground was cracked and all the flowers and herbs on the deck are either wilted or dead. But the vegetable garden looks like it survived!

Things to note:
1. Lots more zucchinis to pick
2. Even more peas are ready
3. A full size cucumber, plus a second not too far behind
4. The first green bean on the bush has grown
5. The first tomato is turning red
6. LOTS more tomatoes on the vine
7. The watermelons have tripled in size (not in the video)

Here's a video from when we got home:

June 22, 2009 Video Tour of the Garden

Thanks to my new iPhone 3GS I can now now shoot some videos of the garden! So since today was the first full day without rain in some time I wanted to get out and see how everything is doing. So here is the first of what will be many video tours:

June 15, 2009 Extra Ten Square Feet

I pulled up the "carrots", removed what was left of the eggplants, and the last of the radishes that I left to flower. So now I have a fair chunk of space in the garden that's empty - and I have no idea of what to put in there. Any suggestions as to what will produce after being planted this late in the spring?

June 13, 2009 Garden Salad

Lots more rain today. I don't think the thunderstorms will stop for a few more days. I hope then everything will dry out!

I was able to harvest a good amount of peas along with some lettuce today. A delicious garden salad to go with the crab cakes and corn bread. Yum! Can't wait for the rest of the garden to start producing...

June 10, 2009 Big Weather

There have been lots of thunderstorms rolling through the last week. Yesterday was the most intense. Before work we got some strong winds and some real heavy rain along with some tiny hail stones. It was the first time we've lost power since moving and I was happy that it wasn't out for more than three minutes. After that storm cleared out, there was a second round that rolled through around 3pm. This one came complete with a tornado warning. The funnel was more then 10 miles away, but a coworker's wife snapped this picture of it coming down. Pretty cool!

I have been having a problem the last few days in the garden - and it's not the eggplants this time. One of the plum tomato plants has been looking a little funky. The leaves have been curling and it's size is noticeably smaller than the rest of the tomatoes. Take a look at these two pictures:

I did a little Googling and there are several potential causes, but one of them in particular sticks out as the likely cause. It seems that with lots of water , poor drainage, and severe pruning it can stress the plant severely (from the GardenWeb). If this is the case, a few days to dry things out should help. I did take a major limb off this plant that had several leaves covered with aphids, but I'm not sure if that is considered 'severe' pruning (I debated taking it off, but it was the only part of the plant that had aphids and I didn't think it'd stress the plant this much). I also find it odd that none of the other tomato plants have been affected the same way. I looked back into my photos from the last few weeks and it seems that about ten days ago was the first time that I can notice that this plant is noticeably smaller than the rest. We have received a lot of rain in that time. It still has healthy looking flowers and six or seven green tomatoes that look just fine. I'll post an update on what happens in a few days...

Here's how the rest of the plot is looking...

The peas are really starting to take off. I plan on picking the first round in the next few days. I've already snuck a few and they're tasty!

Several of the pepper plants are already showing some good signs...

The tops of the pole beans are reaching almost three feet!

June 1, 2009 Progress Report

It's a beautiful start to June! I spent a few hours this afternoon taking care of the weeds and taking some pictures for an update. Everything is taking off and looking good except, again, for the eggplant. It might be time to admit defeat and try and put something else in it's place. The garlic spray was not effective against flea beetles at all. I think the eggplant was too far gone for anything but the most potent insecticide. However, it wasn't a complete failure: I spied a cucumber beetle on the eggplant one day and give it a squirt. That thing dropped right off and went crawling away. So I may try it again.

I have also given up trying to wait for the "carrots" to mature so I can find out what it was that took over. There were a lot of bugs coming from that little patch and it was time to thin it out. In a separate effort to reduce the number of insects, I took care of the weeds completely overgrowing the berry bushes adjacent to my patch. It was getting to the point where they were choking out every bush. They also were flowering and I didn't want them to go to seed and make matters worse! But the benefit of that is that patch was just covered in leaf hoppers and various other bugs. When it was all said and done I removed a bout a 4 foot pile of weeds.

I actually started removing the weeds last week. You can see how big the problem was in the picture above (the bare patch in the picture was completely covered). I ended up removing enough to put a few more plants in. So in the annex, I put in 5 Watermelons and two more little tomatoes (Thanks Olivia!!). They both have a big hill to climb to catch up the the rest of the tomatoes, but there's plenty of time for them to grow! I hope the watermelons have enough room there.

And finally, here are five pictures of how everything else is coming along: