I have been unable to get to the garden for a few days, luckily we've had some evening rain to keep everything healthy. The garden seems to be moving along pretty fast! The tomatoes are exploding with all sizes of green fruit, the bush beans produce a full bowl of 5-8 inch beans without me noticing, 3 large cucumbers (one of which I picked) popped up, and the zucchini are growing like mad! I've started a running count on what I harvest on the right side of the blog. I thought I better start now before there's too much to count! Here's some pictures of the different peppers coming in:
Mystery Pepper
Luigi Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Bell Pepper (Red I think?)
Ancho Pepper
Now to the zucchini problem:
I have noticed a problem with my zucchini, and it's been on going now since they began to fruit. Some, but not all, of the fruit begins to grow and either - 1. Becomes yellow and mushy at the end farthest from the plant, or 2. Grows fat near the plant and skinny and yellow at the far end (not shown). This could be the same problem, but it does look different on the plant. to me. The following picture shows three zucchini on plants right next to each other. The first looks great, maybe a little big, but great! The others, well not so much. Luckily there enough good ones for me not to worry too much.
I was able to do some research and found out that zucchinis (and almost any fruiting vegetable) can have blossom end rot. I experienced this last year with my tomatoes. I simply added a bunch of crushed up egg shells a few inches under the soil near the plant and it kept the black spots away for every tomato there after. Fully aware of this, a I dutifully kept my eggshells for a while and a few weeks back put a healthy does around the tomato plants, but I didn't even think to do it for the zucchini or peppers. So far the peppers have shown no symptoms of blossom end rot, but I'm going to start having eggs three meals a day to get enough shells for the zucchini!
There is a chance that some of the problems have to do with poor pollination, but I'm not convinced that is what is happening in my garden. There area all sorts of insects, and several bees specifically that I see all the time out there. But if the extra calcium from the egg shells doesn't work then I'll explore that a little further. There's plenty of sites on the Internet that give a good explanation of how to hand pollinate plants.
There is a chance that some of the problems have to do with poor pollination, but I'm not convinced that is what is happening in my garden. There area all sorts of insects, and several bees specifically that I see all the time out there. But if the extra calcium from the egg shells doesn't work then I'll explore that a little further. There's plenty of sites on the Internet that give a good explanation of how to hand pollinate plants.
Here's a great link to Common Zucchini Problems from MichellesGarden.com where the above image was taken (stolen): http://www.michellesgarden.com/Main/Pests/squash.shtml
Just to give an update on the one tomato plant that had the leaf curl:
The plant seems to be doing a bit better. The fruit are starting to turn red and the new growth is looking healthy - it even has more flowers growing. It's very stunted compared to the overflowing mass of the other tomato plants, but it'll still produce I think. Thanks for the advice from those that gave it!
And finally, here are six pictures of the garden to compare a few weeks ago from the same spots. It's looking FULL!
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