July 27, 2009 Goodbye to the Zucchini

The powdery mildew has gotten the best of the zucchini. I decided to pull one completely and prune back the other three to the newest leaves that are not (currently) infected. The plant has powdery mildew on the stalk as well so I don't think this will work, but I couldn't bring myself to destroying the plants without trying. We'll see how long they last after loosing 90% of their leaves in a day. I'm worried that their proximity to the cucumbers may be a problem, but so far they are showing no signs of being infected.

I took a large garbage bad and covered as many leaves as I could and then started snipping the leaves off at the base. I tried not to shake the leaves too much in an attempt to keep the spores from spreading. I have cucumbers and melons fairly close by. I'll try and post a couple of pictures in the next couple of days to see how they do with so many leaves gone. Even though I ended up harvesting over thirty of them and couldn't eat them fast enough (my coworkers and friends helped out a bit) I'm going to miss pulling one or two every couple of days. I have my the zucchini bread recipe memorized now!

The tomatoes have been ripening up lately too. It's been a nice treat to snack on the grapes. I've also made two batches of sauce out of the larger ones. It's kinda cool when the sauce has three or four different varieties in them, especially the yellow Lemon Boys which turn the sauce almost orange. The place smells good from all the cooking on Sundays!

Here's a summary of the video:

• The pumpkins and watermelon are both getting big. I counted 6 watermelon and 7 pumpkins on their way!
• Three decent sized cantaloupes are on the vine. I hope I can time the melons right to get a couple of days worth of fruit salad.
  
• The beans are coming in faster than I can eat them.
• Cucumbers are plentiful now.
  
• A couple of the bell peppers are turning red and the hot peppers are all maturing nicely!
• The sunflower heads are growing, but not as large as I had hoped...one of them is about to open.