Garden Happenings...

Henry David Thoreau said...

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."

Right before a storm...

Pumpkins growing outside the fence.

I waited a little too long on picking this first broccoli flower. 

Have to cut the rest a little earlier in the future or it'll have a bitter taste.

Acorn squash is almost ready.

More cucumbers.

Zucchini Bread & Three Jars of Pickles

Picked a lot of cucumbers off of the trellis this afternoon. 

Pickled up three jars of cucumber spears. 

Tossed in dill, mustard seed, garlic cloves, vinegar, pickling salt, etc.

Used the zucchini to make this highly-rated zucchini bread recipe. 

We'll see how it tastes in an hour or so.

Mid-July...

A little bit of this every day comes in.

My pumpkins seem to only want to grow on my fence. 

Five or six are growing now.

Eggplants.

Corn.

Cucumber Trellis.

Sweet banana peppers.

Zucchini.

Roma tomatoes.

Zoo Keen E & Koo Come Burs...

Cut some cucumbers and a zucchini today. Pickled the cucumber spears, and sliced some up for salads, etc. Tried deep frying the zucchini, but it didn't work out as well as expected.

Eggplants are finally starting to come in.

Ears of corn are arriving.

Roma tomatoes are getting there.

Banana peppers are looking good.

And we have more green beans...

Corn silks are starting to sprout out.

Cucumbers almost ready for cutting.

Sweet banana peppers and roma tomatoes are coming along fine.

Green beans grow quicker then we can eat them.

Old Style Green Beans...

Grabbed some more green beans, chives, and onions from the garden this morning and made a green bean and bacon recipe with mushrooms in cream of mushroom.

Zucchini will be ready to cook up on Monday.

A toast to this roast...

Kelly surprised me with a delicious grandma-inspired roast today, packed with green beans, chives, and scallions from the garden.

I pruned back the pumpkin vines and stuck the ends into the ground to promote side shoots and fruit growth. 

This morning before work, I hand-pollinated the pumpkin, zucchini, and squash plants. 

It has rained so much this summer that I've only had to water the garden artificially a few times.

Last Week of June...

Click to enlarge pictures.

We had a tremendously rainy week, but these guys all seemed to enjoy it.

Little zucchinis starting to grow in this twisted mess of a plant.

Lost one broccoli plant to bugs and slugs, but the rest are getting there. Should be flowering soon.

Little cucumber growing underneath that yellow flower. The cucumbers are rapidly taking over the trellis.

These giant leaves will shade the pumpkins. I have to steer them down the alley, but some are climbing the fence.

You can see some acorn squash starting to come in beneath that closed flower.

Pits of Fire...

Parents came over today to help build a new fire pit. 

Izzy posing in the foreground. That's just a temporary patio around it, I want to lay down a stone patio when I have the time.

Everything coming along as planned for the middle of June.

New trellises were built for cucumbers, tomatoes, and cantaloupe.

The potjie pot getting ready to be broken in.

Vegetable Garden Planner

Found a cool online garden planner at Mother Earth News. Here are a couple screenshots of the current crop, as well as a chart with estimates on harvesting and planting times for my zip code.

Click to enlarge:

Droppin' Acid...

Blueberry bushes are acid lovers... so I gave mine some Holly-tone to lower the PH of the soil. Then I heeded Amy Matthew's advice over at http://www.heirloombroccoli.com/ and added some coffee grounds around the plant as well, to "act as a neurotoxin to baby slugs who then don’t reach adulthood." I know that coffee has the same effect on me, so why not.

Used some of the Earth-tone organic insecticidal soap to take on those golden tortoise beetles, which didn't seem to work because we saw two of them having sex underneath one of the leaves no more than an hour after I sprayed it.

Then I fed all the plants with some organic Neptune's Harvest fish emulsion.

My garden crap.

Soil test says 5.5 ph, pretty ideal for blueberries.

New rain gauge (impulse buy).

Izzy never stops wanting to play frisbee.

I bought this potjie pot from an awesome 

Amish market way out in Bainbridge, Ohio last weekend. 

It is sitting on what will soon become the new firepit out back.

Besides the chewed up sweet potato plants, everything else is looking pretty healthy and on track.

All that glitters is gold...

My sweet potato plants were eaten up today, I looked under the leaves and found some larvae as well as the little culprits. I picked them all off and mailed them somewhere exotic... like hell.

I found one potato beetle (go figure) and a couple shiny ones that the Missouri Botanical Garden is calling the golden tortoise beetle.

The internets are telling me to add some ladybugs to the garden. 

Do I put out a "Help Wanted" poster?  I've also read that you should.

"Apply an organic insecticide for chewing insects, such as Safer, by following the directions on the bottle. Natural insecticide solutions are commonly composed of flower extracts and fatty acids, which kill these beetles on contact."

Read more: How to Kill Tortoise Beetles on Tomato Plants | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5670529_kill-tortoise-beetles-tomato-plants.html#ixzz1OAIDLKSE