garden goods

We ate our last beets just this week, but still have Carrots. They have a slightly bitter taste now from the heat, but taste good steamed with a bit of butter and nutmeg.

Today I picked from the garden a modest handful of Green Beans (added to the handful of a few days ago makes half a dish worth- really poor outcome this year!), a few nice cherry Tomatoes (immediately eaten), three nice fat Cucumbers

 and this lovely Zucchini (from the rogue plant in the pumpkin patch).

I'm excited that there are tons of little bulbous Cantaloupes growing, the first few Pumpkins - itty bitty tiny round things- and my first baby Watermelon!

But to my great frustration, the cucumber beetles have finally found my Cantaloupe patch. They've killed some of my smaller Zucchini plants- I had to uproot and throw away another entire plant today because the wilt is spreading. Every day I pick a dozen or so c. beetles out of the Pumpkin flowers and pinch off withered leaves, but it doesn't seem to be spreading badly there. So far the Cantaloupes look untouched in terms of foliage damage, but I'm finding more and more bugs in their flowers. The first day two, the second day six, today I squished at least a dozen and several more got away from me. The plants are so sprawling and have so many little flowers, I spend a lot of time every morning on my knees peering carefully under leaves and into every flower, to grab and smash them before they fly away.

I'm worried of our trip in August. I have a neighbor who is willing to water my garden if it doesn't rain, and I don't mind if weeds come up, but I don't feel I can ask them to come pick bugs off every morning! and worry when I come back my lovely melons will all be sick and dying from the beetle onslaught. Since it's a rainy week I'm planting Cilantro seed throughout all the plots, hoping with the slightly cooler weather and damp they might actually grow enough before I'm gone to deter the bugs... It seems like a long shot but I don't know what else to do short of spraying pesticides.