garden report

No photos today, but some brief notes. Bugs have got ahead of me in the garden again, since I wasn't out there much last week. I have to put in a few hours before ten or eleven if I want to get something productive done, as by nine it starts to get unbearably hot. Insects have killed my nasturtiums and are making inroads on other plants. I doused many in soapy water again and it's helped some. Pulled all the old snap pea plants- they're past saving for seed as all look diseased. Cut sickly foliage off the bean plants and sprayed them again. If the soapy water doesn't help enough I'll do neem oil before a rainstorm today. Newer foliage still looks fresh.

I was looking forward to amaranth greens again, but the potato beetles like it just as much as I do- they are completely riddled with holes and on two plants the leaves have started to drop off. I've been squishing the beetles as I find them but didn't realize there's larvae as well- short fat pale grey caterpillars on leaf undersides. Never seen them before. Picked two dozen off the plants this morning. Cleaned up sickly leaves off the glaze collards, swiss chard, zucchini, cuke and tomato plants. Not very many so I'm still ahead of it there.

Took a large harvest of chinese cabbage (aka tokyo bekana) cutting the plants nearly down to the ground and dousing the remaining crowns with soapy water. They were very much riddled with bug holes. Not just slugs, something else too I think. Had a nice meal the day before- portabella mushrooms sliced and cooked with leeks and onions, then simmered in a bit of soy sauce with zucchini sautéed in farm butter on the side, and chinese cabbage cooked in soy sauce and apple cider vinegar, all on a bed of rice. I used apple cider vinegar in place of rice wine vinegar, it just takes a dash. I also used ginger mint in place of fresh ginger root (my ginger plant has long since died and I don't have another yet). So that dinner had four garden ingredients: leeks, chinese cabbage, ginger mint and the zucchini. It was a lovely zucchini. There's another one growing! There's a baby cantaloupe on the vine out there, too. Today I cut more chinese cabbage, pretty much using all the rest of it (going to make the same dish but with salmon and couscous today). I think I only got two harvests out of that lot of chinese cabbage. I started more seed of it today, but really I should have done a new sowing as soon as the young plants went into the ground. Aim for that this time.