wow

I've been on vacation at my mother's for about two weeks, then they came over here for a bit. Upon returning home we found the garden full of stuff to eat! All this bounty on the table I picked and gathered just this morning. There's loads of Cherry Tomatoes, tons of Green Beans and about ten more ripe Cantaloupes still out there!

I cooked a garden feast for my family (with my sisters and parents visiting too). We had Swiss Chard frittata, Cherry Tomatoes, Carrots and Cucumbers dipped in humus, steamed Green Beans, sauteed Zucchini, fresh-cut Cantaloupe (delicious!) and caprese salad. It was fantastic!

Sadly, many of the plants suffered while I was gone, unavailable to do bug control. I had to pull every last Cucumber vine. So the dozen fat cukes we got today are the last ones. The Corn is all dried and dead, most of the Cantaloupe vines look sicked with bacterial wilt, too. I haven't even begun to look through the Pumpkin vines, but lots of those look sick, too.

Tomorrow I'll start cleaning up, pulling weeds and dead/sickened vines, to see how far the damage has gone. My mom said what's the solution to the cucumber beetle and I said "bats!"

garden eatings!

My favorite way to eat Cherry Tomatoes from the garden (besides immediate snacks) is on a pizza. A plain cheese pizza gets layered with mushrooms and little Tomatoes sliced in half

then when it's almost done I put another layer of fresh Basil leaves and a sprinkle of shredded mozarella. Yum!

Finally got enough Green Beans picked to add to a meal, just lightly steamed and salted.

And picked my first Corn!

I thought it was ready because when I punctured a kernel with fingernail milky fluid came out. But the ears are all very small, even the full ones.

Most of them only half the kernels filled out

and one had this tiny embryonic cob growing on the side of it.

They all had a mild taste- good, but not sugary sweet like the ones from the grocery store. My daughter didn't like it because it wasn't sweet enough. I thought it was tasty but perhaps I need to let it grow more before picking the ears? and I guess my self-pollination didn't work too well, though. But hey, at least I got some corn!

random

Just a few garden pics today. A ladybug I found on the stem of a lettuce flower:

My first Tithonia! It opened in this morning's rain. If the plant covers itself with these bright booms, I think it's well worth the shabby leaf appearance.

Eating Green Beans. They are just starting to get plentiful. Last night my daughter even asked for more when they were gone. I said we have to wait until the little ones outside get big enough, and she was impatient.

The Pumpkin is growing enormously fast sprawling all over the place. Same with the Cantaloupe and Cucumbers. Huge leaves.

I'm so excited that many of my Corn plants are producing two ears! But they look funny- the ears come out of the base of the stalk, right above the ground. I knew I'd bought seed for shorter corn plants, just about 5' I think, but I didn't know they would have such an odd appearance.

cantaloupe

My Cantaloupes are flowering!

the yellow faces tucked under wide-spreading leaves

which are filling in all the space below the corn plants (four more in tassels today!)

corn silk

I found silk in the first ear of corn forming!

Like the other gardener advised, I pulled the pollen tassel between my fingers and sprinkled some on the silks, hoping for better pollination that way.

corn

My corn is growing and growing! I fed it some compost today, then topped that off with a mulch of grass clippings.

Some of the larger plants have this tuft growing in the middle, which I think will form the ear or tassel.

planting

Today I put out my last few corn plants. On top of the remaining frozen fish scraps.

One of the other, older ones (front left here) has suddenly gotten thicker, darker leaves than the others, looks very robust. I wonder if its roots just hit the fish?

Then among the corn I planted Cantaloupe

and among the cilantro and basil I put the little Cucumber plants.

Finally gave in to my desire for more flowers in the garden and dug up and moved the Marigolds, too. Now they flank the vegetable rows.

So I'm doing a lot more inter-planting this year. This plot has Cilantro around the edges, Basil in the middle, Marigolds on the end, and Cucumbers staggered throughout (with darker soil ringing them, as they just went in and got watered).

 The only thing left in my coldframe is the Watermelon plants.

I've put them into pots and they'll go out into the ground soon (clearing a corner of weeds right now to make another piece of garden for them).

Found a surprise in the Rhubarb patch! I had moved a tiny plant over from Isa's garden spot, where it got neglected. (It was from a tiny root we found hooked onto one of the main sets when I bought them). It shriveled soon after I moved it, but now is growing again!

And then I want to start more flowers, and perhaps a few more cucumber and bean plants!

corn planting

It's a cloudy day, with thunderstorms forecast and sun tomorrow. Figured good time as any to set out the young corn. They're getting crowded in the coldframe

so I pulled them all out

and laid out in groups where the lettuce vacated (pollinates better in bunches than long straight rows).

first I dug the holes

and then I got the fertilizer ready: fish scraps! Last time we got fresh fish from the market the mackerel looked so good we bought whole fish, and I cleaned them at home. I wanted to compost the scrap and heads, but then remember how it's said that native americans used to plant salmon heads with their corn? and also I read somewhere about a lady who dug a hole by her rosebush and planted a fishhead there. The rose bush grew so healthy it had no bugs on it at all, leaves a beautiful lush color. When she experimented by picking aphids off other plants and putting them on this rosebush, the bugs scrambled to get off that plant! it was super-healthy enough to make its own defenses. So I save the fish to feed my corn, see how it goes.

I wanted to be really careful not to get scent of fish spread atop the soil or via my hands (which could attract rats, dogs or something else to dig in my garden!) so I chopped up the pieces nearly-frozen (not as messy, easier to chop) and covered my hand with plastic to drop each piece in a hole.

Then threw away the plastic bag and finished using my bare hands. Sprinkled a half inch of soil over the fish, set the plants atop it. They're already bigger than the plants that failed on me last year. (Carrots in the background here).

As a little precaution, since I don't want them buffeted by wind or attacked by bugs right after going in the ground, I've put them under cloches temporarily.

Just as I finished up the heavy rain started to fall.

potting seedlings

Most of the seedlings I had in trays and carpots were really big, so I moved them all from their starting containers on the left, into the pots on the right.

I had to empty out and discard some of the excess pepper and Tomato seedlings, but saved this best-looking one in a larger pot, where it will continue to grow on the porch (can never have too many tomatoes!)

Zucchini:

Pumpkin:

Cucumber:

Cantaloupe:

Corn:

Marigolds (moved from their crowded tray into individual cardpots)

seedlings!

Some of my latest batch of seedlings have begun sprouting in their trays.

Cucumbers:

Zucchini:

and the spears are Corn: