cantaloupes!

I'm starting to get really excited about my Cantaloupes. The plants are so huge they're taking over everything!

 Dwarfing the short Corn stalks, crawling into the adjoining Tomato patch on one side

and the near-empty Carrot patch on the other

(not to mention trying to reach through the fence into the neighbor's yard and crawl across my lawn as well!) My beetle picking seems to be keeping things under control, I take off all the chewed leaves too (the plants look like they can easy spare some) so that no disease will spread and in the morning I can easily spot new-damaged leaves and look for nasty bugs in proximity.

There are so many little melons growing I'm not sure we'll be able to eat them all! Most have a funny oblong shape

This one that's a big bigger is nice and round.

The nearby Tomatoes don't seem to mind sharing the support of their cage with an encroaching Cantaloupe vine; I've been picking a nice handful into the gathered fold of my shirt every morning.

repotting

A lot of my houseplants and seedlings "moved up" today.

First, I finally went out and bought a big pot for my Avocado plant. A ten-incher. I was very careful when repotting it, as I know if you break the taproot off the plant has no chance. I couldn't get a photo of the roots because the plant felt so precarious tipped upside down in my hand I was moving quickly. But it looked fantastic, all wiry strong and curled at the bottom (although compressed, no wonder the plant was sad!) Very strange feeling that as I held it upside down, the original avocado pit in my hand, picking out shards quickly with the other, I felt the pit jostle against my hand and for a second thought something alive was in there! but it was just the pit wiggling as my other hand moved against the roots. A very strange sensation. Anyhow, the plant is settled in nicely and didn't suffer any shock at all; far from being droopy it has started to open little new leaves out of those two nodes on top!

Then I repotted this little miniature Geranium that didn't have the right shape for a bonsai.

I figured I'll just let it grow the way it wants to, and maybe one day it will flower for me.

My little "Kiwi" plants were looking unhappy, and their leaves getting scorched.

I've repotted them, removed the damaged leaves, and set in a different spot with only indirect light.

Next I moved young Marigolds from seed tray

into cardpots

and also some of my already-started fall crops: the Broccoli

I ran out of toilet-paper tubes, so the Cauliflowers are still in their tray. They look good, though!

seeds

More seed harvest. I took about eight dried bunches of Cilantro from the shed

broke off all the good umbrels

and then sorted them in a new, quicker fashion. Instead of individually picking the best, fattest seeds off each umbrel (which would have taken forever), I quickly stripped all the seeds off each one, then sorted them by sifting through a colander. The holes just happened to be the right size to hold back the seeds of nicest size.

Also had let dry the last of the Lettuce fuzzies, off the final Romaine plant.

Romaine has white seeds, so it's a bit harder to separate them from the fuzzy parts and see what you're doing. I don't bother to sift all the chaff out afterwards. It just gets planted along with the seeds!

Now I have all my Lettuce and Cilantro seed for next year. I planted some Cilantro in the ground outside, too- all around the Cantanloupe, Zucchini and Pumpkins. I'm hoping with the thunderstorms keeping the ground damp and the large leaves of the plants shading it, it'll feel cool enough that they can grow. Crossing fingers.

eatings

Dug up a bunch of Carrots, enough to fill two bags in the fridge.

And picked my first Bell Pepper! The flavor was awesome.

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.

avocado green!

My Avocado plant is doing so much better.

 The leaves are getting huge. I think now it needs a bigger pot!

Surprised to find two little nodes on top, which I think will be new stems. I thought it would branch out from the main stem, but instead it's growing more on top. Odd.

And the younger one? Growing and growing! differently, though. It's only a few inches tall and already showing foliage.

pickings

Here's what I gathered from the garden today. Four lovely Tomatoes, the last handful of Beets (most quite small) and a few measly Green Beans.

 They are still under seige by bugs, but do have a lot of new flowers, so I'm hoping if I can route the critters we'll still get enough beans to eat. (I've abandoned my idea of trying to can some this year, unless my second planting does better).

Today sprayed basil sun tea over all the plants. Found that if I spray under the leaves (which is where the bugs hide) they fly up and land on the top surface of the foliage, where I can pick them off before I spray the top as well. I caught a few fat cucumber beetles this way- two from among the Green Beans, one off the small sad Zucchinis and half a dozen from the Pumpkin patch. Also found one in the Rhubarb, but I think he'd just been fleeing the basil fumes in the nearby pumpkins. There's a large grey stink bug lurking among my Green Beans too, but he's crafty. I tried to nab him twice, and the second time grabbed his leg but he broke away from me and hid in the lawn. I'm going to keep my eye out for him- certainly he's causing lots of damage, too!

I'm not too unhappy about the loss of Zucchinis, because I'd rather loose that usually-abundant and not-so-tasty crop as long as the produce I like better is left alone. This year the Cucumbers are doing very well, tucked in their wall of Cilantro and Basil

and the Cantaloupes are amazing me. They've grown huge leaves and are creeping arms all over, creeping across the walking paths to invade the flanking carrot and cherry tomato patches. I keep turning their vines back from going through the fence into the neighbor's yard. I spray them diligently with basil sun tea as well, just in case a cucumber beetle ventures over here from the other side of the garden, I don't want them settling in! They have huge leaves, tons of little yellow flowers, and already many small bulbous shapes that will soon become Cantaloupes!

I like to think that my little wall of Marigolds, which is now blooming furiously, has helped keep the bugs at bay. I mistakenly bought the small marigold variety, that doesn't grow too tall. I wanted the big ones, because planted in a row they make a kind of short hedge. Here's a view of the Marigold row, in one direction at the edge of the Cucumber patch

and the other way alongside the Corn/Cantaloupe plots. You can see the huge-leaved arms of Cantaloupe reaching out. In the middle/right there is the last Romaine Lettuce plant, which I cut down today to gather its seed heads.

So next year the plan of attack is: more marigolds! more cilantro and basil! even more garlics- I think they deter the pests as well, and are growing actively when the flowers and herbs are still just seedlings.

fail

Another loss in the garden. Well, not really any fault of nature's. I picked three Zucchinis this morning- one lovely-looking but rather smallish one from the lone zucchini-among-pumpkins, and the only two that have grown on the planted patch. The ones from the plants that have suffered cuke beetle attacks have funny bulbous shapes, and darker skin.

But when I sliced them open, all looked fine.

Unfortunately, I had just run out of butter so I tried frying them in a bit of oil instead. It tasted so bleh we had to throw them out, nobody liked it. My first Zucchinis- a failure! all for a lack of butter (it wasn't my day to have the car so I couldn't run to the store...)

sadness

This does not seem to be a good year for Green Beans, for me. Already the bugs have sickened them enough that I've had to pull one plant out, and some of the beans I pick have funny spots and tiny round holes in them. Then today came out to look at the garden when the rain was done, found this poor plant entirely flat on the ground!

The stem was broken. Did the rain beat it that hard? or my cat squashed it? I don't know. You can see all the bug holes in it, too. Even though I've been picking them off- the brownish cucumber beetle look-alikes- a half dozen a night or so, it doesn't seem to be making much difference. Only slowing the damage, not halting it.

On another note, I found one of those bugs that looks like a rose-colored spotted cuke bettle in the Cilantro! Just crawling around. So whatever that bug is, Cilantro doesn't deter it at all! The Cucumbers nearby were untouched, though. Maybe I'm wrong and it's not in the same bug family?

big and green

Marveling today at how the Pumpkins have entirely sprawled out of their plot with enormous leaves

Then I suddenly realized one had a different look. And inspecting closer, I found this one is a Zucchini!

It already has nice big Zucchinis growing on it

that look far better than the ones in the proper zucchini plot (and the plant is two or three times bigger!) Well, I'm pleased to have some good zucchinis, but wonder if it's going to mess up my Pumpkins? The bees have been busy digging in and out of all the flowers; are they going to cross-pollinate and I'll get some strange fruit between a pumpkin and a zucchini? (so far the zucchini looks perfectly normal, though).

little cosmos

Young Cosmos plants in the coldframe big enough to move out of their trays now

into cardpots.

In just another week I'll put them in the garden! Hopefully get some flowers before fall.

eatings

Mm, garden goods! Yesterday I made beans with garden Garlic in it, Carrot sticks and the first garden Cucumber dipped in humus, and this Tomato Basil salad:

I still have the notion that dishes without lettuce aren't really salad, but my husband insists any raw veggie concoction can be called a salad. This one is slices of mozarella cheese topped with fat tomato slices, bits of fresh basil, and a drizzle of white balsamic vinagrette.

The day before our dinner was very simple, but very filling: Swiss Chard frittata and steamed garden Carrots on the side. Tonight we ate chicken paired with a salad that had garden Tomatoes and Carrot shreds in it, and steamed Green Beans. It makes me feel so grand to be eating so much fresh produce I've grown myself! We picked and ate the first two ripe Cherry Tomatoes today, too- but I didn't get a picture because they went down our throats so fast!

tomatoes!

First ripe Tomatoes!

They're not very large

but ohh, so tasty. Funny, these are all off my volunteer plants, which did far better than the ones grown from seed. They are bigger, more robust-looking, have more tomatoes on them, and only a few with the blossom end-rot disease. (Almost every tomato on the from-seed plants has got the rot. Not a single one of those have ripened yet).

bugs

My beer traps caught absolutely nothing last night. But by close inspection in the early morning when bugs are sluggish from the cold, I found the culprits:

They look like cucumber beetles, except they're not bright yellow, but brown. Some striped, some spotted. Also some reddish spotted ones on the Swiss Chard that I mistook for ladybugs at a glance and left alone too long. They have a more pinkish tint than ladybugs and look like a rosy version of the spotted cuke beetle. I'm not sure if these are some variation of cucumber beetles, or another kind of bug entirely, but they're doing the same kind of damage!

Holes in most of my Green Beans

and some of the Peppers

I picked off and squashed as many as I could find, but most would immediately drop off the leaf into the mulch litter when they sensed me coming. I have this love/hate thing with organic mulch. I love that it holds in moisture and feeds the plants. I hate that it gives nasty bugs a hideout. So pulled all the mulch off the bean and pepper plots. Now if they drop I can spot them on the ground and squish them before they get away. I'd rather battle heat with extra water than give the bugs an edge.

They're also making my poor Zucchini plants sick- I'm going to have to pull some out. It's sad that what's usually such a prolific plant so far only has two small-sized zucchinis on them. But I'd far rather sacrifice zucchinis than have the bugs ruining my melons and cucumbers. So far they haven't found those- or are being deterred by the interplantings of Basil and Cilantro. Next year I am going to put a wall of cilantro around the entire garden!

They've found my Pumpkins, though (which are huge enough to begin sprawling out of the patch already). Today looking closely I found lots of bees happily poking around deep inside the pumpkin flowers, but also a few cuke beetles and some sad-looking leaves nearby. I pick them out of the depths of the flowers with tweezers and squash immediately.

swiss chard

 I cut the biggest ever bunch of Swiss Chard this morning. Now there's a brisk debate going on in my house- should I cook a frittata out of it, or my pasta dish? I love it that my family's so eager to eat garden goodies they argue over how I should cook it!