I've picked two cucumbers so far. Here's a picture of the first one:
There are lots of little baby cucumbers that are a few inches long now. Yay!
The squash are not doing so well. The plants seem happy, and they're blooming, but they're not setting fruit. I inspected them all this morning and I found one (a zucchini?) that actually has a little fruit attached to the blossom. Hmm. I had the same problem last year with the zucchini, but not the squash. I have no idea what the deal is.
The Black Cherry cherry tomato has little green tomatoes! The German Pink is blooming, but I haven't seen any signs of tomatoes yet.
Some of the peppers are starting to bloom. The plants are still tiny, but they're blooming anyway. Well, you rock on then, little plant dudes. :P
The snow peas shrivelled up in the heat. I wonder if I can plant snapped beans in their place? Hrm ...
The butterbeans are climbing away, and the edamame looks exactly like "field peas" - the soybeans that my grandparents grew as a commodity crop. I should've predicted that, I guess. :P
The chard ... I think I'm about done with chard. Out of a row that's about 8 feet long, I have like four scraggly little chards that are not growing despite the copious amount of rain that has fallen on them. Turds.
But in their defense, I think I have a dirt problem. All of my soil that's in the raised beds this year was imported. There's mulch mixed into it. I suspect that the decomposing mulch may be competing with the plants for nitrogen. I read about that somewhere. And if that's not the problem, all of the beds need more compost, anyway. I can't do anything about that until the fall. Oh well. Things are growing, obviously, just not as much as I'd expect.
And the landscaping fabric has issues. The main issue being that it is light permeable. So grass sprouted under it. As the grass grows, it pushes up on the fabric, which pops over the heads of some of the smaller veggies and shades them out. I have to keep pushing the fabric down and easing leaves back through the holes so that the little dudes can get some sun. I guess if I had put mulch on top of the fabric, this would not have happened. But that seemed like overkill at the time, and I thought the mulch would slide right off of the fabric. (I still do, actually.) So next year I've got to think up a different weed-control measure.
There are lots of little baby cucumbers that are a few inches long now. Yay!
The squash are not doing so well. The plants seem happy, and they're blooming, but they're not setting fruit. I inspected them all this morning and I found one (a zucchini?) that actually has a little fruit attached to the blossom. Hmm. I had the same problem last year with the zucchini, but not the squash. I have no idea what the deal is.
The Black Cherry cherry tomato has little green tomatoes! The German Pink is blooming, but I haven't seen any signs of tomatoes yet.
Some of the peppers are starting to bloom. The plants are still tiny, but they're blooming anyway. Well, you rock on then, little plant dudes. :P
The snow peas shrivelled up in the heat. I wonder if I can plant snapped beans in their place? Hrm ...
The butterbeans are climbing away, and the edamame looks exactly like "field peas" - the soybeans that my grandparents grew as a commodity crop. I should've predicted that, I guess. :P
The chard ... I think I'm about done with chard. Out of a row that's about 8 feet long, I have like four scraggly little chards that are not growing despite the copious amount of rain that has fallen on them. Turds.
But in their defense, I think I have a dirt problem. All of my soil that's in the raised beds this year was imported. There's mulch mixed into it. I suspect that the decomposing mulch may be competing with the plants for nitrogen. I read about that somewhere. And if that's not the problem, all of the beds need more compost, anyway. I can't do anything about that until the fall. Oh well. Things are growing, obviously, just not as much as I'd expect.
And the landscaping fabric has issues. The main issue being that it is light permeable. So grass sprouted under it. As the grass grows, it pushes up on the fabric, which pops over the heads of some of the smaller veggies and shades them out. I have to keep pushing the fabric down and easing leaves back through the holes so that the little dudes can get some sun. I guess if I had put mulch on top of the fabric, this would not have happened. But that seemed like overkill at the time, and I thought the mulch would slide right off of the fabric. (I still do, actually.) So next year I've got to think up a different weed-control measure.
