July 2010 Archives

Don't get sick during vegetable season!  I was sick for about a week and all sorts of crazy stuff happened to my garden.

I was rousted from my sickbed by a thunderstorm.  I glanced out the window and discovered, to my horror, that the bamboo poles that my butterbeans climb had snapped.  The next day I shuffled outside in my PJs and pried the butterbeans off of the edamame.  I don't know what to do with the droopy bean vines now, so they're just kinda sprawled out on the ground.

As I lugged myself back to the house, I noticed that something had evidently been munching on my cherry tomatoes.  Not munching like a bug munches - munching like a furry critter munches.  There were little ragged holes in some of the tomatoes.

Today I went out to check on things during lunch.  I found a mutant squash and a mutant zucchini:

That zucchini is the size of my forearm.  I'm glad I finally noticed it today, because if it had grown more, I think it would've kicked my butt when I went to pick it!  And I think that's the biggest yellow squash I've ever seen.  Oops.  Shoulda sent the hubby out to check the squash plants while I was sickly.

The edamame survived their assault by the butterbeans and are finally starting to form pods.  I can't wait! Mmm, edamame! ^_^

The plants themselves are freaking huge.  Some of them are almost as tall as I am.  They've started to flop over (undoubtedly because the butterbeans flopped on them first), and now they're totally shading out their pepper neighbors.  I'm not sure what to do about that ...

The pictures from this entry were taken on July 1.  So they're what, 12 days old?  I've been too busy to post them!

I've learned some things.  The landscaping fabric is completely and utterly fail-a-rific for gardening.  The grass germinates under it, pushes it up, smothers the plants you actually want and it just doesn't work.  I think for perennial beds it would be just fine, but not for gardens.  My parents are having good luck with a thick layer of wheat straw for mulch, so I think I'll try that.

Cucumbers don't belong in buckets.  I think they didn't have enough room for their little roots, and I couldn't keep them sufficiently watered.  I think the problem was mostly the lack of water, honestly.  I gotta work on some self-watering containers, but that can be a winter job.

And now on to the good news.   Here's a long view of the garden:

The tomatoes and peppers are in the bed in the foreground, more peppers (too small to really see), edamame, and butter beans are in the back.

The edamame are gigantic - I did not realize that they would get so big!  And they're still growing. o.O  Next year I need to allow more room for them, because they're shading out the little peppers that are next to them.  Here's a close-up of an edamame flower.  They look like tiny pea blossoms!

 I finally founds some tiny pods on the butterbean vines today.  I'm going to need a ladder to get to any beans that grow at the very top!  And that trellis design is also not something I intend to repeat.  But the vines are heading for the grapevines.  I told them  that if they want to take on those wild muscadine vines, they can just go ahead and rock on. :P

I have lots of baby tomatoes!  I think a handful of the black cherry tomatoes is going to be ripe this week.  They're red, but I don't think they're as dark as they're supposed to be, and they're not quite hopping off the vine into my hand yet.  I'm trying to be patient.

Meanwhile, the zucchini and squash have finally started producing.  I learned on a gardening show that my mom recorded that both varieties of squash produce "male" flowers first that do not produce fruit.  Then they later produce "female" blossoms that are attached to fruit.  I was relieved to learn that my plants aren't broken!  And it looks like they're all gradually starting to set fruit.

Here are the cucumbers and the first zucchini: