Thursday, July 10, 2014

Garden Bounty - July 10 Update



  What's Going On at Christian's Garden 7/10/14

The second batch of sweet corn is growing very well. I see some nice ears of corn that have developed. Just hope there are enough plants to fill out the ears well, and that the corn ear worms don't get all of them.  I have not sprayed anything, so keeping my fingers crossed.
Sweet corn (2nd batch) is looking good. Hope to get some good ears in a few weeks


Ball zucchini plants, next to sweet corn.  Tomatoes and bean in background

ball zucchini ready for picking

My beans, which had been hit hard by spider mites, and took forever to start any production, have finally started producing well.  They also seem to have overcome the spider mites damage.  Not sure what happened but the spider mite populations have really declined, even though its really hot.  The last few morning I have picked a nice big handful of beans.
Pole beans are doing better, finally producing well.
My tomato plants have outgrown their cages so much you can't even see the cages at all, and I have had to use various large stakes to hold them up.  There are not many tomatoes left.  So I have started to thin the plants out, and am trying to take some cutting and plant them in moist soil to see if I can get them to root, and plant them for the fall.  If successful, I might pull out all these plants, because I don't think I want to spend all the water that will be needed to keep these plants alive through August.
Tomato plants are huge, but not many tomatoes left on the plants. 
Same deal with the acorn squash plants.  They are huge, and sprawling, and hardly producing anything, so I might pull these up.  Its hard because the plants look so nice, and I am hopeful more fruit will set. But I hate using up so much water to keep these alive through the hottest part of the summer.
Acorn squash plants have overflowed into the yard. 

The volunteer plants...

This pumpkin is pretty much ready to pick

volunteer Milo (sorghum)

finally a pumpkin from our volunteer sugar pie pumpkin plants

Some of the harvests this summer

Recent harvests: ball zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, and assorted tomatoes.
After looking at pictures of heirloom tomato varieties on Google, I decided that some of my tomatoes are actually "cherokee purple" variety.  Here is a "C" shaped one.
I got a "C" tomato.  "C" is for Christian  (or Cabal) ;)