Christian Cabal's Garland Garden: Late April Update

Wanted to give a quick update of my garden:

Volunteer Flowers

This year I had 3 poppies come up. I had spread some seeds a couple years ago, but some seeds must have been dormant and woke this late winter as I didn't remember any last year. I looked these up on Google and saw they are called "Peony Poppies". They are also called Opium poppies! These are very beautiful flowers. I intend to save a bunch of seeds again from these.

volunteer peony poppies

A few years ago we grew some German Chamomile, and the cool thing is that every year since they have always reseeded themselves. Here are some from this year. These are so pretty,and smell so wonderful. We had some fresh chamomile tea last night from some of these. When they first come up they are tiny plants, but have very distinctive foliage, so I recognize them, and weed around them. This year they grew mainly around my lettuce and spinach.

German Chamomile

Squash

My spaghetti squash is doing very well! But what is really surprising is the amount of female flowers that have shown up first! Usually with squash, the male flowers come up first, and then later the female flowers come. But this time I've had tons of female flowers, and just a few male flower. But there are about at least 4 squash now that are pollinated and have set fruit, and more on the way.

lots of female flowers on my spaghetti squash

female blossom

My acorn squash has not done as well. I have three hills planted, but two hills are on a low area of the yard, that collects a lot of water during rains. I think these got drowned out with the last heavy rains, because the next day after the rains, many of the leaves were wilted on many of the plants.

Most of this acorn squash is showing signs of drowning due to poor drainage in this part of the yard.

The other hill is on a raised bed, so is doing much better. Here is the plant, with a female blossom open. Like the spaghetti squash, surprisingly there are female flowers first. I am thinking this is because of the time of year and cool temperatures they experienced earlier on.

Regarding the SVBs (squash vine borers) I actually saw one resting on my pea plants, and killed the moth. But I have not seen any eggs laid yet. (I have been checking since I saw the moth last week).

Other Veggies

Here are my snap peas. They have gotten very tall, and are producing well, but as expected, are beginning to get hit by spider mites, and also powdery mildew, due to the rain and wet weather. Every time I plant these they get afflicted once the plants start producing pods. Must be that the plants get weaker focusing their energy on producing the pods. Also we are mostly in the lower 80s now... getting a bit warm for these plants. I wish I would have planted more. They are so tasty, I always wish we had more. Next time I will hopefully plant 3x more plants.

sugar snap peas

My tomatoes are doing pretty well, but don't look quite as healthy. I notice some of the leaves have a few spider mites. I do have lots of ladybugs around, so I hope that they start attacking the spidermites too. There are a few tiny tomatoes forming on them now. To their left are the sweet-pea flowering peas. They should start blooming soon. I really like them as cut flowers since they have a wonderful fragrance.