August 20th Update

Its still pretty hot, but we've gotten some relief the past week. Most of early August was over 100, one day it hit 105.  But since last Tuesday, its cooled down to lower 90s and its been creeping up again, into the mid-90s.  We got a little bit of rain, but its mostly been dry.

Pumpkins/Squash 

In my last post, in early August, I had mentioned how I had started some new Rouge Vif D'etampes pumpkins in pots, and that I had planted some yellow crookneck and Benning's green tint squash and had them under tulle netting.  I had also cleared up a lot of dying Hubbard and Rouge Vif vines, and had cleaned up, buried, and watered some of the remaining healthy looking runners.

Those runners have done pretty well, and are still growing. I think they have perked up because of the more reasonable weather.  But strangely, those runner have no flowers at all..not even male flowers. Hopefully later in the season they will produce some more... otherwise I'm just wasting space and water with them, as well as time.  I pick many SVB eggs off of them and bury the new vine lengths every few days when I get a chance.  There's still a lot of eggs being laid. I also find clusters of Squash bug eggs too.   I have also injected the leaf stems with BT solution occasionally, so that if I missed an egg, and there is a borer working its way down into the main vine, it will get poisoned.  The picture below shows some of the Hubbard vines runners.  Also I went ahead and planted my two Rouge Vif plants I had in pots, and covered them with tulle.  Now I have a bit of a dilemma trying to figure out which direction I should train the new plant, and how long I should attempt to keep it covered, as it will start growing 4-6 inches a day, and that will make it very hard to keep it covered for long.

Here is the second one on the other side of the garden. Those vines outside are the older Rouge Vif, which are also alive and kicking, but no flowers..

Here are my patty pans and yellow squash. They have done great under the tulle netting. They have had some male flowers bloom, and I just stared noticing a few small female flowers forming.  I will attempt to keep them covered as long as I can. I will have to hand pollinate in a few days I bet.  But that should just be a brief time to uncover them, then I will put the cover back on. Its been nice to grow these so care free, and I highly recommend this, especially with the hoards of SVBs, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles out there.   As you can see, I removed the smaller tulle "teepees" and replaced with one big piece.

 But this was the odd one out.. the 7th plant.  It totally outgrow its small tulle cover, so to make use of the cover, I put a box around the plant, and was able to re-use that small section of tulle.

Okra and Watermelons

The "Emerald" okra seedling I put in a few weeks ago are doing great. Beautiful big green leaves, actually look a lot like squash leaves.  They have gotten attacked by some bugs... most probably cucumber beetles... hence some of the small holes in the leaves. But otherwise I have 5 big plants, and a smaller newer one growing. I see some flowers about to bloom.  

I also planted some watermelon seeds in small pots, but only 2 plants came up. Here are both of them. I put them in the ground a few days ago, in the original mound which I had put the Hubbard squash early this year.  They are looking pretty good. First time growing watermelon for me, so I hope I get something from them.

That's about it.  I just stared a few days ago  some seeds indoors for this fall. I started some lettuce, cabbage, Brussels sprouts,and cabbage.  The brussels sprout seedlings have not come up very well I only have 2 tiny seedlings that have sprouted and survived so far.