September 12 Update

Late Summer in the Cabal Garden

Today is a beautiful day here in N. Texas.  Low 80's and dry weather makes being outside wonderful, and I am writing this sitting outside, on my chromebook.

After a very wet early summer, and very dry mid-summer,  we've had a days of rain recently, and lowering temperatures means the garden is kicking it into high gear again.   Even through the heat of the summer, the garden has remained very productive.   The main things this summer have been the cucumbers, yellow squash, okra, and the peppers, along with the maturing birdhouse gourds.

typical harvest, from late August

From early Sept 5th  including the variety of peppers.

I have been really surprised how well the cucumbers have done.  They have been incredible producers, and we've picked, eaten, and given away tons of them...  all from 4 plants!  The plants are pretty much done now, and I have started cutting them back to make space for the incoming pumpkin vines.

The okra plants are really now okra trees!  They are probably  about 7 ft tall now.

our okra trees

These also produce like crazy, and I've had to give away lots of okra too, in addition to eating it, and freezing some of it.  Our favorite is fried okra, although sometimes we will sautee it, although some of the kids don't really like the sliminess.  The frozen stuff will be good for soups like gumbo, in the winter.

Below is a picture of the pepper plants, mixed in there are 5 kinds of peppers, but the poblano-looking pepper is tallest variety, towering over the other ones.  

pepper plants

The yellow crookneck squash plants are looking pretty raggedy now, but I am hoping they might be able to push out a few more fruit.  The squash vine borers have affected them, but with some additional rooting along the ground, it has helped them.  They have done really well. I estimate around 25 squash from 3 plants.  There are 3 remaining growing tips, with some looking like they might start producing some more.

remnant of the yellow crookneck squash.

I've pulled up some wilted portions of the plant, and they have had some SVB grubs, which have become chicken snacks.  I'm not surprised cause I haven't been doing much to stop them the last month.

But their successors are almost ready to go now.  I planted some "cymlings" (patty-pan type squash).  I read about "cymlings" in an old book about gardening (that's what they called them back in the early 1900s) , and now for fun, I call them cymlings too.  Well I planted 3 hills of cymlings, and one hill of yellow crookneck.  I made a large frame for netting, out of PVC, to protect them from SVB and squash bugs.  Aphids have shown up, but I stuck some lady bug larva and adult lady bugs in there with them  (more on them later..)

more summer squash on the way

On the picture above you can see the cucumber plants They are just about dead.

I haven't mentioned these much, but I've had three big basil plants pretty much all summer.  They are great because they are constantly blooming and draw in lots of bees and other good bugs.  These seeded themselves from last year.

Basil plants, with Hubbard squash growing underneath.

The birdhouse gourds are doing great.  The plants have been severely infested with aphids, but there have been lady bugs among them, and they also have reproduced, so now I have lots of them too.  I've even put some of them under my netting to help with the aphids in my summer squash.  They have also been hit with powdery mildew pretty badly.  But they have produced lots of gourds.  Here are a few:

at the bottom of the picture you can see a leaf infested with powdery mildew.

Portions of the vines are starting to die off too, but other portions are now spreading along the ground.  

For the fall...

My main winter squash now growing is the Hubbard Squash, the sugar pie pumpkins, and spaghetti squash.  Below is the Hubbard squash.  It started close to the birdhouse gourds, and is spreading back towards the main part of the garden, now reaching the basil plants.  I've been burying the vines are they grow,but in the cramped space that becomes tricky.  The SVB moths are still flying around (just killed one today with a badminton racket.) but the egg laying has slowed down.  I do see some eggs here and there but nowhere as bad as it was earlier in the summer.   Next to the vines, growing up on tomato cages, are pole beans, Kentucky wonder.  I hope these get producing well before the cold weather comes.  Last year I started these too late, and they didnt get to produce much before the cold killed them.  This year I seeded them a few weeks earlier.

pole beans.

The plan is to let the Hubbard squash grow all underneath the beans, which are growing up the cages, and onto the fence.  

I think once again I got too ambitious with the sugar pie and spaghetti squash.  They have already taken over the whole area, and are almost impossible to reach for burying vines are removing SVB eggs, so I have really not done much there.   Hopefully the vines are established enough that any damage they cause will just have the effect of "pruning" the vines.

I also enlisted the help of "trichogramma wasps".  I had read that they are effective at parasitizing the eggs of Squash Vine borers.  So I bought some wasp eggs, for about $8 online.  I released them a few weeks ago, and am hopeful they are out there working.  They are very tiny, so it would be impossible for me to see them in action.  My hope is that they get established in my garden as natural pest control.

The vines have reached the pepper plants, and I am trying to train them to grow underneath, so they done cover the plants.