Mid Summer Update

Its almost the end of July, the hottest part of the summer.  Here is an update of what's going on in the garden.


Last year I had one of my dry birdhouse gourds break open at the end of the season, and some of the seeds scatted in the area.  This spring they sprouted, and since we've had a pretty wet spring and summer, they have grown well without any care.  I did start watering it a little a few weeks ago.  Here it is today, growing very nicely. 

Speaking of the gourds, the ones from last year are mostly completely dry now. I cut a hole into a couple yesterday, and will try to start using some of them for crafts. 


A few days ago we planted some jack-o-lantern pumpkins (saved seeds from a store-bought one someone gave me). Here is what they look like today, under their protective tulle tent.   Hopefully these will have good pumpkins by Halloween.  These don't stand a chance if it wasn't for the netting, unless I spent lots of time checking for SVB eggs, which is not fun.

jack-o-lantern pumpkin seedlings about a seek since seeds were soaked

Today I also just planted some sugar pie pumpkins in this other area of the yard. I pulled out a huge sunflower plant to make space.  There are some of the tomato plants that are still alive...  the pumpkin vines will grow around them if they still alive later this summer. 

just planted sugar pie pumpkins here

Below are the  sweet peppers that I mentioned starting from seeds in the last post.  About 7 seedlings came up, and I put them in the ground. One is dying, so there are 6 plants that are looking like they might make it.   They are pretty slow growing... as I remember from past experience, peppers start off slow. 

sweet peppers a few weeks old

 Here are the cucumbers.  They have been hit by SVB, as I have found some of the vines wilting, and have found grubs in them. But the main trunk doesn't seem to have been hit, so many portions of the vines are still alive and producing still.  Cucumber beetles have been bad, but have not caused a big problem yet.  Next to it are some of my basil bushes. These are regular volunteers in my garden. 

the cucumber are hanging on for life

And here is my tomato jungle.  The "sweet 100" cherry tomatoes have produced well lately, but seem to be taking a breather with the recent very hot weather. The Rutgers vines are also still alive, but have not produced anything in about a month. Its just been way too hot for them. The vines I had buried have certainly been helped, as I have seen fresh new growth, but no flowers or fruit though.

 From the previous post, I had mentioned I was planting some round zucchini, and that 1 seedling had come up.  Well that was the only one that came up.  I suspect my seeds are getting old. So I sprouted and planted 3 more seeds, which did come up (out of about 8 soaked seeds). So these plants are about 2 weeks behind the first one.  One of my goals with these plants is to let one squash grow to maturity so I can get seeds to replenish my supply. When these mature they are like small yellow pumpkins.

Round zucchini under protective netting

To report on my experiment using aluminium foil, I can say it didn't really "foil" the SVBs.  I've had lots and lots of the moths flying around trying to lay eggs, (the second generation this year that came from my spaghetti squash)  and I did find a few eggs on the leaves, despite the foil. So I think it did help a little bit, but not enough to prevent infestation.  I did pick off those eggs I found, and then covered the plant with tulle netting.  When the plant got bigger, and the newer seedling started outgrowing their smaller individual tulle nettings, I erected my bigger netting set-up shown above.  Flower are starting to appear on the big plant, but haven't opened yet.  I did see two female flowers forming. Hopefully we get a dip in the heat when those are open, and the fruit sets.  This week should be in the mid to upper 90s.



In my last previous post from July 3rd, I had shown my okra seedlings.  They have grown quite a bit since then, and are close to 2 feet tall now.    I thinned them down to 4 good plants (about 7 had come up).