Hot Home Garden Happenings

Here's what's happening at the home garden. Warning...lots of pics!

The Spaghetti Squash vines growing at the end of the herb garden are doing well so far. I counted 3 nice size squash this morning without looking very well. It's just too darn hot out. I will be pleased to get 6 nice squash before the dreaded SVB's decide to take the vines lives! Last year the SVB's were out of control and I got absolutely no squash of any kind!

Here's part of the Herb Garden. It's actually shaped in an L and goes behind the patio furniture. I really thinned it out this year and continue to trim the plants regularly for drying. I really should add some much needed compost to this bed....but, that will have to wait until things cool down a bit.

My first attempt at growing Rosemary from seed has been very successful. All of the plants are doing really well.

Here are Beds 2 & 3 which have 4 tomatoes & some carrots in each bed. If you look close, (click to enlarge any picture) you can see that I used a plastic fencing as bunny protection. This plastic fencing was around half the bed and I had chicken wire around the other half. Well somebody decided to stand on the posts lying there, pull the plastic fencing down and have a nice snack! After finding what is pictured below, I added some chicken wire to keep that hungry critter out! I didn't have any more chicken wire at the time I installed the plastic fencing since it was being used in the spring to keep the bunnies from eating the peas next door.

That was a huge Pineapple tomato (seed from Diana)! The hungry critter ate about 1/3 of the tomato and it still weighed almost 22 ounces!

Bed 1, which previously had the garlic, celery and peas growing in it is half empty. There are late planted cucumbers around part of the perimeter and dry beans in half the bed. I will plant spinach in the other half of the bed for a Fall crop.

The left side of the cold frame bed has a couple of peppers, some leeks, basil and I'm desperately trying to get some fall carrots going under those boards. You would think somebody would go out there and start picking that basil for drying!!

The right side of the cold frame bed is like a jungle. I have two tomato plants on the right and couple of peppers, some eggplants and some basil growing in it. The one tomato is a MWC and is basically free ranging right now since it has out grown the tomato cage. It will however provide some much needed shade for lettuce to grow under it. You would think somebody would get this plant under control!

Here's another angle of the two tomato beds and part of the cold frame bed. As you can see the tomatoes are doing quite well and have seemed to stay about the same height of 7' for awhile now.

Although the plants are doing well, the fruit is having a tough time ripening correctly. They are also cracking. I'm sure it's due to this horrible weather we are having. I decided to pick a lot of the tomatoes and bring them inside to finish ripening and avoid further damage. "The Italian" really needs at least 100 jars of tomatoes to get him through the year!

Well, it's about 10:45 AM, I'm eating my lunch and in need of a little nap before I tackle any canning in the kitchen! This weather and very early morning and evening garden chores really takes the energy right out of you!