July Garden Update!

I decided to get myself on the ball and get this done a few days earlier rather than later this month.  Things have been coming in slow but steadily in the garden this month.  Not the windfall that I had hoped...but its early still...and HOT!  I think many of the plants have slowed production because its just too...damn...hot.  Temps will be in the mid 90's this week but we are looking for a few afternoon showers which should help the water bill.  I put some DIY ollas in the pumpkin patch box over the weekend. Mine aren't as pretty or as nice as the clay ones...but they were also made of leftover gallon water jugs so there you go!  Hopefully they will help regulate the water disbursement in that box.  

The garden has been seeing its fair share of pests this month too...beetles eating the leaves and pickle worms invading my cucumbers (EWWWWW).  We have also has the barrage of ants and aphids that are expected in pretty much any garden.  I HATE...DESPISE bugs.  Pretty much anything besides bees, butterflies and lightning bugs grosses me out.  If it resembles a maggot or nasty little worm (or huge grub) its only worse.  So...that all being said I have sprayed the garden twice with a neem oil mixture I made myself using some oil I ordered online.  It smells like rotten peanut butter but its safe (you can harvest the same day), pests supposedly can't stand it and its one of the only things you can use on crops if you are USDA certified.  So far, I still see beetles and worms the most...but I have read it is not an immediate thing and you have to wait for the effects to come about.  I am also accepting of the fact that the produce from my yard will have bumps, bruises and bugs.  That's garden life y'all.

And now for some garden pics:

You can see the damaged leaves on the cucumbers from those darn beetles

cucumber almost ready to pick

more cucumbers that have taken over the trellis and shaded out the peas

First of the Autumn sunflower mix has finally bloomed

Strawberries, basil, greens and sunflowers

Sincere pumpkin patch with hillbilly ollas, oregano and marigolds.

Total food grown so far this season is now 10.78 lbs.  This has mostly consisted of cucumbers and tomatoes and one lone zucchini.  There are 16 tomato plants in the back of the house and a patch of zucchinis that I ignore.  The zucchinis that were in the front met their demise from vine borers and powdery mildew.  I plan to try again with a July planting of zucchinis in buckets since I now understand that July planting is better to try to avoid borers and since we are int he South there will still be plenty of time for harvest before it gets too cold.

The Fall seeds have come in.  We are planting radishes, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, kale, lettuce, carrots and potatoes again.  Oh!  That's right...the failed potatoes from earlier.  They were infested with termites when I dumped them over and were super small.  I think they were too hot as well and the plants dies off before the roots had time to really develop.  I am going to try waiting until colder temps and move the can they were in.  We should get a harvest for Fall.  

That's all from the garden for now.  Hopefully next month will see us harvesting more goodies and preparing for Fall planting. 

Gardening Can Be Weird

June Garden Update...In July

Better late than never...that's what they say.

June was a busy month...full with swimming, pizza nights (at the pool), homemade popsicles and more swimming.  You'd think the kids would be water-logged...but we still have a lot of Summer to go!

June started out with a bang in the garden and then ended with some complications, mostly of the buggy and hot kind. 

This being my first year of having a REAL garden means there is quite the learning curve.  Being a newbie coupled with my almost visceral reaction to researching anything before doing it means we are learning on the fly y'all.  

That being said...Lessons learned in June:

Plant your zucchini in mid-July to try and avoid vine borers that will suck the life right out of your plants and leave you with wilting, sad shells of zucchini plants and if you manage to get ONE zucchini it will have a gross grub in it.  :( 

Also, make sure your soil has enough of the right minerals and such to avoid blossom end rot.  (Gotta get a soil testing kit)

Peas don't like it when it gets too hot and will start to brown and die.  Replant in Fall for more pea goodness!

Cucumbers don't typically like it when you transplant them.  I got lucky with one batch but the ones I moved to the pumpkin patch...no dice.

DON'T plant your carrots too close together or you will end up with something more like microscopic carrots...not even on the baby scale.  

Plant your onions sooner after you purchase them than later...poor babies didn't make it.  

This month I tried to wrangle the cucumbers that have taken over everything, keep all plants watered as best I can, planted more carrots where the failed onions lived and did  lot of looking up ways to control bugs naturally in the garden.  We ordered neem oil to try and get rid of all the pests eating my sunflowers and peppers and our Fall seeds and a good ground cover for Winter.  

 Here are some pics (only from the front of the house...no backyard pics yet): 

 The sincere pumpkin patch with failed transplanted cukes in the middle 

 Struggling jalapenos, basil, rosemary, strawberries, sunflowers and greens

 Box #2: Sunflowers, marigolds, cosmos, newly planted carrots, cuckes, dying zucchini and dill

Box #1: Jalapenos, carrots, zucchini, cukes, marigolds, peas

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Will be back with pics of the tomatoes and backyard zucchinis.  Looks like we may get to harvest potatoes this weekend!  

Total food grown this year:

2.93 lbs