Melon results

The canteloupe was ripe, juicy, and really, really sweet. It was delicious! Hoping we get more.

An Unexpected Surprise

This canteloupe had been hanging from its vine, growing on the little trellis quietly for some weeks now. I've been watching it, but not really expecting to get anything from the canteloupe vines. The vine in the middle died and was pulled out...the little melon growing on it had fallen off and was eaten by birds and squirrels. I figured the other two vines would come out soon. But this morning when I was taking pictures of the boxes to update the blog, I found this melon had fallen off of the vine. I picked it up...it was heavy. I smelled it, it smelled like a canteloupe. The rind is yellow...could it be a perfectly ripe canteloupe??? We'll cut it later and post the results.

Week 15...finally on time!

For the last 3 weeks we took pictures every Friday but just didn't update the blog with them. So now we're all caught up. Hope to stay on top of things from now on!

Here is the strawberry and soon-to-be asparagus beds. The strawberry plants are busy putting out runners and I hope they fill the box! Next June we're sure to have a lot of strawberries.
In this box, we removed the dead squash plants and one of the canteloupe vines that didn't make it. We replaced them with more yellow squash and cucumber seedlings...hope we're past the bug season and they can produce without being destroyed. Still getting a lot of yellow and grape tomatoes from here, anywhere from 5-10 a day.

All of the broccoli have been removed! The cabbage plant, the rhubarb, and the onions remain. We are starting seeds indoors for fall and winter crops. (Don't want the squirrels to be digging up any seeds we plant!)
We got a cucumber from this box the other day...it looked fine but after a little while we realized it had a pickleworm inside it having a good time eating its way through. I just don't know if we're going to get anything else from here. There are a couple of female blooms on the zucchini -- if they don't produce a zucchini, we'll probably pull these out also.
These tomatoes although still producing, are showing some signs of distress...so this week most of the lower branches were removed that were brown or yellow. They were given a slow-release fertilizer and fresh extra soil was mounded up around their stems. The pepper plants are starting to set more fruit and are blooming nicely.

Week 14 (updated late)

I didn't take the pictures last Friday, so the angles of the photos are different than usual.

Side view of box closest to house. No matter how many times we've tried, we just can't make the tomato cages stand upright! Notice the yellow squash have died...due to the borers.
These broccoli are coming out this week...there's no more broccoli being produced and there's no use trying to keep them alive.
The zucchini and squash seem to be coming back...the growth all seems to be new and healthy...we just hope that there are no remaining bugs to get to the new "generation" of the plants.
Lots of cherry tomatoes!

Week 13 (updated late)

Even with frequent applications of sevin dust, we just can't keep the cabbage worms from destroying the broccoli...
and the little borer worms from getting into the zucchini and squash.

Week 12 (updated late)

Some of our tomato crop! Most of these were peeled, seeded, and diced, then frozen to be used later in soups and stews.
Some of the really delicious stuffed peppers we made with ground beef, rice, V8 and monterey jack cheese.

This was a really hot week, the plants just seemed to droop no matter how much we watered.

We have 37 large tomatoes. We can't eat them fast enough!

Week 11 ... Pickleworms.

The little canteloupe is getting bigger and has little stripes now. Several of the squash and canteloupe leaves are drying and curling. Don't know if it's caused by the heat or something else. We are getting LOTS of tomatoes from this bed!
The broccoli has just about quit producing...soon it will be pulled out and something else put in it's place. What to plant....?

Found out what the buggers are that have attacked the zucchini fruit, blooms, and vines: pickleworms. They are virtually impossible to kill but I will do my best! Trying to save unaffected vines at this time, but most of the vines all have some holes in them...and the zucchini harvested the last few days have had holes bored in them ... the larvae eat them from the inside out. Sevin dust and insecticidal soap are only hopeful attempts at this time. Hopefully, the pickleworms will get all they want from the zucchini and yellow squash and spare the cucumbers.

Maters galore!

We have been picking cherry and grape tomatoes daily, but I don't usually get pictures of them because we eat them too fast. Here's a picture of the large tomatoes (all various shades of red and one of the yellow variety).

The zucchini have either a fungus, a blight, it's too hot, too much water, too little water, or ??? I am still getting a few zucchini from the plants, but the leaves have almost all turned yellow and are curling up. There are fewer and fewer blooms. This week's Friday pictures will show how bad they look.

Week 10

K and I have been gone since Saturday, and it's rained the entire week. The plants look super good and we harvested lots of veggies this morning. All of this plus another quart size bag of broccoli and lots more cherry/grape/yellow tomatoes that Mom and Dad have eaten while we were gone.

Look at the little canteloupe!


More Sevin dust applied today for more broccoli worms/caterpillars.

Week 9 ... storms and bugs

This week was better in the garden!  Check out these zucchini.  The bottom one was overlooked for a couple of days.  (It was hiding.)  It's 11" long and it's the one on the scale weighing in at 1 1/2 lb in the picture below.  The top zucchini was one that was a baby on Wednesday.  Aunt Lori and Chris came by for a visit, and this one has grown so much just in two days!  I promise, it was only like 4 inches then.  

We got all of these today....what you don't see is the pound of broccoli we got earlier this week...and maybe another handful of cherry, yellow, and grape tomatoes that accidentally got eaten.  
These were from Tuesday.  Lori, this is the large zucchini you saw.  
Last night there was a terrific thunderstorm.  It was preceded by a gust front, with 50 mph winds and intense, sheeting rain.  The tv even said that funnel clouds were reported a few miles from here.  The two tomato plants on the right side of the box didn't fare too well with the high winds.  They toppled over and a few branches were broken off.  The plants were righted this morning and hopefully they'll not have to face too many more severe storms like the one last night.  
The zucchini didn't like the winds too much, either.  They are a little battered, but not too bad.  

There are several baby cucumbers on the bean pole, climbing and growing bigger each day.
More caterpillars....more Sevin.  
Lots of peppers!  The plants that were labeled green bells are growing long and thin and resemble poblanos.  Were the plants mislabeled?  We'll eat them, no matter what they are.  
Another view of some of the high winds that tossed these plants around.    
Front view of the tomato/pepper box.  The plants are full, we are just waiting for them to ripen!  

Week 8 update

This week we've had more problems.  The broccoli and cabbage (to a lesser extent) were savagely attacked by cross-striped cabbageworms.  They eat holes in the leaves, but fortunately, they are easily eliminated.  Mom and I picked off many, many of them and dropped them in a bowl of soapy water.   

THEN, I found tomato fruitworms on several of the tomato plants.  At the point I found them, they were only about 1/2" long, but they grow up to almost 2"...gotta get them early.  They burrow into the tomatoes and eat their way out, as well as defoliating the plants.  A couple of tomatoes were already infested.  After finding them, I tried the soapy water trick.  But these guys said, "Thanks for the bubble bath" and climbed right out of the bowl.  Nothing but poison will get rid of them, so yesterday all of the plants got a dusting of Sevin dust.  Killed 'em all.   

Hopefully the upcoming week will be better!  

Here is the new strawberry bed that the kids put together last weekend; behind it is the bed that will hold asparagus in a couple of months.  
Side view of the box, see the canteloupe vines climbing up their poles.  You might be able to see a yellow squash in the far side of the bed.  

This is one of the plants that we got broccoli from...when you click on the picture, notice the side shoots growing from the stalk that will form new heads.  

Can you see holes in the leaves?  Rotten little caterpillars.  

Back view of this box--you can see some of the bell peppers!  
This box is doing better.  Forgot to mention, we added a banana pepper plant to this box (formerly was potted.)  Most all of the pepper plants have several peppers on them...and the tomatoes are loaded; we're just waiting for them to turn red.