Garden Update

Here are some pictures of the progress in my Big Garden:

This is the same view of my garden.  The picture on the left was taken May 29, and the picture on the right was taken today, June 21st.  Pretty good progress in one month!

Things are looking pretty healthy!  

This is apparently an abundant rutabaga crop.  It needs some thinning and weeding of course, but we won't be hurting for rutabagas.  Come to think of it, I've never been hurting for rutabagas, even when I've never had one. 

Green beans. 

Onions

Basil

Potatoes!  So far, not being devoured by potato bugs!

More potatoes

A pretty durn healthy looking transplanted squash of some kind.  The farmer guy didn't want anyone planting transplanted vining plants here.  He said that transplanting weakens the plant and invites bugs and disease.  So far, the transplants are far healthier and more robust than the seeded vining plants.  Shhh.  Don't tell him I planted transplants. 

Remember Peggy?  My grouchy garden neighbor?  Well here is a picture of her garden. 

 Pretty sparse huh?  Some gardening expert she's turned out to be!  Oh, and here's a picture of the offending tomato plants.

See any infringing upon her garden? Do you even see a garden?  Me neither.  Guess I'm ok. 

I spent a great deal of time inspecting each plant for bugs.  And let me tell you, going over each plant, leaf by leaf is as tedious as looking for head lice on your kid.  Last week I had tried borax spray as a bug deterrent, and I can't say that it worked great, but a lot of my plants have been untouched.  I also gave in and bought and used some insecticidal soap spray labelled safe for organic gardens.  I've decided that the term "safe for organic gardens" means it doesn't work all that well.  I found about 10 potato bugs, several larvae, and some egg masses on the potatoes and eggplants.  I also found multiple cucumber beetles on my squash and other vining plants.   I also found a squash bug which I promptly squashed.  There were also several moths flying around which I'm sure means that they will leave eggs somewhere.  This constant bug vigilance feels somewhat like I'm waging a war.  Not so fun. 

But on the bright side, I've got a baby pepper! 

I also spent some time getting rid of the suckers on my tomatoes.  Suckers are the sprouts that grown between a leaf and the stem.

It doesn't hurt anything to leave them on, but it takes energy away from producing tomatoes.  I'd rather have fewer big tomatoes than a very leafy, tall tomato plant with no fruit.  Sometimes its hard to get rid of perfectly healthy-looking greenery but it benefits the plant in the long run.  (If you click on this picture,  you can see a sucker close up.)  And if you look below, you'll see another sucker.