VEGGIES!

I've been lax in posting, lax in gardening, just lax all around, but it's so hard to get motivated to do much in these dog days of summer.  The vegetable garden keeps on trucking along without me.  I've been taking lots of photos, just not posting many of them.  When I'm sitting in front of the fan (did we really need to save money and not use the window unit air conditioners this summer?), I like to go back and look at photos from earlier in the season to see how much things have changed because the summer goes so quickly.  The veggie garden on May 18th:

Less than 2 months later on July 11th:

But something is causing the zucchini leaves to turn yellow and die.  I strongly suspect squash vine borer, but I can barely get in there to remove dead leaves, so there's no way I'm examining all the vines for borer evidence and performing surgery.  On the 11th: 

On the 14th:

And today, the 15th, after removing the worst of the leaves:

The bright side is that the nasturtium are starting to flower now that they have some sunlight (photo from the 11th before I removed all of the ugly leaves):

And the nasturtium flowers are almost glow in the dark bright:

That's it for photos from the 11th.  From here on out it's all yesterday (7/14) and today (7/15).

Yesterday morning at 7am we had a hard enough downpour that I woke up and I sleep through everything.  But I must have instinctively known that one of my babies was in trouble.  The Celebrity tomato had an accident:

When I carefully picked up the broken stalk I discovered that it had only bent and split a little, not snapped:

So I decided to try and save it.  I had my doubts, but I tied it up and though this photo is from yesterday, I assure you that it looks exactly the same today, so maybe it will survive: 

The purple bell peppers are coming right along:

In fact, overnight they started turning purple:

I think some of them might beat the Big Early Bell peppers to our plates:

Know what this is?  Oh, I'll just tell you.  It's the first Red Peter Pepper blossoms!  I think we may actually get some of these this year:

 

The Royal Purple Bush beans are producing nicely and tomorrow will be harvest day:

The first cucumber will be in my belly tomorrow:

Unfortunately that's the only cucumber so far, though the vine is getting pretty tall and flowering nicely.  I may have to start artificial insemination soon:

The Husky cherry tomato plant yesterday (I'm estimating 3 more days to that tomato): 

The Sweet 100 cherry tomato below may make it one more day before I can't stand it anymore, but I think I will probably just have to pop it in my mouth tomorrow: 

It's not the most attractive plant, but look at all those tomatoes: 

Even more of which are showing signs of ripening today:

Staying in that neighborhood...we have actual tomatoes on the Brandywine Pink plant: 

And even more on the other plant: 

 

If you've stuck around this long, you're probably interested in seeing more tomato photos.  Bonnie Originals:

And next to them in the same container, but much greener, Celebrity: 

Ichiban eggplant on July 14th:  

Does anyone know when I should harvest these?  On the 15th:

One more look at the whole veggie garden: 

 

This week I will be starting more Kentucky Wonder beans, more Royal Purple Bush beans, more carrots, and more zucchini -- all from seed.  I read that it's not too late in my area to start summer squash, especially fast growing ones like zucchini, and maybe this way I'll have replacement plants when the 8 I'm currently growing croak. 

How's your veggie garden growing?

Comments

[Layanee]

Heather: I am so impressed with your veggie garden! Very good job! I love the vegetables and they do feed the stomach but I could not live without the flower gardens. How about you?

[Heather's Garden]

Layanee -- I definitely love my flowers too, but I get a lot more satisfaction from growing edible crops. I'm more of a results person and the edible crops are beautiful and give me something to eat, so if I had to choose between them and flowers...well you can see where I'm going here. On the other hand, flower gardens do give more instant gratification. Thank goodness we don't need to choose!

[Kim]

Okay, I am officially jealous. These veggies all look amazing, Heather!!

By the way, I don't think that the yellowing on your zucchinis is squash vine borer. I've had those before, and the whole branch dies when they get going. It looks like you might have some of the white dots you see when you get powdery mildew, though... do you see that, too? Looks like someone dropped talcum powder on your plants in dots, if that's what it is. I have it on my bush cucumbers right now, but I just have tried to pull off the worst leaves to give it some circulation. *sigh*

[Heather's Garden]

Kim -- I think one of the plants has SVB, but the others probably have powdery mildew (or that wilt that cucumber beetles spread) and hopefully removing the diseased leaves will help. I'm always jealous of how pretty your garden looks (even when you claim jungle status)!

[Sue]

Wow! I'm really admiring the success you've had with the container vegetables here (the images are beautiful.) It's very inspiring to see. Aren't the Ichiban eggplant great? I usually harvest mine when they're about 8-10 inches, though I probably could wait a bit longer.

[Heather's Garden]

Sue -- Thanks! I don't know if you went back to read in the archives, but we container garden the veggies because the soil in this yard is highly suspect and full of all manner of garbage. We're actually cooking up our first Ichiban eggplants tonight. I found your blog searching for information to prove to my husband that they didn't need to be peeled, soaked, or salted. I hope I like them!