Thursday, July 31, 2008

Garden Progress Pics!

I'm long past due to post some pictures of how the garden is coming along. In early June, it looked like this. Check it out now!
And forgive the weird picture arrangements as I try to figure out blogger - coding html into a WYSIWYG editor is killing me! When I figure out how to get the formatting the way I want it, maybe I'll post the code changes.









The pics face south. On the left, the moonglow tomato (left of wall of water) and the tomatillo (right of wall) dominate the pic. The wall is around my Sungold cherry tomato, a late addition that is a bit blocked from the sun by the huge tomatillos. On the right, the monster in the foreground is the papaya squash. The okra is in the wall of water in the foreground - it's producing , and has the most beautiful creamy white/yellow flowers!, but hasn't gotten that big. There's peppers behind it, tomatoes behind those, and the papaya squash monster behind those. The dying melon is to the east and underneath the papaya.

And, lest I forget to mention, the upside-down tomatoes! They are getting pretty big and have lots of tomatoes forming! Not as big as my Moonglow, but bigger than some of my other tomatoes in pots (probably because I started these earlier). I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do when the tomatoes get big and weigh down the branches, since squash are right underneath both plants...




Here's the delicata squash on 7/4, and then again on 7/28, AFTER I cut it WAY back so it wasn't blocking the entrance and walkways. This plant literally was growing a foot a day last week. I also discovered tons of squash forming!!!


Eggplant budding, ridiculous giant sunflower, my morning glories/moonflowers vining like crazy (hopefully both the sunflowers and the vines will have flowers soon!) The vines are now growing 6in-1ft a day. Some are reaching the top of the arbor (8 ft?). I am training them along twine strung in a sunburst pattern (hard to see in the pic) - hopefully it will be pretty! Both of the sunflower shots are taken facing north.


3 comments:

  1. It all looks great! I really like the idea of upside-down tomatoes.

    As for the cucumber beetles, like you already concluded pyrethrin is really not healthy for your garden. However natural it may be, and while some people might consider it organic, it's really quite toxic. If you are using a product that kills on contact anyway, you may as well just kill them by hand. Tobacco is another plant used to make 'natural' insecticide, but this too is not a good idea and it's just as toxic for gardens as it is for people.

    If they are the same as what we call here the Colorado Potato Beetle, they are killed when put in a bucket of water. Walking around the garden with a bucket that has a little water in the bottom, then knocking them off the plant into the bucket with your hand, can be an effective way to kill them. Of course you have to repeat this every few days while the beetles are present.

    The other good way to deal with garden pests is to introduce or encourage naturally occurring predators. Bt is a product that works on this principle. It's a naturally occurring bacteria, that attacks the gut of caterpillar like insects. Since Bt has to be eaten to be effective, it can only target insects that eat your plants. While I've never tried it, I understand it's effective against the cucumber beetle larvae in the spring.

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  2. thank you both for the encouragement! I'm pretty happy with how it's all going so far, save a few exceptions (melon, for instance).

    Patrick, thank you for your advice. I'm definitely going to look into Bt, and I think the beetles are back in force enough that the water bucket idea might be worth it. They're damaging the patty pan squashes now - just aesthetically, but that means I can't give them away and am stuck with more squash!

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