More Than a Handful

Veggies! I Instagram'd it.

That's a patty pan squash, two bell peppers, a cucumber, a zucchini, and two hot peppers.

How Doth My Garden Grow?

Everything is getting big, and a few things are ripe enough to pick. All the hard work is paying off! First we have some tomatoes.

Aji Cristal peppers, they should be harvested when they are nice and yellow like this (they do eventually turn red but the flavor is not as good). They are hot peppers, not sweet, so don't mistake them for banana peppers.

Mini bell peppers... "Cupid" is the name of this particular variety. They should turn red in another month.

Ugh... this guy has built his luxury condo right among all the Pink Brandywine tomatoes. I'll let the squatter stay, since presumably he's catching bugs.

Dear lusciously plump tomato, please turn red soon. Thanks.

Patty pan squash (also called scallop squash, UFO squash, or pâtisson for the Francophiles out there).

Gherkins! These will be slicing cucumbers but they look so cute when they're the size of my pinky.

I Got a Turnip

I pulled up a turnip. Yep. There it is. I am proud.

Projected Pepper Overload

A couple weeks ago I realized that I had somehow mixed up two flats of seedlings. Lesson learned: label seedling flats clearly and directly in a manner than cannot be mixed up when you adjust things. So here you see two rows of what I originally intended to be tomatillos. I was looking forward to a huge overabundance of tomatillos! They cook down into a delicious jam.

But no. These are all pepper plants. And about half of what has been planted. Originally I thought I transplanted 8 hot peppers, 20 bell peppers, and 30 tomatillos. But I actually have 8 tomatillos, 20 bell peppers (see, I didn't mix those ones up), and 30 hot peppers. 30! And they all look fantastic and healthy and strong. What am I going to do with all those peppers? Here is a tomatillo husk from the other side of the garden, by the way, looking nice and plump, waiting for the fruit to fill it out from inside!

Envying the Whistle Stop Cafe

Green tomatoes! Nothing much to be said but they are growing and growing... I cannot wait! It's so tempting to pluck a few just to make fried green tomatoes...

Squash Bugs

Oh, I hate these suckers. Squash bugs. They nibble on the soft rinds of the zucchini and summer squash, leaving unsightly spots and, worse, can also cause the plant to wilt very suddenly. They hide their eggs on the underside of zucchini and summer squash leaves.

They also put them on the stalks, just because they can. My baby patty pan squashes are in peril!

This one stuck her eggs way down in a crevice where she thought I wouldn't find them. Ha!

Here's one of those bad boys. This is the down side of using straw mulch to keep the weeds down... it provides a perfect place for these bugs to run and hide when I am on the warpath.

I don't particularly want to drench the entire garden in chemicals. My solution? Remove the eggs manually. It's easy, but time consuming. Wrap some tape around your fingers and go over every leaf to get the eggs off. First I tried no-name, cheap brown packing tape (pictured here) since I thought it would be gentler on the leaves, but found it didn't pick up eggs as well. I found a lot more success with clear Scotch packing tape. It doesn't stick to the leaf, so don't worry about that, but you do have to be aggressive. You have to push hard on the tape to get the eggs, and you will smash the leaf a little. The plant will recover from some leaf damage... it may not recover from the bugs.

You can probably just pick the eggs off with a fingernail. I prefer to use the tape, because once I'm done I fold the tape over, trapping the eggs inside, ensuring there is no possible way they're going to hatch (or if they do, there's nowhere for the bug to go).

Gadzukes!

I was out of town for most of this week, but look what was waiting for me when I got home! Okay, that one on the left is a little funky looking, but we'll forgive him since he's the biggest of these three lovely zucchini. Time to bake some bread.

Summer Squash

First yellow summer squash is almost ready to pick! I've eagerly beenwatching it grow...

Corn 'n Beans

Stuff is growing! Transplanted corn is happily growing, though it remains to be seen if all that seed-starting and transplanting efforts will really be worth it at the end of the summer. Beans are happily climbing their bamboo tipis. Crossing my fingers the Japanese beetles will not find them this year.

The Mysterious Carrot Radish

When I pulled up the first group of these Cincinnati market radishes (from Seed Savers) I had forgotten they were this elongated variety. So when I pulled up these carrot-like suckers I was completely befuddled. Thanks to modern technology I was able to check the website for what I had ordered, and promptly felt like an idiot. :)

Purple Tops

Turnips are flourishing in the garden. Bad soil? Spotty weather? They don't care!