Bountiful Harvest

September arrived with an overflowing garden! I spend as much time harvesting as I did on some earlier days of tending the young plants. And it is worth it... behold:

Patty pan squash, yellow and purple string beans, cucumbers, zucchini, bell peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, and hot peppers.

Moving into Harvest Time

As August comes to an end, I know there may be only a few weeks until frost, so I'm enjoying the fruits of my labor.

Here's my colorful harvest of tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, patty pan squash, cucumbers, and a few mini red bell peppers.

A Spacing Issue

So the instructions for the summer squash seeds I purchased said "Sow 3 seeds every 12" (thin to 1 plant), 1/2-1" deep, in rows 5-6' apart." Sounds good. Because I have quite a bit of space, I gave them a generous two or more feet between each plant in the row. Well... you can see below, not all squashes are created equal.

Here we have two enormous plants flanking a much smaller one. The big ones are my patty pans (Sunburst) while the one in the middle is a straight-neck yellow squash (Slick Pik). The poor straight-neck is barely hanging on in the shade from those big bullies! Clearly it was unwise to alternate varieties along the row, but still... imagine the tangle of squash I would have if I had multiple patty pans spaced only a foot apart! Next year I'm definitely growing patty pans again, but they'll be given plenty of room to do their thing without crowding the rest of the residents.

Baby Pumpkins

Pumpkins! These guys have it easy. I planted the seeds in low hills and laid landscaping fabric over the ground. No competition for water or space, and they are doing fantastic. First is a mini pumpkin... actually a gourd. They reach their mature size fast, which is no surprise because they are palm-sized. It will take a while for their rind to harden; they will also turn a deeper gold/orange color.

This little champ is of the Hercules variety. I plan for him to be huge and require more than one candle to light up the inside. 

The Big Picture

This is the most prolific part of the garden. The picture is a little embarrassing, due to the weeds that are, well, everywhere. But all the plants seem to be getting plenty of water, thriving actually, and I don't have 8 hours a day to spend on the garden, so there you have it. In the foreground are the summer squashes (zucchini in the lower left). Behind that is a row of cucumbers, but you can't see them. Behind that you can see bell peppers, and behind those are the tomatoes. I've used a modified version of the Florida weave to trellis them. Look it up! It works very well.

The first row of tomatoes has determinate varieties (meaning they have a pre-determined size they will grow, i.e. they will stay short). They are trellised using shorter wooden stakes (I think they are 4' stakes stuck about a foot into the ground). The two rows behind are indeterminate, meaning they will climb up to the sky if you give them enough time and a tall trellis. Those are staked with 6' metal rods, the kind that you can get at the garden store and are coated in green plastic. I also have metal T-posts at the ends of each row for reinforcement, so the whole thing doesn't fall over.

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.

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...

Babies!

First of the tiny veggies I get to see grow up. Sauteed yellow squash and zucchini are not too far away!