I realize that it is August and I am just now getting out my July garden update. Sorry.
July is a busy month for gardeners. There is not much “gardening” happening right now, but we gardeners are quite busy.
July is a time of harvest and preserving. This would explain why I have very little time for updates right now. I am up to my ears in jars, lids and hot water baths.
Boy is there some action in the garden right now. Good and bad.
Even with all the fungus I’m experiencing, I still love being in my garden. It makes me happy.
It’s pretty much a jungle right now. I suppose it could be worse, it could be a desert.
Closest to you are the beans (string-less, bush beans). Behind them are my fungus filled, pathetic, tomato plants. Behind them are the sunflowers.
What?!
Don’t ask. I lost my mind this spring and thought it would be cute to have sunflowers coming out of my tomato te-pee (to see a tomato te-pee go here). Bad idea. At the time I did not know we were going to have rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Between the rain, the fungus and the sunflowers, my tomatoes are shot.
Since, all my tomato plants decided to die; I planted some new ones…….. in July…….. because I’m no quitter! 🙂
What happened to my tomatoes? Well, fungus happened. They dropped all their leaves. All of them. I have vines with giant tomatoes hanging off of them. All my tomato plants look like Charlie Brown Christmas Trees. I guess I’m lucky I’ve gotten so many tomatoes considering the state of the plants.
The cucumbers couldn’t be happier. I guess they like to drown.
Sunflowers are so cute. I like the look at them. I like to eat the seeds. My children & chickens also love sunflower seeds.
I have tons of colorful, banana peppers. We love these. I freeze them, I snack on them. I cook them. I also give them to everyone I know because there’s so many of them in my garden.
Bell peppers also like my garden, and apparently lots of rain.
The great thing about squash and zucchini is that one plant will feed a village. My husband and children have now eaten all the squash they ever want to eat for the rest of their life. And I am still cooking it.
The bad thing about squash is this guy. Squash bug. Grrrrrr.
He (or she) lays these……… eggs. Which make more squash bugs, which destroy my squash plants and zucchini plants, and cucumber plants, and watermelon plants, and pumpkin plants, and cantaloupe plants, and every other gourd plant, and when they run out of those they’ll move to the tomatoes. Oh, how I hate squash bugs.
They are easy enough to kill – pick off the eggs & feed them to the pigs. Squirt the bugs with a water & Dawn dish soap solution – dead. It just takes a commitment (that I don’t have right now). To win against squash bugs you pretty much need to go to war every day.
Speaking of obnoxious bugs, my kale is recovering from the attach of the cabbage worm army. Meet the cabbage worm army here.
The bush beans are good.
We have already picked the bean plants clean 3 times. There are quarts and quarts of green beans on my pantry shelves making me smile. I will probably can one more batch before ripping the plants out of the garden and feeding them to the pigs. My kids are sick of picking beans and my pressure canner makes my house hot. I think we’re good in the bean department.
July is a busy time around here.
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Back to the canning!
-Candi
