Time to Plant Tomatoes

If this volunteer tomato can grow this big, it's definitely time to plant tomatoes.  And it was going to happen today except it rained during my window of opportunity this afternoon and continued to rain into this evening.  Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow.  In the meantime I'm pleased with how the veggies are progressing.

Spinach

 Garlic

 Volunteer pumpkin with carrots and 2nd planting of snowpeas.

 Bok choy with carrots behind

Bok choy with carrots behind.

 Tatsoi

 

Snowpeas in bloom

 

Mesclun

State of the Vegetable Garden

 Before - the tomatoes are dying out.

 After - the beans and tomatoes have been removed and greens planted: spinach, bok choy, tatsoi, and lettuces.

 

 Before - tomatoes in background on their way out.

 After - tomatoes gone.  Cucumbers left to grow on fence since still flowering.

Lettuce under netting trimmed of sun-scalded leaves and more greens planted.

 Cherry tomatoes left.  Will they ripen?

 Basil doing very well.  Time to pick some of it.

A harvest of a small handful of beans, three peppers, a cucumber, and green and one yellow tomato.

 

Peppers left alone since they are still flowering.

My Vegetable Garden in August

As with any gardening endeavor there are successes and failures. This year the peppers are a big success but the eggplants were a failure. I have no photo of the latter because I pulled them earlier this week.

Bell and Cubanelle peppers on Friday.

Among the tomatoes the Goldie and Rutgers are successes but the Amish paste are a disappointment.

I keep having to trim back the dying portions of the Amish paste. It's trying to put out new growth.

This one Rutgers is dying too, but the other plants are doing fine.

The Goldie is still flowering so there's hope for more tomatoes to come.

The zucchini were great while they lasted and though there are three plants hanging on despite the attack of the vine borers they are not producing at the level that they were and I wonder if I shouldn't pull them soon if no more fruit are visible.



Cucumbers have been an easy success. The deer have eaten some leaves on the outside of the fence but that's okay. Many more cucumbers to come.

In the too soon to tell if its a success or failure are butternut squash that I planted late.

Also broccoli planted weeks ago but only one seed germinated or survived the heat. I planted more today. I hope this one doesn't succumb to the heat, too.

In the same bed with the broccoli are two rows of lettuce that are doing okay. They get shaded by the netting which protects them from the bunnies. Spinach sowed at the same time did not survive. I will try that again later this month.

Finally, the bush beans will probably be a success. This is the second sowing of beans which became a prized attraction in my garden with the bunnies.

Me vs. Nature

Do you feel sometimes that as you try to tame the garden to do as you want that it's really a battle of you vs. nature? I had that feeling today. Why? Let me count the ways:

1. The tomato hornworm showed itself today. It's bathing (drowning) in soapy water. I'm not honoring it with a photo but here's the damage it wrought on my Rutgers tomato. Only evidence I could find of its rampage. I thought the marigolds would keep it away.


2. Something is eating my basil and I can't see what it is. Is it a bug or slug? Rabbits? No clue.


3. Two different varieties of tomatoes had stalks that wilted up. Anyone know what that would be? I cut out both stalks and put them in a trash bag for the trash can. Is it a wilt of some sort? Should I be worried about the rest of the plants?


I do have hope that I will have some victories as I look at the tomatoes forming and harvest zucchini for dinner.

Vegetable Garden - Mid June

Thankfully my vegetable garden got watered while I was gone for two weeks. I was pleased to see it did so well in my absence, nothing that a morning in there couldn't take care of. Weeds, fertilizing, and tying up wayward plants were on the agenda on Thursday.

Green pepper, Rutgers tomato, and cherry tomatoes.

Amish paste tomato, green beans, and first zucchini blossom.

Cubanelle pepper and as you can see I did not thin my onions as much as I should have.

A volunteer petunia in the vegetables. I transplanted another two of these volunteers to the perennial garden but left this one for now.



The fence is serving well as support for three tomato plants.

Beans and tomatoes are doing well together.

Lettuce is still producing amongst the peppers and eggplants.

Onions will soon be falling over ready for pulling.

Peas have been pulled from this bed and now I have to decide what else to plant with the zucchini.

Cucumbers also climbing the fence with nice basil plants in front.