July 1 Garden

Things are finally starting to take off in the garden... weeds included of course.  I need to mow again! :)

Tomatoes, Beans

My box o' carrots is sporting their fern-like secondary leaves, and the corn is a few inches high.  The squash seeds I poked in around the soaker hose ends have come up, and are trying to stay alive.  We have a pest issue.  The yard-long beans are all munched to death, and some of the Kentucky Blue and Blue Lake beans are gone.  The tomatoes are getting bushy and flowering nicely.  I spent some time the other day pinching off some of the smaller suckers on the indeterminate vines - of which most of them are.  The cucumbers are slowly growing - except one, which is growing quite well and already has some mini-cukes on it!  Yay!  There is lettuce almost ready to harvest in my other raised box.  All self-seeded from last year. The herbs I put in are doing well (marjoram, thyme, rosemary, flat-leaf parsley), though trying to flower and seed.  I'm not sure if I can or should try to do anything about that.  Cilantro is popping up everywhere, which I'm glad, as I didn't harvest much of it last year and it died.  Today I found all the long-lost seeds from 2007 that I never planted.  I crossed my fingers and put in some green onions, lettuces, oregano, and sage in the box too.  The jalapeño starts and cukes in that box are not doing as well as their counterparts in the garden proper.  It may be because they dry out faster there.

Baby Cuke!

The girls finally planted the marigolds that had been languishing in their teeny little 4-packs.  Some seem to be making it (planted near the squash to [please, Jesus!] help deter squash bugs), others were "picked" - root and all - by Organique I assume.

More Tomatoes, Peppers

The pests devouring the green beans are, I think, grasshoppers.  They are VERY tiny - well, they were last week.  Like 1/8 of an inch.  Today, they're bigger.  I smashed 3, which leaves 20,897,247,298 left in there.  I have put in a request to purchase something called Nolo Bait from a berry farmer who is buying it in bulk.  We'll see if I can get some and do some damage to these critters.  In the meantime, I need to apply some diatomaceous earth, maybe.

Partly-munched Bean

Do you see the grasshopper center in the photo?

There is another one, center on the pepper leaf.  So tiny!  So wicked!

I hope your gardens are growing well!  I hear *some* areas even have things to harvest by now.  I try not to envy, remembering we live decently without AC most of the time. :)