Weekly update - July 6

The holiday weekend arrived and we decided to go away ,so we stopped by the garden on the morning of July 2 and watered it very well.  Then we did not come back until July 6.  I think the garden fared very well, don't you?

Several early plants are producing seed now. I will allow them to go to seed either to use or save the seeds.  First seed is Dill.  You can see the seed heads are nicely formed.  We will see if the birds leave them alone.

Dill going into flower

Several of the greens are finished producing as the heat has made them bolt.  Arugula and mustard are being allowed to go to seed so I can save the seed for next year and use the seed to make my own mustard respectively.

The Broccoli Rabe is starting to produce.  In some ways they look exactly like regular broccoli, but the heads are not as compact or as large.  To harvest you just break the stem and leaves of near the central  stalk,  the stems are softer and more edible than traditional broccoli so you can eat and stir fry and such with it.  I find the taste to be slightly sweeter than regular broccoli.

The dwarf peas have gone into flower and I hope will produce peas soon.  I don't eat them so this is strictly for the husband.

There are just the starts of acorn squash too.  I can see that this garden is finally going to be a producer of many vegetables.  The slow start to the season was really beginning to make me doubt we would enjoy any fruits of our labor, but not we are getting into the full swing.

The beans are budding too so I hope to get a nice crop of both fresh beans and dried beans.  The climbers are beans that I want to dry the bush I hope to make into many dishes.

Problems Noticed

We are growing our vegetables with no chemicals.  I cannot say we are organic, because I know that some of the gardeners around us are using pesticides and such, but we are not.  As a result, however, we are getting some bug damage to the plants.  We are hoping that once our companion plants begin to flower, some of the pests will be repelled.

For now we noticed damage to the tomatoes.

There is also this wilting that is occurring on the bottom branches of the tomatoes.  I removed a number of the lowest branches in the hope that if this wilt was something in the soil (I had been warned about it) it would be helped by removing the branches.  and although it took my plants longer to develop it than those gardening around me, I still have it.  It does not seem to be effecting the growth of tomatoes as you can see by these romas producing nicely.







This plant looks like it is dead, but it is not, however, you can see the blossom end rot on the upper tomato.  I decided to removed the wilted branches giving the healthy branches better sun light.  So far the plant is not dead.

We have still gotten good rain and the sun in this patch is perfect, so if the evenings willjust warm up I think we will have a nice crop of Tomatoes from all the various bushes.  Peppers are slow to get going, but I still hold out hope.