The One That Got Away

The garden is looking particularly lush right now.  Hot days are being interspersed with rainy ones. So far, after that early freezing business, I think this is the best year yet in the garden.

Not all is perfect, however.  Tomato hornworms are out and feasting.  I've seen only a little damage so far, but I feel sure I haven't found all the worms that are responsible.  They're good at hiding, often hanging on the underside of leaves.  When I find them, I clip or pinch off the leaf they're on, drop them on the ground and step on them.  It's kind of gross.  Actually, it's very gross if they're big, because you can feel them "pop" when you step down.  It's not as gross as if you try to just pull the worm off the leaf.  Try it sometime.  You'll see what I mean.

Tomato hornworm

It's even grosser than smashing Japanese beetles with your fingers.  I don't like doing it, but I don't like them eating up my tomato plants either.  And they're piggies.  Just one can eat a lot.  It's easy to know if you've got hornworms.  Usually near the top of your tomato plant, you'll see the sticks of stems and leaves left bare.

Tomato stems and leaf petioles stripped by a hornworm

Another sign is large caterpillar poop.  

Hornworm frass

Then you know it's time to start looking carefully for the culprits.  Newly hatched hornworms are nearly impossible to find, but since they're such voracious eaters, they grow fast and can get to be the size of your thumb.  The name 'hornworm' is a little misleading - or at least I don't usually think of horns as being on the rear end of creatures.  But it is on these guys.

The 'Black Beauty' tomato I put on a trellis is coming along nicely if a little more slowly than the rest which are in cages.  I'm looking forward to the taste test on this one.  I haven't grown it before.

The 'Missouri Pink Love Apple' and 'Gold Medal' varieties already have full-size tomatoes - still green - and lots of small ones.

'Gold Medal' - red and yellow striped variety

'Missouri Pink Love Apple' - medium red

It seems like these have been at this stage for a long time.  Maybe it's the watched pot syndrome.

The 'Marketmore' cucumber vines suddenly went wild.

As did the 'Golden zucchini' plants in the tomato cage.  Next year I'm going to provide a cage with a bigger diameter because it's becoming a little difficult to get to the fruits all crowded in with the large leaf stems in this one.

I also have some cucumber and zucchini plants growing in the compost pile, but not on trellises.  So, the one that got away was on the ground hidden under large vining leaves.  I finally noticed it today.

'Marketmore' cucumbers and 'Golden zucchini'

Rather than throw it out, I baked that big bad boy in the oven, peeled and seeded it, and then put it in a blender to make a pumpkin pie substitute.

Volunteer feverfew growing up the side of the compost heap to the 'Golden zucchini' at the top.

All the cilantro has bolted and gone to seed (coriander), so today I pulled it up and shook some seeds loose back into the place where they were growing, then put down some grass clippings for mulch.  Since I don't have any disease or pest problems on the cilantro, I go ahead and let it regrow in the same area during the same year - and sometimes in subsequent years.  I may be pressing my luck.

I can't keep up with the oregano. It's perennial, and the patch gets a bit bigger each year and has to be pulled up at its outer limit or I'd have nothing but oregano in the garden.  In fact, some variety or kin was taking over a portion of the wildflower garden that's next to my vegetable garden.  And that's why I now have a new rose garden.  I dug out the oregano (or kin), turned the soil and put a black plastic cover on the bare ground through the winter.  I didn't get it all, and I won't be surprised if it chokes out more wildflowers in places where I missed it.

 All my oregano is volunteer from an original plant I bought and planted in 2014, variety 'Calypso'.  By this time of year, it's getting somewhat scraggly, but it produces pretty little purple flower clusters. 

'Calypso' oregano

Even if you planted your garden in straight rows, 'Calypso' would still be ornamental, as would the red okra varieties.  How pretty is this 'Jing Orange' flower and the red stems and buds:

That's it for the vegetables in this post.  The rest is pictures of the true ornamentals.

Tithonia (Mexican sunflower)

Ornamental pepper 'Black Pearl' - 

Some of the saved seeds produced green-leaved plants and arrowhead shaped  purple peppers

Ornamental pepper 'Black Pearl'

Lisianthus (Prairie Gentian)

Lupine Mix 'Tutti Fruitti'

Dahlias

Roses

'Shazam!'

'Grand Amore'

Guttation is the condition of water droplets exuding from leaf edges, not to be confused with dew. The phenomenon occurs when there's an abundance of water in the soil being taken up by the roots, and the humidity surrounding the leaves is too high to allow the water puled into them to evaporate normally.  It doesn't happen often, but it always tickles me.  Plant sweat.  Sort of.

And have I mentioned that I love Stargazer Lilies?