Faery rings and other things

'Queen Lime red' zinnias

I've harvested the last of the cucumbers, beets, carrots and melons.  I'm only sad about the melons.  

There are still tomatoes ripening on all the plants, including the cherry tomatoes and the volunteer whatever it is - appears to be a cross between a cherry tomato and a full sized one I had planted last year.  I'm going to save some seeds from it and see whether it reverts to a different type or if maybe it got planted by a bird or other critter from someone else's garden.

There's about one more light harvest possible from each the cowpeas (black-eyed peas) and the lima beans.  Both have produced a good deal more beans than I've gotten from them in the past.

Purple hull cowpeas

'Henderson's Bush' lima beans

After all the tribulations getting cabbage growing from early cold, wet soil to rabbit and insect dining, there are one of each variety I planted left and making heads.

'Violaceo di Verona' (l) and 'Kalibos' (r)

'Violaceo di Verona'

Next year, I'm going to plant a fall crop of cabbage and skip the spring planting.  I'm also going to try something I saw online about ways to combat cabbage moth (and thus cabbage moth caterpillars).  Suppposedly, the moths are territorial, so if you hang decoys, they'll go elsewhere. I don't know if it will work, but it's worth a try.

Speaking of insect pests,  aside from my new grapevine, which seems to be a pest magnet, I had very little in the way of problems in the vegetable garden this year, perhaps because of the hard cold winter we had.  Normally, I've had quite a few tomato hornworms and oodles of grasshoppers.  This year, I only caught three hornworms and saw less than half a dozen grasshoppers.  I'm not complaining.

'Golden Muscat' grape 

The Japanese beetles were also much reduced this year, thank heaven, but I did still have to spray Sevin and bag my  raspberry and rose buds for a couple months.  They seem to have moved on for the season - fingers crossed.  

'South Africa'

I found this guy on my celery, but I don't think it could do much damage by itself.  It's the larva of a black swallowtail butterfly, so I'm happy to leave it alive.

 It's been a frog-filled year.  They've been hopping about my garden all spring and summer.  Here's one at the water hydrant:

Last year, there was one large toadstool in the yard.  This spring, there were two in its place.  Now there's a whole fairy ring.

Till next time...

Happy trails.