Approaching Hell

Wildfires are raging from Canada to Hawaii, and much of the mainland is experiencing devastating weather events. 

In mid-Missouri, it's about to get too hot to garden. 

So this post is from more recent tolerable, and even mild, weather.

Aphids have appeared on new rose growth, so I've been trying to stay on top of them - unfortunately with Sevin, but the last couple of years I tried to use only neem oil and soap, unsuccessfully.  This past week I've been in Chicagoland, so I don't know what I'll find when I get back, but the 'Mother of Pearl' I managed to propagate from a cutting (the mother of Mother of Pearl died over winter) was looking lovely when I left.

The whole of the garden was actually doing pretty well, considering all the crazy weather this season.

But not the cucumbers.  They're barely hanging on.  

I harvested less than half a dozen early on, and nothing since. I planted two varieties: 'Marketmore' and 'Beit Alpha'.  Neither has taken off. They should have those wagon wheels hidden by now.  That's two years in a row I haven't had a decent cucumber crop, and they're usually coming out of my ears.

Surprisingly to me, the 'Calima' green beans are still producing well.  Were, I should say.  Surely by the time I get back in a few days they'll be done.  But I've thought they were surely done several times already.

I have three varieties of celery that are all performing well, so they obviously have no complaints about the weather.

This is the one I bought from a nursery that was labeled only "celery".  It has the largest stalks of all the varieties.

This pink celery is one I grew from seed.

Besides the pink celery, I started a dark green variety as well. I don't know which seed produced this plant that has white stalks, because I didn't have any seeds that should have produced it.

This one 'Brunswick' cabbage plant has become a giant.  The others of its kind are about half this size and more what I would have expected.

'Brunswick' and 'Ruby Perfection' (bottom-most) cabbage

'Cardinal' basil is happy enough. No problems there. But I never have any problems with basil.

I got one - count 'em, one - decent cantaloupe this year.  The caged ones have produced essentially nothing, and the ones that sprawled on the compost hill were the Small Persian variety that tasted only barely sweet.

Small Persian melon

The wire net bags kept the raccoons from eating them, though.  So next year I plan to plant my favorite sweet variety 'Savor' in a space where they can sprawl on the ground and bag them this way.

I don't know if the damaged part is where raccoons tried to get at them or if they were the result of insects in the wet soil beneath the melons.  Maybe both.  Whatever it was, it didn't get through the rinds.

Fun stuff:

One day I noticed a group of ammophila wasps on the tarragon.  I noticed them because I was trimming the plant (that's now quite large so I cut it in roughly the shape of a pyramid with hedge clippers).  I didn't want to disturb them since they're a beneficial insect, preying on moth and sawfly caterpillars, so the plant didn't get a finished haircut.  I don't know which particular ammophila these are, as there are over 200 different species.

I assume this is worm casting.  It looks like it, but it would have been a very, very large worm if it is.

So...until next time (and hopefully the garden hasn't burnt up by the time I get back to it)...

Still hot - but then....a miracle!

Somehow, it's not as objectionable to be this hot in July as it was in the middle of June.

BONUS:  The weather forecast was calling for .03" of rain overnight.  I'd take it if that's all we were going to get, but....

We got 1" of rain!  Happy dance.  We also got some hail, but thankfully, no damage.  The garden looks as relieved as I feel.

The jalapeños are still looking poorly and aren't fruiting yet, but the snack peppers are fruiting and managed to grow well with periodic watering.

foreground left: snack peppers from seed of grocery store peppers, 

right: volunteer 'Marketmore' cucumber; background: 'German Johnson' tomatoes

small sweet ("snacking") peppers

This year I'm trying a second cucumber - 'Beit Alpha'.  An internet page pronounced it "bite alfa" so that's what I'm going with.  It's reported to have a tender enough skin that it doesn't need to be peeled.  I'm not a fan of unpeeled cucumber, but I'm giving it a chance. 

'Beit Alpha'

My standby 'Marketmore' plant is really struggling, but a volunteer over in the tomato patch seems to be doing fine.  You can see a big difference in the form and surface of the two varieties even at this early stage.  

'Marketmore'

The plants themselves don't look much different, except the 'Beit Alpha' flowers are much larger.  And by not much different, I mean the leaves look pretty much the same.  In the picture below, 'Beit Alpha' is on the left, and 'Marketmore' on the right.  There's quite a difference here, but I believe it's due to the start they each got. I don't know why 'Marketmore' lagged so far behind, unless 'Beit Alpha' is more drought tolerant.  And possibly, 'Marketmore' was undermined more by moles, which are excavating the whole darned garden.

The literature says 'Beit Alpha' is best when picked small.  Small being relative term, I wasn't sure when to pick it.  I picked one this morning that's 5" long, and they're right that you can eat them without peeling.  The skin is very thin and tender.  Not bitter at all.  I'll be planting these again.

'Beit Alpha' cucumber

'Beit Alpha' cucumber

'Speckled Roman' tomatoes are looking good (much better than 'German Johnson' - see last post for comments on that).

Unfortunately, they look good to the raccoons, too.

I'm eager for these 'Sugar Baby' watermelons to be harvestable.  I suppose I'll have to share with the raccoons if I can't figure out a way to protect them.  Unlike other melons I've grown, these seem to have a lot more female flowers and are showing little fruits all along the stem.

That's a picture from three days ago. This is the same couple of babies after last night's rain:

They're fast!

They're growing along with (and being overtaken by) small Persian cantaloupe on what has been my compost hill in years past, so I haven't decided how I might try to protect them yet.  I think the cantaloupe maybe does better trailing on the ground than up on cages, which is how I always grow them to save space in the garden proper.  

I'm really loving this 'Rouxai' lettuce.  It's so dark and curly.  And now it's starting to show a contrasting neon green at the center.  This is the first year I've planted it, but it will definitely not be the last.  (By the way, the internet pronouncer says it's "rooksie".)

I thought it was rabbits eating my 'Calima' green beans, but now I'm wondering if it's deer.  They're keeping one half of the row pretty well mowed off.

The other half is lovely, tolerates the dry heat quite well, and produces lots of lovely, tender beans.

I don't know what keeps whoever is eating them from going on down the line, but they stop about midway.  The reason I think it might be deer is that they often walk a path across the garden, and they might just be munching on their way to the other side.  And it does seem like bunnies might not keep them mowed off like that.

'Calima' beans are long and thin, which I like for making dry cooked oriental beans with ginger, garlic, and cayenne pepper in sesame oil.  Halved, they also made a nice little mess of one of my favorite simple dishes: green beans and new potatoes boiled with bacon grease.

'Yukon Gold' potatoes and 'Calima' green beans

The potatoes were also tasty seasoned and oven roasted with 'Tender Sweet' carrots and 'All Blue' potatoes.  

The blue potatoes are not very appetizing when cooked.  The skin loses its rich dark purple-black color, and the inside (which doesn't look that great raw) turn kind of gray.  They look bluer in the picture than they actually look IRL, as the kids say online (in real life).  They taste good, but not good enough to make me want to grow them again.  Too bad, because the flowers on the plant are pretty, as are the raw potatoes.  But, 'Yukon Gold' potatoes are creamy and delicious, so I really don't need anything else unless I just want a pretty picture.

'All Blue' and 'Yukon Gold' potatoes, 'Calima' green beans, 

'Tender Sweet' carrots, and 'Babybeat' beets

'All Blue' potato flowers

Things should spark up quickly now with the much needed and much appreciated rain, and the tomatoes might even set fruit with the slightly cooler temperature.  Such a relief.

'Queen Lime' series zinnia - 'Orange Blush'

Photo dump & other notes

 I realized I had too many pictures to wait through two weeks.  So here's a quick photo dump.

tomato zoo:  'German Johnson' caged "pink" tomatoes

foreground: oregano and chives

All these lettuces were sown at the same time.  left: 'Green Ice', center: 'New Red Fire', right (sparse): 'Rouge D'Hiver'

'New Red Fire'

'Beit Alpha'  cucumbers

left: 'Calima' bush beans; right: 'Lilian's Caseload' peas

'Seaside' spinach

I hope to soon be able to sit on this bench and snack on ripe cherry tomatoes that I plan to train up on the wagon wheel.

'Supersweet 100' cherry tomatoes

When the potatoes first started coming up, it wasn't obvious which were 'All Blue' and which were 'Yukon Gold'.  Now that they're bigger, it's easy to tell.

'All Blue'

'Yukon Gold'

The beets are sprouted.  I sprayed them with neem oil before I left, but I'm afraid in two weeks' time, when I return, they might be full of insect damage.

'Babybeat' beets

I also felt I had to spray the rose bushes with Sevin (carbaryl) because Japanese beetles usually start showing up around the first of June, and I wanted to give them a fighting chance.  I hate to do it, though, and frankly, it might have been a waste since the blooms aren't yet open, and that's what the beetles attack.  I don't like spraying Seven when honeybees are about, and I could hear lots of buzzing in the thyme flowers on the floor of the rose bed.  

When I got a closer look, I realized it was not bees, but flies.  Large flies.

While flies also pollinate, I didn't feel as badly about them encountering a contact insecticide as I would have honeybees.   But...

I didn't know what kind of fly these were, as I don't think I've seen them before, and certainly not in the large numbers there were.  I set Google Lens to identifying them, and when I learned that they are in the Tachinid family, I felt badly again.  The Tachinids I'm used to seeing are much smaller.  Tachinid flies are quite beneficial besides their pollinating ability, as they parasitize caterpillars, so they could be a big help to control vegetable pests.  On the other hand, if they parasitize butterfly caterpillars, I wouldn't like that.  So I don't know how to feel about the whole deal.  Maybe I'll just call it a wash.

I'm amazed at the two Golden Muscat grapevines.  Early this spring I had to dig them out of the garden proper where they were taking over.  To do so, I had to disentangle them, so I chopped most of the tops off as well as most of the roots. There was about the same amount under gound as above ground - no more than two feet in each direction - when I put them in.  I just stuck them in the ground in the wildflower bed at the base of two birdhouse poles, watered them in, and left them to their own salvation.  Not only did they salvage themselves despite the dry March and April we had, they seem to be undaunted.

Overnight one night, somebody's baby fell into the basement window well.  Its mother may not have told it the cautionary tale of Peter Rabbit.  Although it was small, possums can scratch and bite (and hiss and growl, which are very unnerving, but not harmful), so it was quite the undertaking to get it out without injuring myself or it. I tried to prod it to walk up a board, but it was having none of it.  It rutted up some dead bald cypress leaves and stuck its head under them.  I assume, like a human baby, it thought if it couldn't see me, I couldn't see it.  

I tried to hoist it up using two thick pieces of tree limb, but couldn't keep it balanced on them. Finally, I lowered a bucket down over top with a quick flip to turn it upright, scooping the creature inside. Luckily it wasn't quick enough to get out before I lifted it out to the yard.  It moved quite slowly, probably worn out from its travails.  

Poor thing was rather lost when I turned it loose, and rather than running, ambled around in circles a while before it slowly struck out for somewhere else. I hope it found its way home before a large bird of prey spied it. (I once saw a bald eagle eating a possum at the edge of the yard.  It didn't leave much behind but fur.) 

Won't this baby's mom be surprised if it does show up!  "How on earth did you get out of that trap?!" Stories will be told for generations.

See you in a couple of weeks after I've spent the hours necessary to get two weeks' worth of weeds out of my garden and clip out dead flowers.