Are these the dog days?

Whatever they are, they're good for the garden.

The Charentais melons are still looking great.  I hope I actually get some melons before the raccoons do.  This will be the test for planting them amongst marigolds.

Charentais melon

The 'Marketmore' cucumbers are also looking good, and I've been harvesting one to three a day for about a week.

For some reason, cucumbers are the absolutely easiest fruit to miss amongst the leaves, even if the leaves don't seem that dense, as this giant on the left can attest.  They're not so good when they get that big, so I have to toss them.

'Marketmore' is a very nice cucumber that isn't at all bitter, so I've seen no reason to even attempt to grow another kind.

Tatsoi and green beans are coming along beautifully (after the initial bunny-stripping of the beans).  

Tatsoi

'Calima' bush beans

I've planted a row of 'Red Swan' bush beans between those two rows, and they're coming up quite nicely, too.

Compost hill's planting of striped Japonica corn has run its course, but the 'Winter Luxury' pie pumpkins are still having a heck of a year.  I've harvested about 10 already, and there are still a lot more on the vines that have not yet ripened.

half-ripe 'Winter Luxury' pie pumpkin

'Winter Luxury' pie pumpkin

I processed four pumpkins into puree to make pies and soups.  I baked one that I cut in half and scooped out seeds.  It was fine, but the absolute easiest and quickest was the instant pot method.  I chucked whole pumpkins into the pot on a trivet, added a cup of water with each, and pressure cooked on high for 25 minutes.  The skins practically fell off.  Soooo much easier and quicker (and easier on the hands) than the last time I processed pumpkins for pie 30 years ago, when I cut them into small pieces, carved off the rinds and boiled them.

No less messy, however.

While the corn is an ornamental flint type, I did test some for eating. 

You have to get it while the kernels are still young, and even then, they're tiny, tough and chewy.  They taste like corn, but if I were growing corn to eat, I'd choose a sweetcorn variety.

striped Japonica ornamental corn

Also on compost hill, one daisy gourd plant survived the early rabbit and deer feeding.  All I've been able to discover so far is this one gourd.  I hope when I harvest the rest of the pumpkins and clear the hill, that plant will have produced more, so I can see if they change color.

It's aptly named: daisy gourd.

stem end

side view

bottom view

The late-planted poblano peppers I grew from seeds of a grocery poblano are fruiting now.

And I'm harvesting the snack peppers I grew the same way.

My fall-planted peas are growing well, and if I don't forget to spray them with deer and rabbit repellant this evening, maybe I'll actually get to harvest some, unlike my spring crop that the moles ate before they even broke ground.

'Premium' peas

'Premium' peas

Some other harvested crops:

yellow pear tomatoes and early purple Vienna kohlrabi

'Cardinal' (green) and 'Amethyst' (purple) basil

The 'German Johnson' plants, of which I only managed to get two planted (drat!), are putting on fruits now that the hell temperatures of July are gone.  (Back then, a Facebook friend posted: "God, whatever you're cooking, it's done."  ;-D )

Fall cabbages are alive and in not-too-bad shape.

'Omero'

'Primo Vantage'

I've sprayed them with Bt a couple of times to prevent cabbage moth caterpillar feeding, but it looks like somebody found a window in which to snack.

It's hard to NOT eat these 'Fallgold' raspberries before they're completely ripe, because I still have a memory of the taste of them from last year.  Like honey drenched raspberries.

I finally had the time and opportunity this year to work on my paths.  I seeded them with rye and fescue, but of course, the crabgrass is taking over.  At least it looks like grass and not dandelions and clover.

And that gets us over to the flower gardens.

'Pat Austin'

'Winter Sun'

'Razzle Dazzle'

'Our Lady of Guadalupe'

top: 'Shazam!', bottom: 'Our Lady of Guadalupe'

Thankfully, the Japanese beetles haven't been bad this year, but at the moment, I'm battling rose aphids:

They're hard to control, and here's an article that tells you why:  Learn How Aphids Can Quickly Overrun Your Garden

I sprayed them for a few days with Sevin, then switched to the less environmentally detrimental pyrethrin.  I didn't notice them until they'd already produced enough honeydew to cause sooty mold to grow on the leaves.  That's impossible to not notice.

Yech.  

I'll go back to dealing with the aphids and leave you this time with a picture of one of the sweetest roses in the garden...'Our Lady of Guadalupe'.

UPDATE ten days later:

The daisy gourd's color is changing...

 

We're baking

 

February may have been particularly cold, May may have been particularly wet, and July the hottest month on record, and damage was done, but in spite of it, some things seem to be unaware.

Fortunately, the little yellow pear tomatoes are tasty enough, because I mistakenly planted 7 of them instead of the 'German Johnson' variety I intended.  

I may be getting only half a dozen 'German Johnson' fruits because first it was too cold for them, then too wet, and now too hot.  To say nothing of the fact that I only ended up with two plants.

One of the 'German Johnson' tomatoes is starting to ripen.  I hope it gets ripe enough for me to pick before the raccoons eat it.  Or, rather, take a big bite out of it and throw it on the ground.

'German Johnson'

A couple of weeks ago I sowed tatsoi seed alongside the beans that the rabbits stripped of leaves, and they've gotten much larger than I expected in that time.

Since then, I sowed some, 'Red Swan' bush beans between the two and replanted the last few of the 'Calima' bush bean seeds I had in the row the rabbits ate.  Bless their hearts, though, the stripped plants are putting out new leaves which I've been spraying with deer and rabbit repellant.  I hope both (or either, really) bean varieties have enough time to produce and ripen before a freeze.  With the weather we've been having this year, I'm not particularly optimistic.

While the peppers had a rough start (like everything else), they fruited and are coming along.  Surely they'll get a chance to ripen before any other weather disaster hits.  Knock wood.

snacking peppers

red bell peppers

 'Quadrato D'Asti Giallo' bell peppers

chili peppers

It doesn't look like my attempts to protect the grapes from birds by bagging some and by hanging reflective bangles is working.

They've pecked off both bagged and free grapes.  I guess I'll just have to hope they can't get to every cluster and will spare me one or two.  They didn't last year, though, so I'm not feeling hopeful.  

The smut on the ornamental 'Striped Japonica' corn really got ugly fast.  I wonder whether the word smut was used first for the fungus or for obscene pictures.  I assume the former and, if so, can see why it was chosen for the latter.  Disgusting.

I cut off all that was there and bagged it in the trash to prevent any dispersal of spores.  Hopefully, there won't be more infections.

The kernels that are uninfected are small yet, but quite pretty.

This year I cut way down on the number of cucumber plants, as I usually have too many and have harvested a half dozen fruits so far.   

'Marketmore' cucumber

The rain has let up, but the humidity hasn't, so early mornings, the cucumber leaves have beads of moisture at the margins.

The condition is called guttation, and it happens when there's enough moisture in the ground and air both that it's not evaporated from the leaf edges quickly enough as it's pulled upward from the roots like it normally would be.

The kohlrabi may be ready to harvest.  I'll have to look for recipes, but I'm expecting it will taste pretty much like cabbage, so I expect they'll be mostly roasted or slaw variations. 

The only reason I planted kohlrabi and kale this year is they were two of the free seeds offered with my Baker Creek orders. I usually at least give all their free offerings a try.

Off in the flower world, there's one lone Thai double blue butterfly pea vine.  This is the first flower I've gotten in two years.  Last year, none of the plants even survived.  I'm not ready to give up though.  In fact I'm encouraged to try again next year to get a wall - or at least a column - of these blue beauties.

This year, the cactus zinnia are doing quite well in spite of the weird weather we've had.  Or maybe because of it.  I don't know.  

I love their multi-toned colors and fancy forms.

Be well and stay cool until next time.

'South Africa' yellow roses, cactus zinnias, verbena boriensis and perovskia

Late July (an excellent chip and cracker brand)

While I'm expecting great things from the melon family this year, a number of other things just didn't do so well.  I can't blame them.  Spring was unseasonably cool, and the early summer was way too wet.

The onions made a poor showing.  I don't think the cool spring  hurt them, but with the deer pruning and the soggy summer soil, they haven't grown very large.  They still taste good, but they're quite small.

The two 'German Johnson' tomato plants I ended up with really had problems with the weather.  They're producing fruits that are a bit smaller than previous years, but the plants are only half as tall, so I'm assuming I'll get maybe half the yields.  And, because I mislabeled my tomato plants this year, I only have two plants.  😢  That's going to severely limit my BLT season.

The plant in a cage is only reaching halfway to the top.

Last year at this time, they reached the tops of the cages, and this is how the fruits looked:

There are no clusters this year.  Last year, they were all growing in clusters.  

I recently planted a row of tatsoi along side my row of  'Calima' bush beans.

You don't see the beans, do you?  That's because rabbits stripped every single one of the leaves last night.  They left the stalks:

The ears of the 'Striped Japonica' ornamental corn that didn't form husks nevertheless are forming a few kernels. 

That kernel near the top looks a little smutty, and while some cultures consider smut a delicacy, I believe I'll pass.

Happily, there are still some flowers doing well enough that I can make a few bouquets.

'Grande Amore' red roses, cactus zinnias, globe amaranth, 

butterfly milkweed and greenery from baptisia and crapemyrtle

While the Japanese beetles are the only insect pests I have to control, they aren't the only insects in the garden.  The striped monarch caterpillars are fattening up on the butterfly milkweed (their only food source).

And I spotted this lone milkweed leaf beetle the other day.

Fancy, eh?

Until next time, stay safe.

Hibiscus - unknown variety

P.S.  Speaking of tomatoes (and flower parts from the previous post), here's a good video from GrowVeg.  All of the GrowVeg videos are excellent, so you might want to subscribe, which you can do from the link at the end of the video, by hovering over the icon image of Ben in the upper left corner of the video, or by clicking the red subscribe button on the web page.