Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Definitely Creepy (Installment 4)

Andy found this "friendly" garter snake sunning himself on the top of our wood pile.  I hope he's eating  some other less-desirables but he isn't my favorite visitor!


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The Release 2012 (or Cool or Creepy -- Part 3)

As the snow peas were nearing the end of their life this spring I started to notice some aphids.  They never got to the tomato plants (at least not that we saw) but I didn't want to risk an infestation like last summer.



I ordered another container of lady bugs from Amazon since we had such great luck with them last year.

You are supposed to release them at night so that they stay in the garden and do not fly away.

They wanted out -- BADLY!

And the next day we still had tons of lady bugs and haven't seen any more aphids since.


Monday, August 20, 2012

July and August Garden Update

At the beginning of July I pulled all of the garlic that we planted last October.  We let it dry outside for a few days before bringing it in to the basement.  I am relatively pleased with the harvest and will plant some more again this fall.  Some cloves are definitely bigger than others and the small ones are a pain to clean when you need them for cooking but over half of the bulbs were reasonable (grocery store) size heads of garlic.

We have definitely been harvesting more veggies this summer than last year.  Lots of tomatoes, green bean (or in this case purple ones), eggplant, cucumbers, hot peppers, and basil.  I liked the purple beans but they turn green when you cook them.  I had the best luck with a green variety called Provider and a wax variety called Gold Rush.

Provider green beans in blossom.

The zucchini and yellow squash both have mildew.  I planted a second planting and should be harvesting from the new plants soon.

We had some wonderful eggplant a few weeks ago before the slugs got to them.  It looks like they have some new blossoms now so we'll see if we get any more eggplant this season.

Garden Salsa pepper -- good and not as hot as a jalapeno.

Andy built this large tomato cage at the beginning of the season and it's been wonderful!  The tomatoes can grow taller than with traditional tomato cages and I haven't had as many branches break off this year during storms.




The cucumber plant has wilt but did well most of the season and produced some wonderful cucumbers.  I planted some faster growing cucumber plants about a month ago.  Hopefully we'll get some more cucumbers before the end of the season.

I know worms are good, but we have TONS of them.  And they are closer to snake size than worm size!!