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Friday, August 10, 2012

The Garden in August

If you think you missed the July garden tour, you didn't.  I didn't do it. The garden looked the same in July as it did in June because everything was full grown and producing in June. July was the month of decline for the garden as you will see during the tour.


Bed 1: Empty
Its been cleared and is ready for fall planting.
 
 
 
Bed 2: Okra, Peppers, and Eggplant
The Okra has gotten really tall, you can see that some of it is taller than our 6' fence. The peppers are to the right of the okra. The okra provides them late afternoon shade; I think this has helped them to continue to produce in this heat. Everything is healthy.
You can see Bed 3 in the photo above to the right of Bed 2; it is covered with plastic. I did this to kill any squash bugs that tried to over winter there.
 
Bed 4 is also cleared and covered, so I didn't get a picture of that.
 
 
 
 
Bed 5: Tomatoes!
This is the infamous tomato bed that produced all those tomatoes. As you can see, it is now a tomato jungle and still incredibly healthy. There are some brown branches, but most of them are lush and green.
 
They stopped flowering during July's heat, but.....
Yep, the flowers have returned. This gave me pause, but I pulled most of them anyway. I have new tomatoes started already and I really want to try the new varieties that I have started. I left one planted and heavily pruned off the 'old' parts. This will be my test plant to see if surviving tomatoes can produce a good fall harvest or if its best to start with new plants.
 
Bed 6 is cleared and ready for fall.
 
 
 
 
Bed 7: Peas
This bed of peas was a little disappointing. They just haven't produced the amount of peas I hoped for. We've only gotten two pots full. I grow peas/beans for crop rotation purposes so I guess I shouldn't be too upset.
Bed 8 is empty as you can see above. We'll be planting more potatoes here in a few weeks.
 
 
 
 
Bed 9: Cukes and Pumpkin
We'll the squash bugs took the pumpkin out ages ago. The cukes took forever to grow. Now its taking down it's trellis! Producing fine cucumbers. We've even canned 5 jars of pickles. The brown you see in front is dill that has gone to seed, so I'll harvest the dill seed soon. Behind the cukes, you see some bean trellis'. Yep, that is the first of my fall garden already planted.
Bed 10 is empty.
 
 
 
 
Bed 11: Sweet Potatoes
Well Well. Has this bed gotten overgrown. You can't even see my walking paths anymore.  Very lush, I just hope there's some nice roots in there. Not sure when to dig them up, but we will try later this week. Since we have recently hit the 120 day mark since planting.
 
 
 
Bed 12: Melons!
The canteloupe have been good to us. We've picked about 6 at about 3 lbs each. They were all very juicy and good. Not as sweet as I like though, but they may be the variety: Ambrosia.
Behind the canteloupe is a watermelon patch. I have about 6 in there growing; I just have no idea as to when to pick them! In the pic below, you can see 3 of them easily but 5 of them are there.
 
 
 
And.....
 
The fall garden is underway:
 
Peppers
Brassicas and basil
Tomatoes (not as yellow as they look in this photo)
 

4 comments:

  1. What type of peas did you plant that didn't do well? Would you like me to send you some of my Mississippi Cream peas seeds? I haven't done germination testing on them, but they sure produced well for me this year.

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    Replies
    1. Just let me know if you are interested and I'll send them. I still have your address from earlier in the year.

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    2. That would be awesome! I tried purple hull this year but have been wanting to try the different cream peas.

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    3. I tried purple hull, too, and have had a terrible time with aphids on them, though they left my cream peas alone. I have no idea why that would happen.

      I'll send you some seed when I get a chance to get to the Post Office this week. I hope you like them. I know I have enjoyed them.:)

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