Spring Garden Recap

So, this blog was started after the Spring's harvest. But I feel that I should recap how spring gardening went.

All vegetables were started indoors using Burpee seeds purchased at Lowes. We planted Celebrity and Roma tomatoes, Spinach, Broccoli, Banana Peppers, and Onion.

The garden was a raised bed made of cedar boards and covered in cedar mulch.

The spinach was ready in no time. We harvested two basket fulls before it got to hot for them.

The tomatoes did wonderfully! We harvested several baskets full.

We blanched and froze each harvest. We had minor issues with the hornworm, a very few fruitworms, sporatic blossom end rot, some cat-scalding, and lots of cracking. We had spiders that set up several webs, so we left them alone and they seems to help keep the worm population at a minimum. We never had to spray for insects; as the spiders showed up shortly after the hornworms came. Only pulled 3 tomatoes with fruitworm damage.

We fought some type of fungus the whole time. But it never seems to affect our fruit or production. Once the summer heat took over, things got ugly. The fungus took over and the plants were too old to fight it off. We finally decided to pull them late-July. The production had all but stopped and the fungus was about 100% coverage and the last few fruits got sunscald because the fungus had so damaged the fruits.

If anybody can identify the fungi that got my old tomato plants, I would appreciate it!

The broccoli made for some beautiful plants, but from 6-7 plants; I only got one head! What happened!? They never flowered either. When I finally gave up and pulled thr broccoli. I found that it was coevered with these small worms that I have ID'd as cabbage worms. Did they prevent the broccoli from coming to a head?

The broccoli is on the far end of the bed (the tomatos are closest to the camera)

My only broccoli head

Banana Peppers

Well, the pepper plants look good, but didn't produce the way I am accustomed to peppers producing. I know realize that I treated them like step children. This was my first year doing tomatoes and I babied the tomato plants to the detriment of the peppers. I mean, I just now fertilized them three months after transplanting! My bad, but they spoiled me. In the past, I could ignore peppers and I got more than I cared for. Well, they are still healthy looking and I just hope that I can make up with them and they'll give me a nice late-summer harvest. I have recently added more peppers where the broccoli once was.

I should also mention that one broccoli plant got planted a little too close to the tomato. Well, it looked like a beautiful relationship in the beginning. It helped the unsupported tomato plant grow upright. But the tomato plant may have blocked too much sun and I am sure that this pepper plant was affected by the tomato plants fungi. However, the pepper plant has not succumb to it at all. Its holding its own. Its my biggest pepper plant, but it is producing the least....I think because the tomato crowded it out. I mean its literally on top of and intertwining the pepper plant.