What A Month It Has Been...The Case of the Spaghetti Squash Monster

Sorry for the lack of updates on the garden! For those true detectives from the last post, my garden was planted at my new house. Patti (who was referenced in the last post) was our WONDERFUL seller, who not only offered to let me plant my garden -- but even had it tilled for me.

So, a couple things have prevented me from posting about the garden (or even getting into the garden). We moved. Two houses. And, it just keeps raining. Poor Ryan hasn't even been able to mow very much.

This week I finally had to stop ignoring the garden. I did snap some photos before we finished weeding, so these photos look TERRIBLE!

First up - Spaghetti Squash

I've never planted spaghetti squash. I had no idea its ability to completely take over my garden. I thought I had spaced things out appropriately. I THOUGHT WRONG. It just kept growing and covering everything else. I've heard similar things about cucumbers, I should have done my research. The solution was to just chop off the ends and pray for the best. So far, it looks like it has decided to flower instead of continue to grow - Yay!

Zucchini

The zucchini has the biggest leaves I've ever seen on a plant. It has remained pretty contained to its space, but there are a million flowers. I see a lot of zucchini bread in the future, along with a bunch of new recipes that I make with zucchini. I really love zucchini, so I'm looking forward to having some. I anticipate it will be ready within the next week or so!

Cantaloupe

Cantaloupe was a late addition to the garden. I wasn't sure how it would react. The plants are pretty small, but it's already flowering. We'll see what happens!

Tomatoes

Our tomatoes were an interesting situation. We were only able to cage two plants prior to our moves. So, this is one of the ones that was caged early. They are doing great and I think they will produce abundantly. However, the other 4 plants are a different story. We've had some pretty strong storms and were only able to cage them this week. Hopefully they will recover and be able to support themselves, but I'm not sure what to think right now.

Peppers

The peppers have been caught in spaghetti squash's quest to conquer the garden. They seem to be ok, but I worry about their strength since they've been shaded by the monster zucchini and spaghetti squash leaves.

Watermelon

Ryan's watermelon. We thought early on that it would not do anything. Now, it is going quite well. We should see some things later this summer.

Three nights of working in the garden made it look quite pretty this week. Hopefully we can keep up on the maintenance and it won't take as much work in coming weeks :) Is it time to eat this stuff, yet?!?!

Blossom-End Rot Strikes Again

I thought I was safe from any more damages from blossom-end rot. But, I was wrong. I have been patiently waiting for my eggplants to grow like they did last year. Unfortunately, this week I realized that last year we had mature egg plants at this time. In fact, we were well into the "Summer of Eggplant". Hrmph.

Today, I began to examine my eggplants a little more closely. They had started to rot...still attached to the plant. So, our plans for eggplant fries galore have been reduced to "we'll have some."

Here are the minature eggplants all ready to be eaten (the non-rotted ones):



As I mentioned previously, the green peppers were affected as well. They were already miserable looking, but I took the opportunity to take a picture of this "bell" pepper. They are already turning red...at this size:



Oh well, next year we may have to scaled back the garden and focus on the important things.

Picking Peppers to Pickle....

I did not realize two weeks passed since my last garden post! I have no excuses, other than life happens! Things in the garden have slowed down at the moment, which makes no sense to me - it should be flourishing!

Since this post is about peppers...I'll get down to the nitty gritty. The green peppers were basically wiped out. There are some peppers growing, but they are so tiny they are not useful in recipes and certainly aren't going to be added to a veggie tray any time soon (or ever)!

The banana peppers are great. I already prepped one can (aka jar) of them and I've been using them on sandwiches. The jalenpenos are doing ok, what is left of them. They also didn't see the growth that we saw last year, but I am getting enough to be able to can and possibly make poppers.

Here are the picked peppers waiting to be canned:



(I will need quite a few more jalapenos, so I'm working on it!)

The serrano pepper plant and the cayenne pepper plant are also growing long, beautiful peppers. I am a little afraid to eat them...they are going to be HOT!!!

Hopefully things will pick back up, so I can have more posts!

Blossom-End Rot

As someone who has spent a lot of time writing about Rhizoctonia Root Rot or Phytophora Root Rot (both soybean diseases for those of you going "huh?"), you would think I would be thrilled to talk about my new discovery: Blossom-End Rot . WRONG. It's in MY garden!

Blossom-End Rot is happening all over my tomato plants and from what I can read on the internet, there is nothing I can do about it! Blossom-End Rot is associated with calcium absorption into the plant and is caused by many things.

Here is what my friends at THE Ohio State University Extension have to say about it:

This may result from low calcium levels or high amounts of competitive cations in the soil, drought stress, or excessive soil moisture fluctuations which reduce uptake and movement of calcium into the plant, or rapid, vegetative growth due to excessive nitrogen fertilization.

Summary: I had too much water followed by no water, my plants are screwed.

This picture was taken from tOSU's website and displays what is happening. I keep forgetting to take pictures when I am out in the garden.



While this problem will not spread from one fruit to another, it can cause quite the problems throughout the garden. Again, tOSU says

This nonparasitic disorder can be very damaging, with losses of 50% or more in some years.

So far, I have tossed as many tomatoes this year as I have picked. I am hoping that it is just on the early ones and we can continue on to a successful growing season. Unfortunately, a lot of the plants are already struggling due to the various dead parts caused by the flooding.

Blossom-End Rot also appears on peppers and eggplant. My eggplants are troopers and I am seeing no signs of this disorder on them. However, the peppers are getting taken pretty fast, so their likelihood of survival is very low.

Let's hope some rain and balance of calcium can get these plants out of their stressed disposition! To read more about blossom-end rot from tOSU go to this link: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3117.html. And, please remember to use "the" before every mention of Ohio State. Thanks.

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY

Rain, Rain, Go away. Come again.....in like three weeks. SERIOUSLY. I have had it with the rain. Not only does it affect my mood - it also has resulted in negative things happening in my garden.

Apparently, too much of a good thing (rain) is not a good thing with several plants. I can see things going drastically worse if someone doesn't turn off the faucet soon and for more than just a day. Below is a summary of plants that don't like this much rain.

Cauliflower:



Broccoli:



Jalapenos (sorry tilt your head and look for the little peppers):



Green Peppers:



Tomatoes:



You know what loves this water? Weeds. You'll have to excuse the huge mess of weeds, but I can hardly make it into the garden just to check on things without sinking down.

Something else that doesn't seem to care about the rain:



Zucchini. Oh well, they aren't overproducing...so I can handle a few a week. Hopefully, happy posts will return shortly. If I stop posting, I'm grieving the death of my garden.

Dried Up (Well, Dry Enough)

The monsoons finally stopped and the garden had an opportunity to dry out. The 92 degree days with 102 degree heat index probably didn't hurt, either. The aforementioned heat index did limit my time in the garden, yesterday.

Here are some updates:

Snow Peas: Yellowing and done. No longer producing pods.
Cantaloupe: Growing and potentially flowering.
Green Beans: Strong, no sort of pods yet,
Cauliflower: No clue. They are still growing, but I don't know.

I took some pictures of the more exciting items.

Tomatoes: Seeing fruit in good sizes. I would really like to see it dry out soon for the sake of the tomatoes, though.



Jalapenos: Little peppers on various plants. I am hoping the plants will grow some more - they are small right now.



Green Peppers: Similar to the jalapenos all the way around, I really would love to see the plants grow more.



Broccoli: The heads are coming! It's pretty exciting since I like broccoli a lot.



Zucchini: We have zucchini! I picked three yesterday. They are growing like crazy.





We tried out the zucchini on the grill last night and it was FANTASTIC!

Peppy Peppers

Until now, I haven't had much to report on the jalapenos and green peppers. They were growing, but nothing too exciting. Of course, they shot up this week! They really are growing fast and we should have peppers growing soon.

Here is a picture of one of the green/jalapenos from this week. I could try to guess, but it would probably be the opposite. Anyhow, here is the pepper:



A nice surprise from the banana peppers. I can see a pepper already! Here you go:



The cayenne pepper stunted early, but is recovering now:



I didn't take a picture of the serrano pepper, but it is still adjusting to the garden. Hopefully it will make the transition quickly and get growing!

Unofficial Start of Weeding Season!

It's Memorial Day Weekend. You know what that means? The unofficial start of Weeding Season. As I mentioned before, weeds took over the garden. Ryan and I teamed up to take on the challenege and we now have the situation under control!

Cantaloupe "Area" Before:





Cantaloupe "Area" After:



Yes, the three green areas are the three plants remaining after the sabatoge last week! We planted more today, I hope the "protection" we put in place works!

Here is another area of the garden around the cayenne and green peppers.

Pepper area before:



Pepper area after:



It is an exciting time of year for the garden!

Full Garden Pictures

It's been awhile since I posted full garden pictures, mostly because there was nothing to show. I didn't get the whole garden in a picture so I will show them in two stages......

The "North Side":



Hotcaps (Rows 1 and 2) are the watermelon. They were planted in hard conditions, so I left the hotcaps on this week to give them a chance.

Row 3: All Tomatoes

Row 4: First three plants are Eggplants, the rest are Tomatoes

Rows 5 & 6: Green Peppers and Jalapenos, respectively

Row 7: Banana and Chili Peppers, Onions

(See next picture for rest)

The "South Side"




Row 1: Same as Row 7 in first picture

Row 2: Zucchini

Row 3: Broccoli

Row 4: Cauliflower

Row 5: Snow Peas

Row 6: Green Beans

Row 7: Lettuce/Radishes

"Open space" Rows 8 & 9: Cantaloupe

I never counted the rows. 15 rows of fine, fresh, farm-raised produce growing! I know we will really enjoy the "fruits" of our labor this summer. It's hard to imagine right now!

EMERGENCE!

Ok, it's been almost a week since my last post - SORRY! It rained A LOT last weekend, so there isn't anything I could do in the garden...but the plants had plenty to do!

I went out today and planted zucchini. I removed the asparagus plants (RIP) and using their row for the zucchini. I'm looking forward to the assortment of squash this summer (zucchini and eggplant.)

Here is a picture of the freshly planted and watered zucchini. Please note, it's incredibly windy today. Check out the emergence of the corn next to my garden!



As a part of my blog, I plan to give regular updates on each of vegetables on a semi-regular basis. Here is your first progress report:

Tomatoes - all plants are growing, looking strong

Eggplants - great leaf growth in these plants, they really strive in our soil type

Green Peppers and Jalapenos - looking good, growing

Banana Peppers - all plants growing well

Onions - some have taken off quicker than others - hopefully this will result in a spread out growing season

Snow Peas - I fear a repeat of last year's sugar snap pea disaster, I see nothing........

Green Beans - EMERGENCE. They look great coming out of the ground!



Lettuce - I had no idea how to plant the lettuce, so I may have not spread it out enough. But, more emergence!



Radishes - The last thing planted from seed, the radishes seem to be flourishing! Glad I have a lot of friends who like Radishes!



I'm still looking for a good selection of watermelon and cantaloupe plants. I plan to check out the Macon County Extension's plant sale this weekend and see what I can find.