Squash

I'm still in a major squash learning curve but I'm excited to finally have grown a full grown squash from seed!

The aphids, mildew and blossom rot are still challenging me but it looks like a few more of the smaller fruit may have made it past those stages.

My pepper plant, against the squirrel odds, is still hanging in there.

And the green beans are starting grow again.

The cucumber plants have some new growth but are struggling like the squash.  And the aphids found them again.

The fruit that is growing is oddly shaped.  

I must have had beginners luck last year because I had tons of great cucumbers all spring and into summer.

The grape tomato plant is teasing me with all of its green tomatoes.  I can't wait for them to ripen!

And the better bush has another new small tomato.  I noticed one of the larger tomatoes was starting to crack.

So I picked it and am going to see if it will ripen inside the house.

I'm hopeful that if I keep up with the Dawn solution on the aphids and keep spraying and trimming away the mildewed leaves eventually the plants will get strong enough to produce more produce.

May 1

Today marks four months - 16 weeks -  of writing this blog.  And in that time my garden has given me rewarding experiences and lots of new challenges.

The collard greens have surprised me and have kept growing even with the hot spring weather we have been having.

I trimmed them back, tossed them in the pot and made them for dinner.  This is why I always wanted a garden.  I love being able to make dinner out of what’s in the back yard. 

The peppers are also still growing.  The the early red, the acorn looking regular red and the jalapeños. 

A few new grape tomatoes are showing up everyday and the Better Bush has a new baby tomato.

On the other hand my squash and cucumber experience continues to be difficult. The cucumbers don’t seem to be getting pollinated and in addition to the aphids in the squash that I’m still battling using the  Dawn solution

the squash have developed mildew.

My cucumber plants developed it last year but much later in the humid hot summer. There are two types of cucumber/squash mildews, downy and powdery.  I don’t know which I have but both cause the same outcome and it is not good.  I recently I bought a fungicide called SERENADE Garden. Before spraying I trimmed off the overly infected leaves, which turned out to be most of the zucchini leaves. Those plants are now looking "puny" as boyfriend would say.

I do have a couple small yellow squash that are hanging in there under the mildly infected yellow squash leaves. 

I’m hopefully that by the end of this week they will be large enough to be picked and eaten.  Even if there is only enough for just me.       

Cucumber Try #3

I was a little curious how the plants would react to having Dawn sprayed on them but after 24 hrs they looked fine and thankfully had less aphids.

This weekend, in addition to trying out the Dawn solution to kill the aphids, I purchased and planted two new cucumber plants as replacements for the plants I had to toss out due to the overwhelming amount of aphids.

I bought this spring's third attempt at cucumber plants at Colorfield Farms, the same nursery I purchased my cucumber plants from last year.  While at Colorfield I also bought a few ladybug attracting marigold plants. Ladybugs eat aphids and the marigolds make the garden look pretty.

I was especially excited about the cucumber plants I bought because one plant had two cucumbers about the size of the cucumber on the plant I tossed out.  If you look on the right hand side toward the lower middle of the plant you can sort of see one of them hanging off the plant.

I would love to have been able to show a better picture of it but when I got home from work today it was gone. There was just a stem. I blame the squirrels.  

Aphids meet Dawn

The Sevin I sprayed earlier this week didn't seem to slow down the aphid/ant problem in my garden.

So this week I asked other vegetable gardeners for advice on how to kill aphids.  The answer was always the same.  A mix of soap and water sprayed on both sides of the leaves.  I drenched the leaves, stems and blossoms with Dawn and water and have my fingers crossed.  

I even gave the transplants in the plant bed a spray.

Last spring, squash blossoms were as far as I was able to get the squash to grow.  I'm hopeful that this year I'll be able to keep them alive until they are fully grown. 

Aphids

It's still early spring and my garden has already gone from organic to locally grown.  The cucumbers were covered with ants and when I researched why I found out they like to be where the aphids are. 

What I thought for a few weeks was dirt was a major aphid infestation.

I pulled all the cucumber vines out of the garden.  Even the vine with a still growing, yet misshaped, cucumber.

I then sprayed the garden with the insecticide Sevin.  I probably should have tried an insecticidal soap first or a simple spray of Dawn and water but my peppers are still hanging in there

And my squash are starting to blossom and so I just didn’t want to take a chance.

The irony is after I sprayed I looked a the long list of pests Sevin fights and aphids weren’t on the list. I’m going to have to try an insecticidal soap anyhow.

2nd year in a row…

For the second year in a row something, and I blame the squirrels, have taken a bit out of my first green pepper. 

I suppose it has the shape of an acorn but I’m still annoyed.  Maybe the peppers on the other plant will have a better shot of surviving because they have a different shape.

Or maybe they will take a bite out of one of the jalapeños and leave my garden alone altogether.  Although with my squirrel luck that’s not likely.

I worked a lot of nights this week so this is the first evening I’ve had a chance to get a good look in my garden in a few days.  The squash plants had a growth spurt

And a big surprise to me is that my small grape tomato plant has a couple little tomatoes.

It might be time this weekend to add support for the tomato plants.

Tomatoes

I was pretty busy this week and weekend so I didn’t have lot of time for my garden.  Luckily the veggie plants are at the stage were they don’t need a lot of attention and do fine as long as I remember to water and fertilize them.

I did finally get a second tomato plant this week.  Its called a Better Bush and it supposedly stays somewhat contained and doesn’t grow too large. And it already has a few tomatoes.

I hadn’t planed to get a regular tomato plant this year.  I really wanted a second grape tomato plant but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a larger one.  My small grape tomato plant has some yellow flowers but its probably going to be awhile until its large enough to produce any tomatoes.

There was a lesson for me the last 2-3 weeks while I hunted for the “right” tomato plant - flexibility.