My tomato and pepper plants are looking pretty good. Here you can see a photo. Just a few months ago these were tiny seeds! It’s been hot lately and they seem to be growing significantly each day. The stalks are getting very thick.
That white stuff is just sunlight - the leaves are all green.
Does anyone have any ORGANIC tips for dealing with squash vine borers? They’ve killed all my acorn squash and zucchini plants long before they would have stopped producing, two years running. :’(
We cover the ground around the stems (with newspaper) and the stems near the root with tin foil, and do surgery if we notice one has tunneled in, but it hasn’t been enough to save the plants.
Ooh, lookit 'em go! Do you have drainage holes in those tubs? Tomatoes (and most plants, I think) like good drainage.
Sorry, rhubarbin, I don’t know anything about vine borers.
Yeah, I drilled drain holes in all of them.
Those are looking really nice, Argent Towers. My tomatoes aren’t anywhere near that big or robust yet. Remind me what area you’re in?
As for us, we’re harvesting lettuce and spinach on a regular basis. The sugar snap peas are weirdly short this year and I’m wondering if that doesn’t have something to do with the extended monsoon season we had earlier this spring. They’re setting blooms now but they’re only at the second level of the trellis. Last year by this time they were practically as tall as me (fourth level of trellis).
I noticed that a lot of my flowers are blooming while shorter than normal, too. I’m just ascribing it to the weird spring we had.
I am in Southern Indiana and it has been hot here lately. Our summers tend to be extremely hot.
After last years experiment with container planting, I decided to go back to commando, natural space, gardening. I planted tomatoes and peppers (chiles) last year in standard planters and overall it was a very good experience, the tomatoes grew well, but had a very low and small yield, the peppers did better, but nowhere near my past garden yields. So, I decided to use the front of our houses’ bordered, mulched, barren sidewalk “flower bed” this year. We never plant anything here- it is just an area with a rich mulch bed layered about ten years old and one topiate evergreen bush as you walk to the door of our house.
About a week ago I managed to get my greenhouse tomatoes and peppers (as is my wont) all in on one nice day in a month consisting of low temperatures (40-60F) and 26 days of rain.
I planted four tomato plants, all Bonny Best, which I later discovered is an American heirloom variety from 1906, and was popular during the depression. I also planted ten chile plants total, six Long Red Cayennes and four Thai Dragons. I found I really liked the heat, size, and flavor of the LRC’s last year, so went with them again this year… I was really looking for the Portugal Hots, but they didn’t have them at the nursery.
They look quite nice in the flowerbed and use up much, otherwise, barren space and I’m sure when they start fruiting they might even be considered “ornamental” and certainly much more practical than flower4s. They have gone gangbusters in the last week of sun and rain and are doing very well- the sun is much better here in the front of the house, than in the back where I have planted in the past, so I am looking forward to many peppers and tomatoes this year. Maybe enough chiles to dry this year from the thai dragons, and hopefully enoght tomatoes to give away.
(I have seen some negative and positive reviews of the bonny best tomato, which have deflated me a bit. Anybody ever try them or have some experience with them here?)
Me too! Well, Bloomington, actually. Last year’s drought just about did my garden in. This year, though, is looking good so far. That long, cool spring we had really did the garden good.
I have raised beds (square foot type) with broccoli, green beans, sugar snaps, various squash and melons, basil, and lots and lots of tomatoes. So far, everything looks fabulous except for a few things the cats dug up. (They were melons, and I never have any luck with melons anyway.)
I have one more bed I’m going to put in with fall crops later in the summer.
The soil in front is reading a constant 60F, so we transplanted our tomatoes, peppers and basil. Also seeded the back raised beds for greens, carrots, green beans, and peas, and transplanted the parsley and cilantro back there. The mint, chives, thyme and lemon balm from last year are running rampant. I’m in denial about it, but the Ms planted beets back there also. The front is in flowering glory with all manner of annuals and perennials. Our azalea bush bloomed this year, which is nice. This coming fall, peony bulbs will arrive for planting, which will add a lot to the garden. People here are gaga over roses, which are fine, but the sheer showiness of the peony is for me.
I agree, Chefguy. Peonies are made for western Canada - they love the cold (they even NEED it!), they’re drought tolerant, they have beautiful foliage all summer long after the showy blossoms are done, they live forever with minimal help - what’s not to like? I have five peonies planted now, and I plan to plant even more.
With the recent heat wave what was left of my radishes started to bolt so I pulled them. They went mostly to greens, with the remaining roots being quickly devoured by the spouse (I grow them mainly for him, he considers them snack food).
The lettuce is doing nicely and I had to thin it out again. There was enough small lettuce leaves from all that to make four large dinner salads, which we have been consuming. This, despite a garden intruder (see below).
The bok choy has gone weird. It got about 4 inches tall then went to seed. On top of that, all the leaves up to about 2 inches from the ground have been eaten. (See below). And there are only three of these mutants left, so I’m not sure it’s worth it. I might just pull them and put something else in.
After three years of lousy spinach yields this year it’s doing great. I thinned out the row by about half, and had some with dinner last night.
I’m about a week behind on my summer/hot crops - beans, corn, squash, etc. but nevermind. I’ll get to them over the next few days. Might be a little late for some of the herbs but what the heck, I’ll give it a try. I took heavy losses between both what I planted as seeds and what I started inside. Wasn’t sure why, but see below.
I pulled one of the onions to check on progress - about halfway to “done” though, really, we’ll eat them at any point. The halfgrown onion wound up split between the dinner salads and the chicken salad
LOTS of weeding to do. I use lawn clippings as mulch - As I currently have four lawns I’m responsible for mowing this works out nicely though at present there are still a few thin patches.
Oh, the garden intruder - I discovered it wasn’t rabbits or deer making inroads into the lettuce and greens. It was this. That’s a 40 pound North American Common Snapping Turtle, Chelydra serpentina. I guess that’s why my normally reliable rabbit and deer repellant wasn’t working, huh? Estimated age of turtle 35-40 years old, and she’s a girl (we consulted a local herpetologist). She has been relocated to a local nature preserve/pond with the blessing of the local DNR. I also am now somewhat concerned I have a turtle nest somewhere in the backyard or garden, so I’m keeping a look-out for anything of the sort, or baby turtles.
Garden turtles, eh? I would have never expected that.
My clover I’m inserting into my lawn is coming along nicely - so are the dandelions, unfortunately. Back to digging them out. I WILL win this battle! (Well, we’ll call it a draw if I have no obvious yellow heads showing.)
Weeded about a third of the garden today. Planted my first batch of sunflowers, the beans (green, yellow, purple, dwarf runner), and acorn squash. Then it started raining again.
Given how everything is growing I might start needing to freeze “extra” greens by the end of the month.
My grass is growing like weeds… Wait, it once again is mostly dandelions. sighs Going to mow tonight and then see how much of the garden I feel up to digging out, maybe plant the juniper ground cover out front and throw in the impatiens and sunflowers and leave the rest for another day. Hoping Sunday will be nice enough to do more garden work since I keep hearing it might be rainy again this weekend. But at the very least, mow the lawn and dig out some weeds and grass from the garden.
My garden is starting to come up - the peas seem to be coming up before the sunflowers, which are supposed to support the peas. I have a feeling I might be putting a few support poles in the garden. 
More pictures from the flower beds - an iris from my sister is making its debut appearance, and it is GORGEOUS! I didn’t know what colour my irises would be, but I have a light purple and a dark purple - perfect.
About a month ago, I planted some California poppy seeds in two pots and stuck them on my back porch in full sun. The seeds sprouted and little tiny sprouts appeared…and they haven’t grown any bigger. In 2-3 weeks, they haven’t grown at all. Is this normal?
Well, finally got the garden fully weeded. Which means the compost heap has been fed again.
Today was a nice day and even though I had other things to do, too, we’re supposed to get rain tomorrow and the next few days so I said heck with it and finished planting the garden. I replaced the cucumbers that succumbed to our surprise cold snap a few weeks ago, finished getting in the corn, replaced the basil and parsley that disappeared, and planted more beets, turnips, carrots, radishes, and onions.
Found two turnips were ready for eating. Also gave up on the bok choy, which is bound and determined to go to seed. I salvaged what I could and replaced it with onions.
So… I now have two turnips and a heap o’ greens for eating.
I estimate about two more weeks for the peas and first of the beets.
Tired, but satisfied. I do have one more planting, but that’s not until August, for the cold weather crops.
How warm has it been, gallows fodder? I would guess they need quite a bit of heat as well as light to grow, but I’m completely not an expert on poppies.
That iris is gorgeous, Cat Whiseperer. Seems like our irises had a really short season this year. Last year they were all over the place for quite a while. I just inherited some very dark purple (not quite black) irises from my neighbors, who were pitching them because they bloom so briefly. They were almost the only plants they had in their garden, so, yeah, probably not worth it for them. They’re tucked into several nooks and crannies in my garden now. I’m also getting some peach colored ones from my other neighbor. I’m thinking they’ll look spectacular with the purple ones.
I’ve been moving things around and, of course acquiring a few more. I added five more hostas to my collection over the weekend (Praying Hands, Fireworks, Revolution, Second Wind, Sleeping Beauty). Haven’t gotten them all planted yet, though. I put in a couple of butterfly bushes (buddleia) and blue-mist shrubs (caryopteris) to create some shade for some hostas that are getting a bit too much light in the afternoon.
I’ve been trying to get as much done as possible in the evenings this week because it’s supposed to heat up again later in the week.
My brother and I have been pulling up weeds like crazy. We’ll get most of them eventually…
Ooh, a peach iris - WANT! I love the iris flowers, but the foliage is very nice too - it’s so striking and pointy.
My garden is totally weedy, too. I can’t really get after it until the seeds grow a bit more - I don’t want to weed out my veggies. I can see why people plant vegetables in rows. 
