A Vegetable Garden in June Overview

Yay! The last bed in the garden is finally planted with winter squash, melons, and pattypan squash. I thought it would never happen but it is finally done. I also finished laying out the soaker hoses. Normally I overhead water but with the humidity here that encourages powdery mildew. I am really looking forward to a time when the only real chore is harvesting.

Here's an overview of how the garden looks today. Pictures of what is fruiting in the garden will be saved for another day.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans in the front have already reached the top of the 6 foot bamboo poles. They are far ahead of the Chinese long beans which are just starting to vine in the next two tepees.

There are two rows of okra to the right. The okra are growing ever so slowly. I had to replant most of them due to spotty germination. Luckily Stewart's Zeebest and Philippine Lady Finger produce fairly early.

You can see here the Chinese long beans are all eaten up and a bit stunted. I suspect ants are the culprit but have run out of diatomaceous earth to use against them.

Luffa is growing amazingly well. They don't naturally grow up the bamboo, I have to attach the first couple of tendrils to get them climbing. The vines trailing on the ground are sweet potato, they are interplanted everywhere in this bed.

This tepee contains bitter melon on the left and cucumbers on the right. The bitter melon has lots of flowers, alas they are all male flowers so no fruit yet. The cucumbers have lots of female flowers forming but very few male flowers. This lack of male cucumber flowers has weighed greatly on my mind. But the bitter melon, not so much.

Here is a picture of one of the tomato beds, there are 3 beds with over 60 plants. The tomatoes are doing well with many little tomatoes everywhere.

This bed has a mixture of bell pepper, sweet banana, jalapeno, Hungarian Hot Wax, and Santa Fe peppers. They are all starting to form blossoms and most of the hot peppers already have fruit.

It seems like it is going to be a banner year for eggplants. I have never had eggplants grow so well, the plants are bushy with gigantic leaves and many blossoms.

So, I was walking in the garden and a bird flies out from under the bush bean bed, then as I got closer a brown rabbit takes off from out of the same bean patch. Luckily, it doesn't look like there is any damage from wildlife and there are lots of little beans on the plants.