A Tour of the Vegetable Garden in June

Our shadiest bed is home to Mizuna a leafy green, 3 eggplants ravaged by flea beetles, and kohlrabi. Mizuna and kohlrabi are normally spring vegetables but they're trooping along even with temperatures in the mid 90's (35 degree Celsius).

The hot pepper bed needs to be weeded badly, they're high on my list along with the leeks and fennel. The plants next to the wood fence are tall enough they're starting to get a lean to them, so they'll need to be staked soon. There's 42 pepper plants in this bed.

The peppers are a lot taller this year, even the jalapenos and lemon drop are getting to be tall plants. It's might be due to the weather because in hotter years they tend to be shorties, either that or maybe it's because they're spaced closer together. It makes me wonder if the yield will be affected since they're putting more energy into growth rather than fruit production.

And two bush bean beds have merged into one ginormous bed. You might not be able to tell, but there's a small fence around the bean bed made with 2 foot tall bamboo poles and string to keep them from flopping in the paths . At least the bush beans are starting to bloom, but I wonder how I'll be able to harvest them.

Snap beans are one of my favorite things from the garden. We sauté snap beans in olive oil with onion and long strips of carrot, add a little chicken stock and cook it down till the liquid is absorbed, so good. And of course, they're fantastic in stir fries.

And the fennel which is in another shadier bed is actually starting to bulb. I'm just as shocked as you are. They were so tiny and root bound and it's been so hot lately, but they're still managing to do their thing. There's some pole beans in the back of this bed, and yes that is a wall of Cosmonaut Volkov and Peron tomato plants to the right.
And the winter squash are starting to vine, there's a patch of them on either side of the greenhouse. It's been years since I've grown winter squash and I had forgotten just how massive they truly are. These were planted May 14th, to the left is Queensland Blue and to the right is Thai Rai Kow Tok. In the front are summer squash and zucchini which I use to block the winter squash from traveling into the rest of the garden.

Another winter squash bed with Yokohama to the left, Black Futsu to the right, and summer squash in front. I read a review on Black Futsu where someone harvested 37 squashes from a single plant that was growing in their tomato bed.

This is actually the shadier of the squash beds as some reviews of Yokohama and Black Futsu suggests they prefer a bit of shade.

The zucchini and summer squash bed is starting to encroach on the leeks. That's a bale of straw hiding beneath the leaves of the zucchini plants on the left.

I've planted lots of zucchini, patty pan, and summer squashes this year because squash bugs and squash vine borers usually kill or weaken most of the plants.

Against the 3 feet tall wire fence is planted a few Beck's Big Buck okra that were planted out as seedlings, the winter squash Queensland Blue is definitely crowding them a bit.

Here's a better picture of the row of okra, the three plants directly seeded on May 19th are still pretty small in comparison and above you can see a wilting vine of winter squash probably hit by a vine borers.

I'm still trying to keep the bottom of the tomato plants trimmed, but they are pretty unruly at this point. Various fungal disease are showing up in 3 of the tomato beds. I've tried spraying with a copper fungicide but will be trying Serenade, an organic control for fungus and bacteria.

I'm starting to suspect tomato speck is my main problem as the stems and fruit are infected as well. I've dug up one Manyel plant and heavily trimmed another of the same variety. It's possible we got some contaminated seeds and then the red tomato aphids are spreading the disease. I've never actually had aphid problems before in all my years in western Kentucky. Usually there are droves of ladybugs but there's only been a handful in the garden this year.

The tall tomato plants in back are supposed to be the determinate Celebrity (F1). They are considered a vigorous determinant or semi-determinant, but still they've grown way above the 54 inch cages. We've had the perfect spring and the plants are bigger than I've ever seen them.

This  Black Cherry tomato plant is taller than the 6 feet wooden fence. I've had to stake the cage with 3 bamboo poles.

I am mildly optimistic even with the diseases traipsing through the garden. It looks like it might be a banner year, which will hopefully be dubbed "The Year of the Tomato". I've taken a week off at the end of July with the hope of canning lots and lots of salsa.

The weather cooled off Saturday, so I actually got some weeding done for the leeks and peppers. Hopefully I can finish weeding the peppers, fennel, and winter squash beds before it rains Sunday afternoon.

And interestingly enough, something is parasitizing the aphids. I usually squash them with gloved fingers when I find them, but lately I've been finding their little tan mummified bodies with no young juicy ones in site.

Bush beans Have Sprouted and Replacing More Tomatoes Due to Bird Damage

The bush beans have been sprouting. So exciting. There's 2 rows of snap/French beans and 2 rows of dry beans. But the Black Turtle beans are a complete no show. Bummer.

Yesterday I replanted 22 tomato plants that were destroyed by critters. So in all, I've had to replace 44 tomato plants. It's mostly birds I see in the garden so I always blame them.

Funny enough, the tiny emergency tomato plants have gained quite a bit of size so they're actually good sized plants.

Flea beetles have been going nuts on the tomato plants, sucking so much life out of the plants they actually haven't been growing. The weeds that the flea beetles normally feed on are gone and the eggplants haven't been planted yet, so I've had to dust the plants with diatomaceous earth. I managed to crush about 2 to 5 beetles on each plant before I dusted them.

Now that it's supposed to be dry for a week, the diatomaceous earth should work. Hopefully.

Marauding Birds are Definitely Eating My Tomato Plants

It was definitely marauding birds dead set on their evil plans to destroy and consume all the vegetable seedlings in the garden. Those vile devils went back and ate even more of my tomato plants, there are twenty-five tomato seedlings left out of fifty-two tomato plants with eight of those just consisting of lower leaves since their growing tips were nipped by sharp little beaks. I'm leaving the ones with nipped growing tips in the ground partly from frustration and partly to see if they'll sprout new growing tips at the joint where the lower leaves meet the stem. More than half of my tomato plants were eaten. So now not only a fence is surrounding the garden but I have bird netting stretched over the fencing.

I was ready to give up on the garden this year but my husband insisted rather stridently that all that work and effort to till and get the garden going was not going to waste, no matter how much more money we had to spend on it, even if we had to go out and buy expensive store bought seedlings.

It was a really warm winter with only one snowfall that wasn't even hard enough to stick around on the ground, which is probably why there are so many birds. Usually after the winter we find a few dead birds around the woody area probably from starvation and exposure, but this year there are birds everywhere and their calls and voices are deafening. Also our neighbor who had four dogs has moved away and the dogs were probably keeping the birds at bay. Plus it has been a very dry year so the birds have probably turned to eating plants to get water. Bastards.

It's late in the season to be starting tomato plants but I went ahead and planted more tomato seeds. While at it, I started five different varieties of summer squash/zucchini, cucumbers, bitter melon, and luffa in peat pellets because the weather temperatures have been very volatile and things aren't sprouting in the garden yet or maybe the birds have already eaten them.