It has been over a month since I updated you on the garden! In those weeks, we went away on vacation, which can spell doom for a garden due to lack of water or back aches for the garden due to an abundance of weeds. We returned to neither of these because we paid a young lady to water for us and the nature of the high density garden is weed free!
We did return to a Japanese beetle explosion! The pole beans were the hardest hit and we now have some very lacy bean leaves.
We took care of the problem quite handily with Japanese beetle traps. They are amazingly effective, just don’t look inside. Ewww!
The plants are doing really well. We have tomatoes and tomatoes and tomatoes! Within a week I expect we will be harvesting grape tomatoes by the basketful. Yummy! This is the best part of gardening!
We harvested our first tomato from the patio tomato plant on July 26th. We sliced it and ate it that night and it was delicious! You just cannot beat the flavor of a home grown tomato! We have loads of tomatoes on all the plants too so we will be enjoying these home grown beauties for weeks to come!
We are also harvesting snow peas. We should have enough to serve with dinner in a day or so. The carrots are also growing beautifully! I really should have thinned them more, but I think we are going to get arm loads of carrots before it is all over. The peppers are also doing great and have peppers on them.
The squash is still alive and producing blooms, but so far not fruits. The blossoms are all closed every time I go look, so I do not know if this is due to a single sex blossom problem or if upside down does not suit the squash as well as it does the tomatoes and peppers. Not all experiments end with success. But, even the squash in the planter is refusing to bear fruit but this one is only producing the male blossoms.
It has been wonderful to see the hanging tomatoes and peppers flourish, the beans, snow peas and carrots fill their containers and begin enjoying the fruits of our labors.