Gardening Gardening

I do not

 

Well, this year is not going well for gardening. Bad enough we have to wait until June to really plant anything (we have an average 'last possible frost' date of mid-June) but now the Gypsy moth caterpillars are back and worse than last year. There is almost something biblical about how many caterpillars there are...like one of the seven plagues of Egypt. Hundreds and hundreds of them all over the house and anything outdoors. You can't even walk outside without getting covered in their webs and frass (excrement). All you can hear is the caterpillars munching on leaves and the frass falling out of the trees. They have already decimated my fruit trees and it's not even worth planting a garden yet as they would just destroy anything I plant. Hoping they will cocoon up in a few more weeks and I can get a late garden started. I already have several trees that didn't come back after the caterpillars stripped them bare last year. It's much worse this year so I expect more standing dead by the time this is over. Glad they only come around every thirty years or so (supposedly).

 

Sorry to hear it. They aren't all that bad down here...this year.

 

Progressing nicely so far.

 

Garlic scapes and strawberries are coming in heavy now.

Mixed in another batch of fish remains to the compost from this morning’s outing.

This pile is hitting 150f then dropping to 120f or so after 5 days. I am turning it every time I fish now (once a week). It will be ready to amend the garlic beds and get them ready for a late summer planting of spinach, zucchini, and lettuces, before 2023 the garlic gets planted in October.

 

Some of the garden work today involved cutting of rhubarb for mulching.


One of many wheelbarrows-full I typically harvest per season for eating, composting, and mulching from my 12’ row.

Early green and yellow zucchini, and peppers mulched with rhubarb, on top of layer of leaves which the worms are eating through in places exposing the soil.

This spot will be for a later zucchini planting. This is mound of compost on top of a layer of rhubarb leaves, and covered with rhubarb leaves to keep it moist and weed free until planting in early July.


Early Italian zucchini planting on a similar mound.


Grass mulch on top of oak leaves with tomatoes, volunteer squash, potato and garlic from last year’s bed contents.

 

This mornings haul: 1 hour of fishing; 15 minutes of filleting fish, 15 minutes of picking strawberries, 5 minutes to cut some salad fixing for latter.

 

Starting to get tomatoes on the Brandywine and amish paste plants.
One cubanelle pepper looking good. Im surprised we're getting a pepper this early

 

Got my first Blot bell pepper coming in.

Usually I pull all the rogue tomatoes that come up on their own, but I’m letting these two live between my zucchini and carrots.

 

Our daughter and our granddaughter were out today to pick strawberries.


She ate far more than she picked! We loving growing and sharing good food with our children and families.

 

Everything is coming along good here.

 

Sunflower patch.

 

Corn will be knee high on the 4th.

 

My wife was raised in Ohio with the saying.
“Corn should be knee high by July.”


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Just starting to get inundated with squash here. I swear these grew another 2” since yesterday . I think I’m going to do another planting of them this week, so I get another flush of them in September.

 

Things are really starting to shape up in the (new) garden. Ive read and watched every vid about mulching and composting i could find for the last 6 months. I got a buddy to bring me a load of leaves last month from his leaf vac. My neighbor brought me about 15 scoops of 3-4 yo wood chips and i just got a 500# bail of rotting wheat straw that a friend was going to throw away. We mulched the tomatoes and peppers with the leaves. Zucchini, squash, pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, and walking paths with the composted wood chips, and next we'll start putting down straw to cover anything thats left, and to help hold the leaves down. We're trying the "lasagna" style gardening. All the plants got a dose of compost in each hole as we planted them.

 

I’m finally getting around to making another batch of weapons-grade hot sauce I’ve got the brine for these jars cooling right now. The jars will stay in my closet for the next 2-3 weeks while it ferments. All of these peppers are leftover from last year’s crop. Today I blanched a bunch of summer squash and had to free up some room in the big freezer, so it was time to get to it. I still have (2) 1 gallon bags of peppers in my freezer

 

Garden looking strong.



Tomatoes caged up in 5 foot rewire, except for Roma's in 2.5 foot. They are all almost to the top or over.

 

Just picked my first 2 zucchini about that size yesterday, along with the first cucumber. A lot more coming on soon. I'm ready for some zucchini lasagna.