Garden produce

I thought I'd give you a peek at my garden, although I took these photos over a week ago, and with the heat we've been having, things have really matured fast, so it doesn't quite look like this anymore. :)

The tomatoes had just started ripening nicely:

Several weeks of dry weather followed by the big rain we got, though, caused a lot of them to crack, even while green:

They're ripening really fast now, and I've picked a lot of them.

Here are the whole plants, over 6 feet tall in their super-duper tomato cages. All the moisture we had in the early part of the summer, however, caused a rather big leaf spot problem, as you can see at the bottoms of the plants, and it's gotten considerably worse in the last week:

My cantaloupe/muskmelons have done well, considering I only have 2 plants. There are about a dozen of them out there. We've already started eating this one... it got huge, and it's yummy!

My one butternut squash plant has produced well, too:

I have tons of green bell peppers from my 4 plants. Two of them are supposed to produce red peppers. I've forgotten which ones are which, so I'll just have to wait and see! However, if I wait long enough, they'll all turn red, anyway.

With the wet spring we had, I think every carrot seed grew. I'll have an abundant crop there! The onions have bent over and started to dry down:

Here's something in the wildflower bed that I didn't plant!

It's a Rainbow! I usually find her out there in the mornings. She still hides out from the other cats a lot. :(

She's bigger than a muskmelon. :)

Best tomato cages ever

I have sad/happy tomato plants this year. I hesitate to show them to you, because they're not the healthiest tomato plants I've ever had, thanks to our too-wet and too-hot weather. As you can see, they're dying from the bottom up from tomato blight and/or septoria leafspot. They also have few tomatoes on them compared to other years. From what I've heard, many other people are having the same problem this year. That's the sad part.

The happy part is the cages that are supporting the tomato plants! They are awesome! I had gotten one last year and liked it so well that I got another one this year. (I requested both as Christmas gifts, as a matter of fact... Santa musta thought I was a good girl.) They're called E Z Tomato Cages.

They're very strong... they'll last forever... no more bent wire cages. They set up easily, fold flat for storage and take up very little space. You can even get 2-ft. extensions to add on at the top if your tomato plants outgrow them. My plants are about 6 feet tall in the photo.

If you're interested, check them out on the web site. They might seem expensive, but they're worth it in my book. (Or you could request some from Santa. ;) ) You can grow a lot of tomato plant in very little space, but mainly you won't have your plants lying on the ground and in a lot worse shape than mine are right now.

On a healthier note, I do have some nice squash coming on this year. This is a baby buttercup.

Here are a couple of baby cantaloupe(s?) from my one-and-only plant. They're about 4" or so across, so it'll be awhile before we can eat them. More babies are on the way, too.

BTW, how are your tomato plants this year? Are they sickly, too?

Well.... our new water is clear and is flowing freely. Now once we get all the sand worked out of the pipes (it turns out that that bowl of 'gunk' was very fine sand instead of clay), all will be well (and I'll dare to do laundry again).

My overgrown garden

You may have noticed I've been a little lax in posting lately. (At least I FELT like I have been.) I've been under the weather with one heckuva cold (or something) the last couple weeks and just haven't felt much like blogging, much less have any inspiration of what to take pics of. And because of not feeling well, I also didn't have Courtney for over a week (who was also under the same "weather" for awhile), so I'm also out of pics/videos of her (till tomorrow). And then there's been the Olympics on TV every night, so that's taken up some of my usual computer time. And I can't see the TV from the computer. Enough excuses? Anyway, I started to feel alive again yesterday, and though I'm not 100% yet, I believe I'll survive. ;-)

Due to the abundant rains we've had this summer, my garden has really gotten overgrown! It's been hard to even get into it to pick anything. Front and center here is what is supposed to be 'bush' acorn squash. That's some "bush", if you ask me! It's completely covering a row of green beans on one side and moving well into the wildflowers on the other. Later this afternoon I must go out and cut the vines off the beans... I do NOT want that many squash! And as you can see from the second photo, they're still blossoming profusely, and the little honey bee inside the right blossom is doing its job, too.

On the other end of the garden are my 2 hills of cantaloupe. They were totally covering all that bare space between the 2 rows of onions, until I ruthlessly ripped out the excess vines a couple nights ago. The melons are VERY thick in there... easily the most I've ever had. I can't wait for them to ripen, though... they're soooo yummy!

My tomato vines are also very thick, and it's hard to even see the fruit under them. But here's a peek.

My green peppers are producing abundantly, too, but were too covered for a good photo. And even though I only planted less than a 2-foot row of beets, I'll have more than enough there, too. Needless to say, it's been a good year for gardening.

Oh yeah, the weeds have done well, too. In the last few days, I've hauled out two 5-gallon buckets of "beloved" purslane. (I should've taken a pic before I started pulling!) But at least it was easy to pull, with the ground being wet, and with so much shading from the tall vegetable plants, it also stood upright, rather than flattening out on the ground like it usually does. So I've gotten most of it pretty easily.

P.S. I realize I don't have a little poll to vote on this week, either. My sluggish brain couldn't think of anything fun to poll about, plus I've been testing out some other blogger "gadgets" which I may put up for awhile instead. I guess you'll have to wait and see what develops there. ;-)