I know you’re sick of my damn squash pictures already, but I cannot help myself! The first one will be ready (I think) tomorrow! I’ve had prolific squash plants in the past, but none that have looked so darn healthy. I feel like I’ve done something right with this bed.
K.Lo, too, grew some lovely flowers this year:
And we’ve got a couple of green tomatoes. The newer garden bed is sadly a different story from the squash bed. IF I could do it all over again, I would have mixed the soil with some good fertilizer, or perhaps some organic compost. Next crop, I will do both. In the meantime, I’ve been sprinkling some coffee grounds around the base of the plants, and I plan to pick up some fertilizer spikes at the home improvement store soon. The soil just needs an extra kick, and I don’t have enough terracycle on hand to do the job. In the meantime, the tomatoes are growing, but “eh.” The pepper is just pitiful. And the beans! Don’t even get me started on the beans, I just hope they can be salvaged. I thinned… but they’re pale, all of a sudden, and no longer growing much, after such an impressive start. They do have flowers this week. The okra, on the other hand, is doing much better since the thinning, and I think they will do all right, all though I have no past okra growing experience by which to judge.
10 comments:
Have you perhaps given the beans and peppers too much water? Of course, you are using drip so that usually isn't a problem... just pondering...suddenly yellow isn't good... do they wilt easily? Have you given them some of the pine mulch and coffee grounds?
Love the squash and all the garden photos.
Stupid question I should know the answer to - can you make fried green tomatoes from those or are the green tomatoes for that dish special "green" tomatoes?
Either way I must make fried green tomatoes immediately.
I think you just pick the green tomatoes! I plan to do this, this summer.
I keep thinking about the beans, which did receive the mulch and coffee grounds. I might just pull them up and start over. They're really a mess! I think I just planted too many? Or didn't thin soon enough. Maybe they are sucking the life out of the pepper, too. Maybe a replanting with some fertilizer will do the trick.
Seriously, I am super impressed with your gardening knowledge. I'm still working on keeping houseplants alive.
I love K.Lo's happy little flowers!
If any plant is crowded then the multiple plants should still be a good color, they just would be smaller. The Indians are said to have done companion planting; beans, squash and corn. The beans typically "fix nitrogen" so they benefit other plants. Have you looked at the underside of the bean leaves? Sometimes mites have a sudden population explosion that sucks the life out of the leaves.
hmm, sage advice. i will have a closer look to assess a possible mite situation. maybe from that crazy pine straw?
Pine straw shouldn't be the problem, the mites would want green stuff.
Mites are tiny dust like specks and if you look at them with a magnifying glass you can see their little legs walking. Anyway how to get rid of them. A very fine mist of water from the hose should wash them off. You can also use a solution of dish detergent and water and spritz the undersides of the leaves and then rinse.
Ooo. Mites everywhere. No kidding! On the okra, the beans, the pepper. The tomatoes had brown creatures instead of white. Everything has been sprayed down. You've saved the garden!!!
Yeah!
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