The Garden

 The garden is doing well despite the onslaught of aphids on the cabbages and thrips on everything, particularly the tomatoes.  In short, our oasis has been invaded to largely to the drought and the fact that we are an oasis.  

This photo is looking back to the west.  We have green beans in the first bed, with carrots down the middle.  Then we alternate between tomatoes and peppers in the next five rows, with cucumbers in the far west bed.  

 So I have been smashing nests of aphids, then washing them off with water.  I have no idea what kind of cabbage crop we will end up with as they are going way down inside the leaves.  Have had to pull two cabbages due to the fact they were a total loss.  But I will prevail over the little *&^%$.

The sauerkraut jars might be few and far between on the shelf this year.  They don't seem to bothering the Stonehead cabbages as much as they are the Late Dutch and the Bourbons.  I don't know if it is the luck of the draw due to location or variety.  

I did get everything fertilized this morning with the exception of the green beans.  They are nice and green so will keep an eye on them if they need it later on in the summer.   


The cucumbers are doing well with the exception of the thrips working on them.  They are bothering the English cucumbers to a far greater degree than the pickling cukes.  I hope I have some dill left to make dills by the time the cukes are ready.  That always seems to be a challenge.  I am leaving little plants here and there throughout the garden in hopes there will be enough.  

The winter squash has really taken off in the last week.  I have five varieties of it planted, Rumbo, Long Island Cheese, Black Bellota Acorn, Early Butternut, Sweet Dumpling and Bonbon.  I hope they do a little better than last year.  I think the heat was more than they could handle.  I have not raised a couple of them before, the Long Island Cheese, Rumbo and Sweet Dumpling.  Very anxious to try them, especially the Sweet Dumpling.  There are so many different types of winter squash.  I have a lot more to try out.

My grandmother use to raise Blue Hubbard squash.  Those things would get so darned big.  She was a very accomplished gardener.  She would have loved the hoop house to keep the wind and hail off the plants.  

The garlic are starting to mature.  I will probably start digging some at the end of July.  Another thing I am anxious to test.  Should be much easier since I have them labeled this year so I can keep track of them when I harvest them.  I am going to print out the labels on Tyvek and tie them on as I dig.  I know it will stand up to anything as I use it to label fabric when dyeing.

Another post will be dedicated to the progress on the studio.  It is coming right along too.