The last time we checked in on our suburban garden, there wasn’t much happening…except rain. Now, we’re officially in the heat of the summer I think, and all that rain seems to be long gone. But luckily, most of our garden seems to be adjusting pretty well.
First of all, I have to tell you how excited I am for the raspberries! Just look at these beauties!
There are way more out there that need to be picked, too. It’s crazy that these berries did nothing, nothing, nothing for three years and are now the most exciting thing out there. It’s so fun to me that we can grow these in our backyard suburban garden.
Hello, wonderful, beautiful summer, indeed!
Of course, there are other exciting things out there. The tomatoes, for example, look better than they’ve ever looked. I need to remember to go put some fertilizer on them so they’ll keep doing awesome, but for now, I’m feeling silly for planting so many.
It’s just that the last few years, our tomatoes haven’t done anything…so I figured I’d plant a lot this year in hopes of at least getting enough tomatoes for salsa. If they keep doing this, I may have enough tomatoes for salsa, juice, spaghetti sauce, and more! Not bad for a little suburban garden…but I need to keep things under control in terms of my expectations.
The peppers are looking better, too, although they still aren’t doing great. I’m hopeful we can encourage them to get moving.
We even have a couple little baby peppers already.
But, their pallet wood raised bed isn’t doing so well. We built our suburban garden on the cheap using salvaged materials…but it’s starting to show. We may have to do some upkeep soon.
The eggplant are also doing well, considering this time last month they were covered, and I mean covered, in aphids. One treatment seemed to do the trick, which was really surprising to me, but I’ll take it! There are lots of blooms and even a couple tiny little eggplants already out there.
We also have tiny zucchini!
I’m not fighting the squash borers as much as I’d need to to totally defeat them, but my goal is just to hold them off long enough to get a few fresh zucchini. I have gone out and picked off the eggs a few times, and I even found and killed a few of the worms from inside the plant (by looking for “frass” the signs they had already burrowed in). I’m also adding dirt to encourage more root growth to support the plant once the borers do get in. If anyone has any other suggestions for our suburban garden for how to keep my plants alive as long as possible, I’m all ears!
The little acorn squash, or maybe it’s butternut squash, also seems to have revived. We did lose one of them, but that’s okay.
And the broccoli and cauliflower are our one major casualty I think. We seemed to have gotten a cabbage worm problem overnight and everything really got destroyed before we got our plants treated. Oops. We used some BT on them so I’m in hopes it will help us at least get a couple small heads…maybe.
On that note, when do you pick them? Now? When they are bigger? I’m not sure they’ll get much bigger. The whole thing may be a bust.
The cucumbers are also doing their thing. We planted a different kind this year so I’m not sure I like them…but they are supposed to be better for pickling. I guess I need to get on it and start pickling.
And, I’m now eating sugar snap peas all day long, which is nice. Those are an item I never think to buy at the store and then when we have them, I wonder why I don’t always keep them on hand.
Also, on a related note, I’m so thankful we don’t have to grow all our own food in this little suburban garden. Can you imagine having to grow like rows and rows of peas, then shelling them, just to make a side dish for one meal? Much less have them in the freezer. Sheesh. I know my great grandparents used to do this…but I can’t image it. Shelling peas is so tedious.
We moved our strawberries out to the garden, which will hopefully help them. We need to buy a few replacements for the ones we lost, but the strawberries have been good anyway.
The beans are doing well, too.
But, can someone tell me why some of them are all curly and weird? A variety thing? A pollination thing?
Lastly, I have to brag on Wyatt for not weed-eating down my dill in the “flower beds” (grass/weed beds?) next to our deck.
Not only are they pretty, but the’ll help with those pickles if I ever get going on making them!
