Well, I realize that it’s been almost a month since mt last garden update.  I’d blame it on an overwhelming workload but the reality is that’s it’s because of my own procrastination.  These pictures are from July 19th and will be followed by a post showing the garden as it is presently on August 4th.

Plenty has happened over the last month.  Some good some bad.  Upper left, we pulled out all of our green beans and added them to the compost.  They had begun drying out and had stopped producing a plentiful crop.  Given their quick growth period though we planted seeds in their place and should begin getting green beans again in the late summer or early fall.  We also succeeded in trimming back the lemon cucumbers into a much more manageable size.  Upper right: a case of powdery mildew popped up on some of the melons (both water and honeydew) which resulted in us having to immediately tear out the afflicted portions and dispose of them.  Note: do not compost anything suffering from any pest or disease.  You are simply inviting it to continue, and perhaps spread.

Upper left: a picture of our heirloom tomatoes.  Heirlooms come in many, many types, but ours grow to be small to medium sized tomatoes with a very wrinkly, mutated appearance and slightly pinkish red coloring.  As of July 19th the heirlooms had only just started to ripen.  Upper right:  the cherry tomato plant is thriving.  At this stage we are able to harvest cherry tomatoes almost daily and get probably 20 to 30 tomatoes per week from the one bush.

Upper left: the dry, hot weather has begun to take it’s toll on the garden as well.  Many of the larger leafed plants tend to wilt in the midday sun…at least until they receive water.  Then they tend to spring back by the end of the day only to repeat the cycle again the next day.  Our pumpkins are ripening and although large it doesn’t appear that any of them will get quite large enough to carve them.  Upper right: our giant sunflowers are all now open.  They are certainly impressive looking, but will probably start to wilt fairly quickly once the flower opens up.  Although we probably won’t you can harvest and season your own sunflower seeds from these giants.  To harvest the seeds you want to cut the entire head off the plant and hang it upside down in a cool, dry space.  After letting them thoroughly dry out you can then remove them from the flower and salt or season them as you wish.

Be on the lookout for a more current update to see several changes that have swept the garden.