Sunday, July 19, 2009

Relax and Watch the Veggies Grow

Ahhhh... doesn't this look comfy? I love lazy mid-summer days.



The weather in New England is beautiful. We don't get sizzling heat (at least for the most part unless we get a heat wave) and it's the perfect time to enjoy all the hard work I put into the garden during the spring planting season.

Let's take a little break and see how the veggie garden is doing.

Bed #1 looks great! I've got tomatoes (12 plants - all different varieties), 6 sweet pepper plants, and 6 eggplants. So far this year my tomatoes look better than any other previous year. I think the raised bed made a huge difference. The soil is much richer and I don't have to water as often. Today I sprayed the tomatoes with copper fungicide since late blight is prevalent in our area. Thankfully I have no signs of it so I'd like to keep it that way.



No red tomatoes yet, but tons of green ones of all sizes. Here's a small one, but I've got many large tomatoes that I'm just drooling over waiting for them to get red. A few are pink so they are getting there.



The eggplants are small but healthy with many flowers and a few tiny fruit.



This pepper is almost ready to pick.


Bed #2 has carrots on the far left, parsley, bush green beans, and cucumbers. I'll start harvesting the beans this week.


The cucumbers are doing well. Here's a close look at a baby cuke.



Bed #3 has broccoli, several herbs, beets, cabbage, and cauliflower. I had difficulty early on with leaf loopers but stomped them out with Spinosa. The biggest challenge with maintaining this bed is keeping the slugs away. They've done more damage than anything else.


A floret growing nicely.



The cabbage is starting to form.


Bed #4 has onions, lettuce, basil, swiss chard, and butternut squash over on the far right. I didn't think the squash would grow so I just stuck it in this bed, now it's taking over as winter squash always do. I've asked Andy to build me tepees for them to vine up.


Bed #5 is the squash bed. I have zucchini and yellow squash here. They've almost doubled their size in the short few days since I took this picture - how fast they grow always amazes me.


You'll notice in the back of the squash bed are some container plants of tomatoes. These are the ones that I grew from seed and started very late. I didn't think they'd make it but they did and by the time they turned around I had already bought plants and put them in the ground so I had to get some containers for these.

The zucchini I grew from seed. The variety is Cashflow from Johnny Seeds. I picked these 2 today - my first ones of the season!


The yellow squash is Zephyr from Johnny Seeds. I love the 2 tone color. I can't wait to taste one.

Here a flower is starting to form on the winter squash. This is butternut squash - Waltham by Johnny Seeds.


I had some left over pepper plants so I stuck them in some bright pink buckets. I love the color they add to the garden. These are small plants for this late in the season but they are doing well and have tiny peppers on them.



Finally, here's the potato bed. I sprayed them with copper fungicide as a preventative measure against late blight. Today Andy and I hilled them with Mainly Mulch straw mix. I'll show you in another post later this week how we did it.



The last bed I don't have a picture of since there is nothing to show. It had the snap peas in it and I pulled the plants out last week since they were done for the season. We got nice harvests from them but not as much as I had hoped. Next year I'm going to put in a few more plants to get a higher yield. The peas were the sweetest ever and we enjoyed them for many meals. In a few weeks I'll be sowing in this empty bed for some fall crops of kale, collard greens, and lettuce.

16 comments:

Northern Beauty Seeker said...

Everything looks scrumptious!

That two-tone squash is so cute :)

Anonymous said...

Your vegetable beds look great. I am hungry just looking over the list of all you have growing! The zuchinni looks so nice. You'll have to share some of the recipes you use with these veggies.

Darla said...

Very nice veggie gardens!

tina said...

That was mighty comfy laying back in that beautiful hammock watching the veggies grow! They look great. That two toned zucchini is beautiful-not sure if I'd eat it's so pretty. I added your link in. Enjoy your weather-it's gorgeous here too-feels like New England. And we surely want this in the summer:)

Cathy S. said...

You sure have a lot of great looking veggies, this summer is very strange weather I don't think I've ever remember being so cool in the month of July and so many cloudy and rainy days. Well, at least you seem to be having great weather.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jackie~~ Your green thumb is extremely evident in this post. Wowzers! I predict some healthy eating in your near future.

admin said...

Everything looks really great!

Joanne said...

Your swing seat looks inviting and the vegetables are looking great.

Tootsie said...

it is all just mouth watering! You have a wonderful crop growing this year!

Jackie said...

Your veggies look great! Good luck against the late blight. -Jackie

Elsa said...

Great veggies:-)

The weather here is really wet so my garden looks more or less like a disaster.

Dawn said...

I have green tomatoes too, we picked 4 red cherry today. I love the two tone squash, I never knew there was a thing.

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

Your veggies all look so healthy! I think the baby cuke is so cute, I've never grown them before. I can't wait to see how yours do.
Love the hammock!

Meredith said...

Wow! I hope my veggies look that good when they get big. That's assuming they keep growing, haha!

Gail said...

Love the hammock...and your garden is filled with bounty and beauty! gail

Kathleen said...

oh my, that hammock looks so inviting. I love the bright colors. I've never seen one like that but it's very attractive.
Your veggies are doing so great ~ it looks like they get first class care too. I think you deserve to relax a bit. I wish mine would hurry up and do something!