State of the Garden June 2015

June Vegetable Garden - Garden Lady Blog

Vegetable plants were put in May 9th. The tomatoes are looking healthy and most have small fruit starting. The exciting part is that the fruit seems to double in size every day. It's interesting to just walk through the garden and see the changes. Black waste material on leaves led me to find and remove a few caterpillars. This will also alert me to the larger Tobacco Hornworm due to make an appearance soon. North Carolina is going through a period of extreme heat (90 degrees and above) which can affect the tomato harvest. When this happened last year, green tomatoes started falling off the vine. My solution was to pick the tomatoes in a green state and ripen indoors.

Eggplant - Garden Lady Blog

The eggplant plants are much larger this year. [Last year's small plants only produced small yellow fruit. It was quite a disappointment.] Flowers are blooming and new leaves are appearing daily. The leaves have some holes from insects and there is a bunny hanging around, but I feel these are minor issues.

Leaves Shriveled on Jalapeno pepper - Garden Lady Blog

Green and Jalapeno pepper plants have fruit started. Some of them are shriveled at the top, but still producing fruit.

Spaghetti Squash Plants - Garden Lady Blog

Taking my own advice, I moved Spaghetti Squash out of the garden to a little space along a wooded area. This avoids garden spaces from the previous year where insects overwinter. I was overruled, however, and we have Zucchini and Yellow Crookneck in rows inside the regular garden. It's rotated at the other end from where squash was planted last year, but every anomaly at the base of the plants reminds me of the horror of Squash Vine Borer.

Base of Squash Plant - Garden Lady Blog

Squash Flower - Garden Lady Blog

Some of the plants have fallen over from their own weight, and I've had to cover up exposed roots at the base. I've already removed Squash Bug eggs. Insect predation is a major challenge when growing squash. I'm hoping we can enjoy a lot of squash before the bugs take over. Two days ago I harvested 4 yellow squash.

Sunflowers - Garden Lady Blog

A new item in the garden is Sunflowers. Deer predation makes growing Sunflowers outside a fence to maturity impossible. There's a row of Mammoth which will grow 5-6 feet tall. We've added t-posts and string to support the plants. A shorter row of Hybrid Sunflowers is 3 feet tall and starting to bloom.

So life is getting exciting in the garden!

Here's a count of plants:
  38 Tomato plants
  16 Eggplant plants
  28 Green and Jalapeno plants
  25 Zucchini and Yellow Crookneck squash plants
  30 Mammoth Sunflowers
  10 Hybrid Mix Sunflowers
  15 Spaghetti Squash plants

Hybrid Mix Sunflower - Garden Lady Blog

Last summer's State of the Garden article can be found by clicking here.

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