August 2016 State of the Garden

Lantana Blooms

Vegetable Garden Remnants

In my North Carolina vegetable garden, August is a month of cleaning up dead plants and cutting back weeds plus fighting bugs so the few remaining plants can survive.

Hornworm with Parasitic Eggs Attached

Tobacco Hornworm

Another Hornworm!

Vegetables

Squash production slowed to a crawl and plants died off two at a time. Tomatoes ripened so slowly that worms and stink bugs enjoyed them before I could. Hornworms appeared on the Green Pepper plants on a regular basis. Left unchecked, these voracious eaters will completely defoliate a plant. I always spotted the waste material before spotting the well-camouflaged caterpillars.

Spaghetti Squash

I harvested a spaghetti squash gourd in late July. Growing from seed to harvest took about 90 days. Two other gourds had to be pulled since the vines were dried up and weakened by Squash Vine Borers. Regular squash grows rapidly but spaghetti squash takes much longer. The challenge is that the vines have to stay healthy weeks longer to grow the spaghetti gourds.

Sunflower

Flowers

I can't say enough about the beautiful sunflowers. they continue to amaze. I grew them in circles hoping large stalks would fall towards each other for support. That didn't happen. The circles filled up with tall grass and weeds. Next year I'll go back to single rows.

Mexican Petunia

A new addition to my perennial flowers is a Mexican Petunia. I brought a plant back from Georgia last Thanksgiving. I babied it in a Mason jar over the winter and planted it in late Spring. It was slow to flower, but was worth the wait.

Rain has been sparse for the last 2 weeks and that has given me a breather from grass cutting. With regular rains, this month has required lots of mower time.

How's your August/ September garden doing? I would love to hear about it. I'm already planning next year's vegetable garden with severe cuts in the number of plants. What about you?


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