Lots of Green Tomatoes in my July Garden

Cherry Tomatoes on Patio Plant

 Vegetable Garden

Since I planted tomatoes and peppers late this year, July presents itself with lots of green tomatoes. I have bunches of cherry tomatoes growing in containers on the deck. Massive caged tomato plants are along the back of the house. Small eggplants have started in this area also. I hope to get good eggplant produce, but recent years have been plagued with the opposite. In the past, aphids have overrun the eggplant so I aggressively treated these with a soap solution this year.

Cherry Tomato Plants Thrive on Deck

Tomato Plants off the Deck

Across the yard in the traditional vegetable garden, the yellow and zucchini squash are battling with the insects. Jalapeno peppers are producing great, but the green pepper plants are off to a slow start. Several of these plants died after bugs ate most of the leaves..

It is interesting that my zucchini, which has always been a stalwart of the garden, has not produced a single fruit. I photographed the beginnings of one, but haven't seen anything since. The squash bugs have been around for a couple months and I haven't had the heart to use a pesticide. The store-bought yellow squash plants are producing in small numbers.

We're making plans to rest this garden area next year. Because of back problems, I'm to avoid bending, and weeds and grasses have taken over.

Japanese Beetles on Eggplant Leaves

Red-spotted Purple Butterfly on Butterfly Bush Flower

Flowers in Bloom

The Butterfly Bushes are smelling great and attracting many skippers and swallowtail butterflies. The Hibiscus is blooming and attracting bumble bees. Stargazer lilies continue to bloom.

Hibiscus in Bloom

Pests

Japanese Beetles are numerous this year. In the past, they have destroyed Hibiscus blooms and Azalea leaves with their relentless appetites. This year, my gardener neighbors and I have noticed the diversity of plants being attacked by this pest. Butterfly Bush blooms, Crape Myrtle leaves, Strawberry leaves, Cleome blooms, and Asparagus ferns are now on the menu. I collect the clumsy beetles in jars of soap water. It's a chore that can go on all day. It seems I will have to treat the yard in the spring to curb the beetle infestation.

Sedum Showing Leaf Damage

The mystery pest of the month has attacked the sedum growing in the front yard. The leaves have been partially removed down the stem in "corn cob" fashion. Is it insect or is it animal?

Thanks for reading my blog post! I hope your gardening is going well. All the best, Pam

June is Flower Time!

Stargazer Lillies

Flowers in Bloom

Early June brings daily blooms of all varieties. Perennials flourish from a 20 year history in this patch of cultivation. The succulent garden has spectacular yellow prickly pear blooms and orange daylilies - these are the same daylilies that grow on the roadsides in North Carolina.

Prickly Pear Cactus Blooms

Succulent Garden

Stargazer Lily Flower

What we call the "Mother's Day" lilies are some exotics like the Stargazer Lily gifted to me over the years. Sometimes they make a May appearance, but this year they started in early June.

Gardenia Flower

The gardenia bush with a lovely sweet fragrance has more flowers every year. It starts slow with 2 blooms and then, like popcorn, busts out in white blossoms. I can see 20 blossoms from my kitchen window. This bush is a testimony to patience and rooting your own plants. A girlfriend and I were walking through downtown Wake Forest when we admired a blooming gardenia. She picked a flower, and I put it in a water glass where it grew roots. Now it's a bush with a 3 foot diameter! ( 15 years or so have passed)

Cleome Flower Blooming

Cleomes are the only annuals I grow every year. They drop enough seeds to insure plants sprout the next season.

Red-spotted Purple Butterfly on Butterfly Bush Bloom

My blooming flower report would not be complete without mention of the butterfly bushes. The one by the mailbox has started to bloom (purple). It gets the most direct sun. This year seedlings are sprouting everywhere seeds were dropped. Cracks along the brick steps, pots on the deck started with lemon balm, and the vegetable garden. Starting out small, these plants turn into mighty purple butterfly-attracting bushes!

Zucchini Squash is Blooming

Last Year's Overgrown Zucchini Squash

Vegetable Garden

The right combination of weather factors caused all the zucchini squash to bloom together seemingly overnight. Even the purchased yellow squash flowered.

Zucchini is tricky to raise because the green fruit blends in and under the large leaves. They are often discovered as gigantic fruits- 12 inches plus!

The bush bean plants are blooming, but my yield will be small. A whole row was lost to squirrel predation of the seeds. A couple of the "bush beans' are actually vines - not sure where they will go.

Cherry Tomato Plants on Deck

Mulched Tomato Plants

Late in May we purchased eggplant and tomato plants. Because of last year's fungus, we have started these plants in new gardens around the house. Cherry tomato plants are in pots on the deck. I had fun mulching these new vegetable gardens with decayed leaves. Hopefully this will hold back the Bermuda grass that is so persistent in these areas.

My enthusiasm over the strawberry plants has waned as the squirrels help themselves and leave half eaten fruit to clean up.

Moss Disturbed by Raccoons

Pests and Problems

There are lots of mossy areas on the property and raccoons have "rolled up" the moss in their nocturnal searches for food.The disturbed ground looks terrible, but I'm unaware of any solutions.

Every year as my hibiscus leafs out, small caterpillars skeletonize the leaves. I've played it both ways. One year I let the leaf massacre proceed, the plant bloomed as usual. Last year, I dusted lightly to stop the carnage. Because the plants are at the entranceway to the house, I'm leaning towards treating the leaves.

If you have made it to the end of this article, you realize there's a lot going on with the June gardens in North Carolina. I'm sure with warmer weather your garden activities have picked up as well. I would love to hear about it. Please leave your comments below. Have fun in your garden and all the best!

My May Gardens

Lamb's Ear

After planting perennials for 20 years or so, my May gardens have new blooms every day. The most spectacular of those are peonies. I have a pink peony that has expanded and produced more flowers every year. It's about 3 feet across now and loaded with flowers. Lamb's ear, iris, and azalea are also  blooming.

Peony

Bearded Iris

Another fun thing about the May garden is starting vegetable plants from seeds. I have bush beans and zucchini started. We're holding off on tomatoes and eggplant. I had a problem with those plants collapsing from a fungus last year. This year they will be relocated to another location in smaller quantities.

Zucchini Sprouting

Zucchini- 1 month after planting seeds

Bush Beans - 1 month after planting seeds

As an experiment, my husband bought a couple of strawberry plants last year. I enjoyed a few tasty bites while working in the garden. Through the fall and spring those plants sent out runners that developed into two dozen strawberry plants. I have strawberries ripening everywhere ya'll! It's a lot of fun to check on these.

I hope your gardens are off to a good start. All the best!

August in the NC Vegetable Garden

Green Peppers Sauteed with Onions

Since I last wrote about the vegetable garden in early July (only a month and 1 week ago), plants have peaked and crashed. In what I referred to as a "winding down" period, most plants are no longer producing.

Tomatoes, eggplants, and squash provided great meals and side dishes. The tomatoes, especially, experienced a premature end as a wilt fungus crept through the garden. This situation is described in more detail, in my posted article about wilt.

Wilted Eggplant July 21, 2017

It is a challenge to write about the garden of August and not list a bunch of negative situations, but it is August. The bugs are multiplying, microbes are spreading, and squirrels will be squirrels.

I've started the garden cleanup and all yellow and zucchini squash has been removed with, hopefully, all the families of squash bugs, pickle worms, and vine squash borers with them. It's important to resist the urge to compost infected plants. Stink bugs and the like will overwinter in compost and leaf litter.

Spaghetti Squash

Squash with Downy Mildew

A beautiful spaghetti squash gourd appeared and grew rapidly, but rotted from the inside. After its removal, the remaining plants choked of powdery mildew. Spaghetti squash is a delicious vegetable, but, because of the long growing season, is challenging to bring to maturity.

Some Creature Likes Jalapenos

Small Tobacco Hornworm

My extra-large Jalapeño crop continues to produce along with a smaller number of green pepper plants. Only in the last 2 weeks have 4 plants been affected by wilt. Like I said, the wilt fungus has truly crept through the garden in a random pattern. For some reason, the peppers have been very resistant to this problem. I'm very pleased with this year's harvest. The tobacco hornworm came back in a second wave of young worms that had a taste for hot peppers 😏 and eggplant leaves.

There are 3 eggplant plants left out of 12 (wilt). I am optimistic about getting enough for a side dish.

Bush Beans

My original bush beans planted in late April are still producing! A few plants dried up, but others thrive. This is such an easy crop that I planted more seeds in spaces where the tomatoes were pulled.

I like to grow sunflowers with the vegetables to attract pollinators. This year a squirrel ate a lot of seeds before germination. A spectacular Mammoth Sunflower survived and was 13 foot in height when a squirrel climbed up and broke the stem. The flower wasn't even open yet.

I hope everyone is having a good vegetable gardening season. Some of my Twitter friends are just starting to harvest in other parts of the country. All the best and thanks for reading!

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Thanks!😊
 

July in the Vegetable Garden

Overgrown Yellow Squash June 2017

Overgrown Zucchini June 2017

It's early July as I'm writing this post. Just as the squash is growing at dizzying speeds, my occasional out-of-town trips have resulted in some overgrown vegetables. Even when I'm in the garden every day, though, it is easy to miss a zucchini squash hiding under the leaves.

A Beautiful Spaghetti Squash Blossom

🌿Squash
The insects haven't killed any plants yet. The harvest has been huge so once the bugs take over, I'll start removing plants. The slower-growing spaghetti squash is hanging on in a corner of the garden. The vines are narrow and fragile-looking. Time will tell if these plants will survive to produce gourds.

Partially Eaten Tomato Left on Well Cover

🍅Tomatoes
The tomatoes are starting to ripen. Some plants have severe wilt and I picked the large tomatoes to ripen on the kitchen counter. The squirrels have started to steal fruit and roll it out of the garden. Outwitting wildlife is all a part of vegetable gardening so I'll be picking tomatoes earlier than I prefer.

1st Eggplant Harvest July 2017

🍆Eggplant
Today I have eggplant ready to pick. Last year's 8 plants failed to produce due to severe aphid infestations. This year I started with 12 plants and treated for bugs a couple of times. As a result, the plants had many more flowers and the crop looks good. I have had to remove 4 plants because they wilted and died. Removal is handled in a sanitary way to reduce cross-contamination.

Green Beans Ready for Harvest

🌿Green beans
The green beans are producing and so easy to grow! I like sitting on my step stool, picking the beans, and listening to the birds calling to each other.

Jalapenos Over 3" Long

Jalapeno Poppers with Fresh Peas

🌾Peppers
This year's jalapeno and green peppers are producing well. I doubled up on the jalapeno numbers to make poppers. This variety is growing larger than I've ever grown before. Recipe for Jalapeno Poppers here: Jalapeno Poppers

🐜Japanese beetles are attracted to the eggplant and peppers. They are slow, clunky bugs and easy to catch and dispatch. Needless to say, they're having a field day with my hibiscus on the other side of the yard.

🌻Sunflowers
Having had gorgeous sunflowers in my vegetable garden in the past, this year is disappointing. First the squirrels dug up several seeds and seedlings. Then a few succumbed to wilt - not related to watering. I have about 8 plants surviving. 2015 was a great year for these flowers. This post has several photos of sunflowers.

It goes without saying that friends and family are benefiting from the garden bounty. Cooking and freezing vegetables is another option for me, but then I would have to stay inside, right? This is the time when the out-of-doors beckons with grass to cut and plants to maintain.

I would love to hear about your summer vegetable garden. How are things going? What challenges are you facing?

July will present a whirlwind of activity in the garden. I post on twitter daily about my garden activities at @gopamnc . Follow me and retweet to show your interest and comments. Thanks!😊

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Garden Happenings June 2017

Yellow squash 7 weeks after planting seeds

This is a fun and exciting time in the garden. It's awesome to walk through the rows and decide what to pick. Most plants are heavy with produce, and the bugs have not yet overwhelmed the garden.

Squash

Squash is a fast-growing vegetable that is easy to cook. I have 25 squash plants this year. The straight neck yellow squash started producing first. This week I look forward to picking and cooking this squash.

Zucchini produce growing at base of 7 week old plant

7 weeks after planting seeds, produce on the zucchini squash is now visible. Zucchini easily camouflages itself among the green base of the plant until the fruit grows a foot long or more. It's tricky to find it at a smaller, manageable size. I have Spaghetti squash planted in a far corner of the garden. This gives it ample room to run vines for a much longer growth period than the other squash plants.

Tomatoes

Plants have green tomatoes now, but we're not taking this stalwart of the garden for granted. One plant wilted and had a burned appearance. Another had a partial wilt that was removed. This geographical area has a bacterial wilt virus that can contaminate the soil for years and make tomato growing impossible. With optimism, I'll hope the wilting is limited (like last year), and carry on.

First pepper harvest of 2017

Peppers

I've harvested a few jalapenos already. Jalapeno Poppers prepared with cream cheese and bacon will be on the menu this week.

Peas
Both sweet peas and snow peas are growing. These make a nice, crunchy snack while working in the garden.

Flower of the sweet pea plant

Bush beans
The beans have just started flowering. This is another plant that can "hide" its fruit in the foliage. I look forward to fresh beans in a couple of weeks.

Eggplants
Last year's eggplant harvest was limited by a severe aphid infestation. The plants were stunted and didn't produce fruit. Allowing for problems, I have increased my crop to 12 plants. Interestingly, many of the plants have spines on the leaves and flowers. Also, insects seem to be attracted to eggplant leaves. This week Japanese Beetles made an appearance.

Sunflowers
With screened cages to foil squirrels, a few sunflower plants are managing to grow. See last month's blog for more on that problem.

June will reveal daily surprises and challenges in the garden. I tweet regularly about my garden activities at @gopamnc . Follow me and retweet your support and comments. Thanks!😊

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