@JayneR13 I'm trying the black radish too along with a red one and watermelon. Something different and fun to try this year. I'm already wondering how they taste and what to do with them. They get huge.

Another morning in the garden, weeding and side dressing and trimming! The rabbits have eaten a number of my beets but some still live, so I thinned them out in the hopes I'd actually get some. I'm disappointed in my Costata Romanesco squash because every single fruit is rotting on the vine no matter now much calcium I spray! The long white of Palermo OTOH is chugging along and producing. Perhaps the CR is simply more susceptible to BER? I'll have to read upon this.

Not all is disappointment, however. I dug the volunteer potato plants that weren't looking good and got a few small ones for the table, along with an onion I accidentally pulled. I also pulled the small cauliflower that had headed out, wasn't getting any bigger, and was starting to separate. A cabbage is taking over that space anyway.


And who could be bummed out by flowers? My other phlox container is in bloom.

I accept what the garden gives, but man! I'm having to work for it this year. Good thing I have farmer's market backup! It was never this difficult for the green-haired lady in the Xanth books LOL!

ETA: a bit of research and I’ve remembered that insufficiently fertilized fruits will also abort. Add that little chore to my morning garden stroll! Thankfully we’re talking squash and not cucumbers. Squash are easy to hand pollinate.

A couple of photos from the food pantry garden. Things are looking very nice! I pulled 14 lbs of food out of there yesterday, mostly squashes and cucumbers.

Wide angle view looking west. The squash hill is in front. The rows right to left are all tomatoes and cucumbers. This is a production garden and those things are popular with the pantry's clients, so that's what we grow. The last row by the fence is winter squash. There are potatoes and peppers just past that area as well, kind of out of the picture.

The herb area with a couple of tomatoes and some cucumber shoehorned in. That area was formerly a huge flowering kale with no edible leaves and wall to wall dandelions. Things are better now.


I seem to have lost my hori! I am so bummed! Please say a prayer to the garden gods that I might get it back, because that's a mighty fine tool to lose. It's not irreplaceable but it wasn't cheap either! So please garden gods, help my beloved hori find its way home!

Keep it in you heart and it might come back to you. My little planting shovel founds it's way home after a month, yours could to!

My Dad's pocket knife reappeared two days ago after having been lost for over two weeks. I was heartsick over that loss. I remember using it under the pole shed cutting apart tied bundles of dried bean plants I was collecting pods from. The next day I went back to Mt Brushmore where the cart with plant remains and bean hulls were dumped. I was sure the knife got dumped too but a thorough search turned up nothing.

A few days ago I was taking a break on the garden bench and all of a sudden a picture popped into my head of me using that knife at that very bench, cutting off any wormy tops of the corn ears I was shucking. When not needed I'd set the open knife on the bench next to my leg, close to the edge of the bench. Could it have fallen off the bench when I stood up? I looked and there, partially under a leaf or two, I saw the shiny end of the knife! The blades had gotten a bit rusty but nothing that a brillo pad and a little mineral oil couldn't fix! It's now securely back in my pocket.

So in a quiet moment when you're in that garden, your hori just might call out to you and whisper in your ear. "Hey Jayne, remember when you and I were digging around those plants over there?" It just might happen.

I hope so! I'm out to the garden this morning to pull that sick zuke and other chores. Who knows what I might find hiding there? My hori is lighter than the hori trowel, though I can get by with the trowel if I have to. And who wants to lose something precious? Not we! I'm so glad you found your father's knife.

What a morning in the garden! Lots of things are sick due to the excessive rain and I have mushrooms growing in my yard! Nothing I can identify of course, so I won't eat them. I did spend the morning pruning and tossing however. My Meyer lemon is no more! It's covered with a mildew similar to the Early Better Boy tomato and they were close on the deck, so out it's gone. I've had it for quite a few years with very few lemons for my trouble, so time to try something else. This pile of green lemons is the most I've ever gotten from this plant. The pot has been bleached, refilled, and planted with some of that Defiant tomato.


As it turns out, I had two sick zukes in that bed. That's not surprising since they were so close together, and I'm keeping a sharp eye on the third! Those two are in a trash bag headed for the landfill. My thanks to @patihum for sending me in the correct direction! I learned from my reading that if the entire plant(s) isn't pulled, the virus will spread like wildfire and the fruits won't be usable anyway. I did in fact see signs of the virus on one of the set fruits. This is the bed after I cleared them and staked the remaining zuke in a good direction. Keeping my fingers crossed!


Thankfully I have a couple of zukes shoehorned in over here. I don't think they're super happy there, but they're making babies. I hand pollinated a couple this very morning.

All is not lost however! I also did some serious pruning and cleaning of my brassica beds. The soil is still wet from Monday's 2.5" of rain, and I know that rotting leaves on such a substrate will make problems. So I pruned lower leaves and dying ones, and removed them to enhance the air flow in those beds. I found a couple of kohlrabi in the making! I believe this is Blauer Speck. I have some white fattening as well, don't remember the variety.


I thinned out the bunching onions in the big bed today. I'll have some onion for awhile! I used to not like these but now I appreciate the humble onion. Garden and learn. This photo doesn't do the pile justice! I have a good dozen of various sizes and some nice bubils as well.


And all is not lost in zucchini land! I could and probably should make either bread or pickles from this one.


These are Brussels sprouts. I've never grown these before but according to my reading, one clips the lower leaves because the little cabbages form in that leaf axil. Hopefully that's what's happening here.


Bergamot in flower, because it's pretty. My remaining red rose and white Montrose calamintha are also still in flower but I didn't take a picture of those. I just pruned the calamint away from my gas meter so the meter reader could do his/her job. That one's really taken off since I planted it in 2017! It's competing with both the yarrow and bishop's weed quite well.


And one of my bean pots and the black radish are up So there's hope for my garden yet. Keeping my fingers crossed.

My onions, nice & trimmed and set to cure. A few more than one dozen.

Another day in garden paradise! I admit that halfway through the season, I'm feeling a bit tired. I still have a ways to go however, so I continue. I had to pull another zuke from the shoe horn area due to mosaic. Sigh. But at least other things are doing well! Today's small haul was a few more onions, along with some onion bubils. A few got replanted to keep the bed going, a few for the swap. Volunteer potato and broccoli side shoot for the table. Beans are being saved for the swap.
Kohlrabis are looking good! Looks like I'll have a few of those to freeze, which is nice. The more I can grow for my pantry, the better. Thankfully the farmer's market has been reasonable for broccoli and cauliflower. I'm sure they're bringing that up from down South or growing it under glass. Either way is fine with my freezer


Cabbages are forming nice heads as well. This one is a replacement; my originals that survived are still runted but forming heads. Small heads are better than no heads.


Peppers and tomatoes. These were being shaded out by the zukes so pulling them had benefits. That saves me from having to trim them. I don't enjoy being stabbed.

My calamintha is in full flower. The bees love it! I didn't see any while I was out there this morning but other mornings, I've weeded right alongside them.


My deck pots. Beans are in various stages of up and I've been getting a few pods from the Sugar Ann peas. I need to save some seed from those as well. The Tempest tomato I got from Dawgs is up. Hopefully the Defiant will rear its cotyledon leaves soon.



My hydroponics tomatoes are flowering, which is why I'm keeping the toothbrush handy on the shelf below. Minibel, Pendulina, and Venus all growing nicely.


Last but not least, my propagated Cephalotus! These are hard to find and not cheap, so I'm glad I was able to propagate it.


Funny story: yesterday afternoon, during the hottest part of the day, one of the neighbor kids showed up asking for yard work so he could go to the water park. It's been two weeks of totally hot & sticky, so I'm not willing to go out and work during the hottest part of the day. I suggested coming by in the morning. This morning I was out, the kid bikes by, and vanishes. I think his mother must have sent him my way because if he'd really been interested in earning money, he'd have taken the opportunity to ask while I was working. You snooze, you lose kid. No workie, no money, no water park.

Another day in hot & muggy paradise! The weather is supposed to break in the next couple of days so I'll be able to open my windows again. Ugh. Happy gardening y'all!

Another day at the food bank garden! I'm pleased with the direction this is taking and evidently, so is the pantry administrator. Looks like we're on for next year! I've been green lighted to reclaim a few more areas and we're discussing plans. There are a few changes we can make based on actual usage, which the previous gardener wouldn't do.

This week's haul: 26.4 pounds of food.


This is the view from the opposite direction, looking west. The area on the right is the potato area. There's also a weedy area, overgrown to grasses, creeping charlie, and other stuff. We likely won't plant it this year even though there are two months left to the season. This area is pretty shady and without good rabbit fencing, anything we plant there will be decimated. I can get the reclamation process started though! There's a fellow with a tiller that's made me some promises.


After I cut down the tall weeds and weeded behind the potatoes. It may not look like much now, but there's plenty of potential! It's unlikely we'll plant potatoes there again next year again, due to shade and being a bit lower therefore wetter, but there are always possibilities! The first step is clearing the space, then working on the soil. I want Mr. Rototiller to plow everything under for me at the end of the season. Adding organic matter to the soil is a good thing.

I'm so glad that you have the go for next year. It gives the volunteers a sense of pride and helps to feed families nutritious meals. It's a win win if you have enough help.

That's the thing: enough help! I've seen two more volunteers but I'm not in touch with them to know their schedules. I've seen them once and I've seen some evidence of their presence, which is a good thing. That's a good sized space for one person to work. Three would be better. But this ship is moving in a good direction at least! That's what this year was mostly about: righting a sinking ship and getting it moving in a good direction. The last gardener was a gardening legend in his own mind, among other problems, and the pantry was ready to shut the project down. Now matters are better.

Another weekend, another day in the garden! I admit being tired of pulling weeds and really, most of the plants are big enough to shade them out so weed pulling isn't what it used to be. It's been really cool here these past few days, so it was a perfect day to play with a new toy.


I have a huge lilac tree that used to have a bunch of dead branches that needed trimming. It was unsightly and was spreading into my neighbors yard, so something had to be done. I had originally scheduled a handyman with a chain saw, then a friend clued me in to the existence of hand held, electric saws. The branches were all 6" or less, so off I went. Now the tree is trimmed and I have a big space that needs more plants.


I also transplanted the golden squash that I'd bought because it was the last one on the shelf and looked lonely. It wasn't happy in the shade of the Costata Romanesco and since I had to yank the other two, I had a better space for it. Hopefully it'll reward me with some yummy goodies!


Today's haul: a couple of small tomatoes and one plum. I don't usually get plums from my trees; try as they might, if a hard freeze during blossom doesn't get them then some straight-line winds will! This one was quite tart but hey, it's from my own tree! And the 'maters will be tasty. Two Firebird Sweets and one San Marzano. I'd been thinking to yank the SM if it didn't come around and stop with the BER, but the gypsum seems to have helped. Newer fruits show not a sign of it!


And getting Zen with the bees in my calamintha. There were quite a few in there but getting them to pose for a picture was challenging. But I did it!


I don't know if anyone here plays Magic, but I won my first 7 games in sealed today! It's more often three up and three down, or 4-5 wins, but today I won all 7! Yay me! That deck got saved for future use. Happy gardening!

Today’s work at the food pantry: clearing out an unruly bamboo and the last of the Bermuda grass. All told I’ve reclaimed a good 50-60’ in just this space alone. This will give the squashes some space to spread.



Moss Yin is enjoying a carefully supervised visit to the deck garden. She’s an escapee who could teach evasion classes to military elites, thus the careful supervision. There’s no way I’d catch her if she decides to make a break for it.


Tomorrow is supposed to rain and continue through Saturday, so no outdoor gardening will be possible. I need to replant one of my hydroponic units though. Happy gardening!

Getting rid of bamboo and bermuda grass? That is sure a lot of work. You are going to need that rainy day just to rest your body from that.

That little chain saw really helped! It made short work of the bamboo, and my weeding sickle made short work of the Bermuda grass. Aspirin, arthritis pain formula, was also welcome! And please understand that I didn't dig the roots. I just chopped & pulled, so I'll likely be seeing both again. Since there was no room in the compost bin I laid the long stems on the ground as weed suppression. The squash can grow over it and help it decompose, I hope. The soil isn't bad but it could use some organic matter.

Another day, more weeding and pruning! The Brussels sprouts are interesting. The little cabbages are growing in many of the leaf axils whether I pruned there or not. I can see I'm going to have to check these daily for harvest, like cauliflower.

Today's haul. Red Siberian, San Marzano, and Firebird Sweet. Some kohlrabi for the freezer and bits of broccoli, carrot, and a small onion for the table. A couple of cayenne peppers as well. The tomatoes to the left are for seed saving.

Congrats on getting Brussels sprouts to make. Success with that is something that has always eluded me and I've given up.