garden happenings
The biggest thing that happened this week in the garden is that my husband cleaned up all the crazy weeds. I was so happy that he got out there with me to do some weed whacking around the garden beds, as well as being a boss at weeding. I think he is much better at weeding than I am…perhaps he will continue doing it in the future!
The garden is producing quite well. All the lettuce that the woodchucks had eaten earlier in the summer miraculously came back to live and I sampled some lettuce over the weekend. It was delicious, and I love going out to pick part of my lunch.
My peppers are doing amazing. I have jalapenos and green peppers growing right now. Out of everything I grow, I never thought that peppers would be the one vegetable that I seem to excel at…not sure why they are growing so well, but I will not complain!
There are a ton of little tomatoes all over my tomato plants, and lots of flowers as well. I hope they start to get bigger and eventually turn red. I’m sure soon we will be eating tomatoes for three meals a day.
I finally pulled my zucchini plant. It was totally dead, and it wasn’t going to come back.
My cucumbers seem to be doing quite well, there are a ton of flowers, and a ton of tiny little cucumbers. Hopefully they will grow and become big cucumbers that we can eat…hopefully.
I picked the first kale and swiss chard this past weekend as well. I sauteed it up with a little olive oil and salt. It was delicious, as always. I am looking forward to green smoothies with the kale, and as soon as my cucumbers start getting big enough, green juice fresh from the garden – yum!
I haven’t seen any more stink bugs recently, but there are still a lot of cucumber beetles on my potted cucumber plant. I keep trying to squish them, but they seem to be getting faster on the jump and fly away when they see me coming, or maybe I am just slower these days.
The japanese beetles, however, have moved in, and have overtaken my rhubarb plants. I find it entertaining that rhubarb leaves are poisonous, but these beetles seem to thrive on them! Oh I wish we still had our chickens, because these beetles were such a treat for them.
You can follow my instagram if you want to see more pictures of my garden and what I am harvesting.
How is your garden growing? Are you finding any new and exciting pests to try and combat?
How do you keep your kale from getting eaten by pests? Mine ends up looking like lace before it even gets big enough to eat. I tried to cover it this year…but I must not have done that right either. 🙁
I have no idea how the pests stay away. It seems like this year it is a little worse with the japanese beetles, but once my husband weed whacked around my garden beds it seemed to be better. My green cabbage on the other hand is getting a lot of holes from slugs…yuck! I think if you look on the back of the kale leaves you will see tiny green caterpillars on the backs, they do the most damage and are quick at it. If you squish them or take them off that should help. They are sometimes really hard to spot, so just keep looking!
Looks great! What a difference some intense weeding makes! Can't wait to see all those beautiful veggies!!!