Garden Update

Everything in the garden has been going pretty well except for one row of carrots and the beans that are beside them.  Earlier in the year I was finding beans that had the bottoms broken off of them but I didn’t think much about it.  The other day when I was in the garden I noticed that the row of carrots beside them were looking wilted, they were wilted because some pilled buggers ate the top on the carrots that were above ground!    They only touched the carrots themselves and not the carrot greens. 

After looking at them it appears to have been some little rodent, I'm guessing either mice or voles.  I have seen some around, but there are a number of cats that roam from the nearby farms that will homefully keep what ever population there is of them low.  The good thing is they only touched that one row of carrots, and it was the row that was sort of underneath the beans.  That is something that will be a big focus next year, proper spacing.  The carrots are on the left.

Other than that little mishap I have been harvesting carrots, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and zucchini on a daily basis.  The carrots that were grown in the root box beside the she have done terrifically.  They are all perfectly straight and well formed.  The picture below is contanier carrots.

The carrots in the actually garden that were planted earlier are also looking good.  They are significantly larger, but have been in the ground longer.  They are not as straight and the germination rate was lower that the box. The picture below is garden carrots.

My peppers are still looking great! I have let a few ripen to red before eating them and they are definitely sweeter than the yellow ones.  The plants are still blooming and are definitely very prolific producers.

The cherry tomatoes and yellow pear are doing ok.  I am having a problem with some of them splitting as they ripen, but think that that might just be because of the heavy rain we had in the last week.  I have finally been able to pick a few Cherokee purple.  They all have heavy splitting at the stems but are big tomatoes.  I cut into one today and was not disappointed.  It was incredibly juicy, and went very well on the large sandwich I was having.  They plant itself isn’t huge like prior tomato plants and has significantly less foliage, the tomatoes are easy to see but after what's on the vine is picked it doesn’t look like it will continue producing.  I will have to eat some more before I decide if it is a variety I would want to plant again.

Today I also planted some bok choy and kale for the fall. The kale should do well, but I'm not sure how the bok choy will do.  The spring planting was hit pretty hard by the bugs but hopefully these will do better.

I also planted my first cover crop!  The buckwheat I bought in the spring was planted in the bottom bed where the garlic was before.  I barely used any of the seed I had so I will be looking to plant more of it this fall.