Veggie garden July 4th 2010

The vegetable garden is looking good this year. Although, last year it looked great until late in the season when the tomato blight hit, completely decimating our tomato crop. I think it's the first time in 35 years of gardening that we didn't harvest one tomato.

So far this year is looking different. The Roma patio plant that I planted in the garden is full of tomatoes and a few are already beginning to ripen. As was the case last year , everything else is doing marvelously. Due to the long cool, and wet spring the spinach harvest lasted a few weeks longer than normal and thus D. harvested beaucoup amounts of spinach, giving many bags full to friends and family.

I got the planting done early this year; end of April into early may which has given the onions and garlic a great start. Those crops that prefer cooler weather have done extremely well: the cabbages and broccoli are huge.

With this week's heat wave, I expect the warm weather crops to have a growth spurt. The other crops this year include eggplant, carrots, green beans, peppers both hot and sweet, zucchini, yellow crook neck summer squash, cucumbers, and 2 types of winter squash: Waltham and acorn. The green beans are getting so tall I had to check the package to make sure I hadn't planted pole beans by mistake. Nope, they're bush beans, so I'm not sure why they're getting so tall.


I confident that the weeds are manageable for the rest of the season. The first few weeks are the most important when it comes to cultivating the soil to keep the weeds tamed.

The three salsa pepper plants that my friend and florist, Joe Basta, gave me this year are doing fabulously. In fact there are a number of spicy peppers ready to be harvested now.

THANKS JOE!