Sunday, August 12, 2012

Problems and Progress

Rotary Garden, Lowell:
Tomato plants developed a fungus. The leaves are covered with gray-brown spots. A leaf sample sent to the state extension service for testing ruled out late blight for which I am very thankful.  The fungus will not kill the plant but will spread if not watered carefully by watering soil without splashing on leaves. However, this damp, rainy weather is not helping. It’s a dilemma. We need the rain badly. 
Tomatoes still developing on the infected plant.
 
Carrot, beet and arugula seedlings are doing well. I will soon plant more carrots and spinach. 

Wotton St. Garden:
Growth is progressing nicely. The bees love the pollen. Ears on the fist planting of corn are developing well. A few more days until harvest. Yummy. 

Go to: Dropbox to see pictures that would not upload correctly here.

Butternut squash plants blooming and spreading. The main broccoli heads harvested, eaten, shared and frozen. Side shoots are large and plentiful.

One last cabbage to harvest.  A small batch of sauerkraut fermenting nicely.


                     



W.F. Lewis Garden
Only one vole caught in the mousetraps set out. The traps are under propped cardboard boxes to conceal the trap from birds. I suspect ants are eating all the walnut bait.
Look at the teeth on that critter!

 The resident hawk is also helping with vole control. 

This is the bugger I found when I went searching my tomato plant for whatever critter was nibbling the green tomatoes and the leaves.

Horned Green Tomato Worm.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Progression of melon growth

These are pictures of one of ~8 melons I've spotted on my vines in the W.F. Lewis Garden, South Chelmsford. 
I'm finding it amazing to watch how quickly it's developing. 

July 20 First sighted

July 25 Just 3 days later (new moon growth spurt)


July 28


July 30




August 3 Close to full size





Aug. 6..sounding hollow when tapped. Stem is still green..waiting til stem stem browns and shrivels.

Anticipation as it gains full size and ripens.
















Friday, August 3, 2012

Beginnings and Endings

I'm very tardy posting this. So much work and no time to post..LOL. Plus, I had family here for a week.

July 20
Back from mini vacation and thankful for friends/garden neighbors who watered and for the mulch that kept things moist during the hot, rainless spell.

An advantage of being part of a community garden. Gardeners helping each other; sharing garden tips and reporting issues that might affect each other. 

Weeds at Wotton St. garden not deterred by heat and lack of water. Need old rugs to suffocate them. 
Butternut’s gotta ways to go. Not even a flower.     

 Ready soon are broccoli, showing small heads, and cabbage definitely forming nice heads. 

·       It’ll be a couple weeks before the first phase of corn ready. Can’t wait.  I hope to get to it before corn borers invade the ears.

·     W.F.Lewis garden holding its own.
·       While peas and potatoes are dying back, hot weather crops are developing fruit.



  Picking young, sweet carrots from small carrot crop. Misshapen. They may have hit a small stone as the roots grew downward.


·     
·       My big excitement was finding watermelons developing on the vines. The challenge, keep them coming.
July 20.
·     
  A vole eating up my potatoes is a downer. Gonna set mousetraps.



Rotary Club Park garden doing very well.
Apologies. I'm not able to rotate pictures. They are upright in my file. 

   Tomato and pepper plants thriving. Lots  of fruit





Aphids found my cucumber plant.  That invasion appears to quickly stopped with the application of borax (the laundry booster) like magic.


·           
·       The first sunflower to bloom. Gotta love sunflowers.