Japanese Beetles

How can you tell if you are running a Japanese Beetle Breeding Ground?  The skunks will tell you.  And the coons too.  They will come through at night and root up your lawn looking for the grubs.  And while it's great that they're willing to destroy the grubs for you, if you had a nice neat lawn you spent a lot of time on all this destruction could be very upsetting.

Now I can see which areas of our lawn have not been properly treated with Milky Spore.  I have a big box of it ready to apply and late summer/early autumn is the perfect time to apply when the new grubs are feeding getting ready for winter.

Tomato Maintenance

There are many different methods of supporting tomato plants.  You can tie them up on strings, cage them, train them up a ladder, twist them up a pretty colored spiral stake or put them through hog panels.  One thing all of these methods have in common is that you have to keep up with them every day.  You have to make sure your leaders stays in the frame, and any side shoots that you do not prune off need to be woven in as well or at least tied to the outside.

If you don't your supports will be useless.  In fact, in this case I think having the ladder is actually doing more damage to the plant than letting it sprawl on the ground because now the side branches are broken over a rail resulting in the stem snapping.

Here is one of my own determinate varieties, unpruned, 

but still contained within the ladder.

There are soft tomato ties here and there supporting side branches.  

Sometimes the tie needs to be repositioned to support the fruit as they grow.

And here is an indeterminate variety, well pruned 

to a single leader and contained in the ladder.

Sometimes the branch will lay harmlessly along the ground.

But the worst case scenario is the branch will break off entirely and you will lose all the fruit on it.

So maintain your tomatoes!  You don't want all your hard work and hopes dashed because you didn't keep up on simple maintenance.

The Mid-Summer Slump (not)

The mid-summer slump is late.  My garden looks far from slumpy.  In fact, it looks pretty fresh and new.  Maybe not June-new, but still pretty good.  Despite the fact that in July we went almost three weeks on only 1/4 inch of rain.

Shabby old vines

 The first planting of cucumbers was dwindling off and beginning to show signs of age.  Instead of letting the leaves deteriorate and foster diseases, I pulled them out.  I  have a row of Goldmine Bush beans planted there.

Cucumber bed before removing old vines

The Goldmine Bush Beans now have the bed to themselves

The second planting of cukes is just coming on.  This plant was a spare from the first planting which I kept in a pot until the peas were out and the second planting was ready to go in.  It has already been a great producer and will bridge the gap between the first and second plantings.

A perfect Cucumber

Second Cucumbers and Bush Beans

I am still waiting on my first ripe tomato.  It is WEEKS late.  I have been getting one or two ripe Sungold cherry tomatoes each day from each of my two plants.  Which is barely enough to garnish a salad.  I am waiting for the time when I have handfuls to make tomato, cucumber and feta salads.

The tomato bed is NOT a jungle this year.
It is also not blighted yet

Celebrity Tomatoes

The bell peppers that were setting as I planted them this spring are beginning to ripen.  The plants that I pinched back pretty vigorously in June are setting a good amount of fruit.  Luckily these are in containers so if it takes them forever to mature, I can protect them from frost.

Baby bell peppers

Powdery Mildew

We have had dry weather, hot weather, cool weather, damp weather and still the garden is weathering it all.  There is a little mildew showing up on one of the yellow summer squash plants, but nothing to be alarmed about.  As I've often noticed, it is the varieties with plain green leaves that succumb first, and squash with lighter lacing running through their leaves hold out the longest.  If it gets too bad I will just pull it out.  We've had very few bad bugs this year.  So all in all it has been an easy year so far.

The Dunja squash has lighter lacing in the leaves
and will be the last thing affected by mildew

The thing about bush beans...

The thing about bush beans is that you always get one smart-alec in the group who thinks he's a pole bean.  These are the neighbor's green beans this week.  I think they may be Burpee's Tenderpick.  I've had bush beans do that every year, but it is usually the Purple Queen.  It is interesting to see that I am not the only person who has run into this.

Purple Queen "bush" beans on pea-fence.
Goldmine beans to their left

The plant specs say that they should grow to 15"-20" but taint so.  They will be 24"-36".  So I always plant them around pea-fence, and the neighbors also planned wisely this year and did the same.  Normally, my Goldmine bush beans do not get as tall, but this year they are also getting way too tall and flopping over.

The reason this is undesirable is that the plants cannot support a heavy load of beans and they will stub the beans against the ground giving you curly, unattractive beans instead of long straight bundles of beans.  That will be particularly true if you have enough dry heat to cause your plants to wilt each afternoon.

See, that's the thing about bush beans.  They don't know they're supposed to bush.  They would always prefer to climb.

Not My Broccolli

We have a friend who grows the most perfect broccoli I've ever seen.

Most years he will call and offer us broccoli and/or cauliflower 

(which will be even bigger)

This broccoli was a work of art

I think it is a point of pride.  

The only way he can show off his awesome produce is to bring me some.

Tim sent him home with some equally nice zucchini.

It was beautiful from every angle

Next week the cauliflower should be ready.

Pinch Me

I mentioned in one of my recent posts that my annuals are getting a bit tired.  July is the time when things begin to get a little over grown and lanky.  The first push of blooms is done and the plant may be covered in seed pods.  Having achieved its purpose, it may just give up and die.

  Heat or excessive rain will also take it's toll, as will pests.  Now if you are super organized and ambitious, you could replace the spent plants with fresh backups you've been coddling in the wings.  Or, you can do some maintenance.  It gets to the point where you can't make it look any worse, so just go in there and cut.

Last week this planter full of Nasturtium was yellowing and fading.
 I considered dumping out and replacing it

You can do this with surgical precision, taking just a little bit off the ends.  Or you can take drastic measures and whack them off at the knees.

A dose of fertilizer and a trim and this week the plant has
perked up and put out some fresh new growth an blooms

Black Aphids

If you have pests, it is best to take drastic measures, cut as much out as you can, and destroy the infected foliage or wrap it up and put it in the garbage.  Don't try composting it and don't cross contaminate it with your healthy plants.  

One week you are perky and in your prime

And a week later you are worn out and bedraggled

Some things should be pinched back right when they are planted.  Often, a pack of annuals will have one or more weedy inferior plant.  I pinch these way back, re-pot them in a gallon pot and store them in the garden where they will catch up and be available to replace failed plantings or add color to an area where the perennials are past their bloom time.

This row of Portulaca was looking pretty pitiful before I pinched it

Sometimes the whole pack of plants is a bit too weedy and lanky.  This year I bought Portulaca from two different sources.  The first variety was Sunseeker and a week later I saw some really nice Happy Hour and I decided I need more.  When I planted the Happy Hours, they immediately made the Sunseekers look like crap by comparison.  I carefully pinched back all the Sun Seeker plants to the point of new growth,  They were left as tiny little nubs that pretty much disappeared into the background.  And now they are bushy, compact and blooming almost as prolifically as the Happy Hours.  

I love Portulaca.  I never plant enough.  The blooms are so iridescent and intensely colorful.  Because they have succulent leaves, they withstand heat and dryness.  And they volunteer.  I am always finding cheerful little Portulaca volunteers popping up in odd corners.  Maybe next year I will plant them in large groups instead if neat little soldier rows.

This plant started out with three long bare stems and hardly
 any leaves and now it is round and full of buds.

But not everything is tired out and needing maintenance.  The Coleus are looking great.  They will begin to bloom now, and if I want them to stay compact and bushy I will need to pinch back the growing tips to prevent the tall blooms from forming.  Coleus is grown for its lovely foliage, not its sparse spikey flowers

Japanese Beetles

This year is a comparatively bad year for Japanese Beetles.  Not catastrophic by any means, but fairly annoying.  Over the years we've put down Milky Spore over pretty much the whole property which has cut down a lot over the years.  These days they concentrate around the porcelain vine next to the side door.  It's sort of like a beetle round-up.  They don't bother the beans and rarely even the raspberries but they still love this vine.  I keep a Bag-A-Bug nearby which draws them to that side of the house and then they spot the party vine!

This is what a Beetle Party looks like

This makes them sitting ducks.  Every day I collect them up in a cup of soapy water.  It's easier to catch them in the morning when they are cold and dewy and sluggish.

In five minutes I can clean the vine of 4 or 5 dozen beetles.  A few will startle and decamp but if I wait 5 or 10 minutes they'll be back.  There's not much fun stuff to do away from the party vine.

I put Castile soap in the water which kills them almost immediately.  

I leave them for a bit then I pour it out on the pavers of the compost area and crush them with a shovel to make sure they're very dead.  Beetles are controllable but like most pests, you have to do it every day every year to keep them in check.  You are never really rid of them.