Other post-vacation garden updates

Other news from around the garden:

• Shaggy (the Cherokee Purple tomato) had a bad accident while we were gone too – one of his main vines either got too heavy or got whipped around in the wind, and snapped completely. When I went to cut it off with my knife, I think I snagged the stem and dug into it. Hopefully poor Shags doesn’t mind a few nicks and scratches.

• The lettuce pest I mentioned the other day turned out to be a cabbage looper (as identified via e-mail by my wonderfully helpful local university extension office). They recommend I use a BT-based pesticide to help remove them. I picked up some Thuricide at the local garden center and sprayed it on the lettuces. This seemed to help for a bit but I noticed a few more eggs and caterpillars in the garden yesterday, so I guess it’s an ongoing process.

• We also returned to find a minor aphid infestation (also identified by the extension’s master gardeners) on the Black Cherry tomato plant…

I sprayed some homemade insecticidal soap on them (lighter formula this time) and that seemed to take care of them.

Full garden photo round-up (couple days old) after the jump.

Tarzan no longer at home in Shafjac’s Garden

Bad news, devoted readers.

Whilst away on vacation, enjoying the trails and scenery of Olympic National Park (and attending nuptials in Seattle), tragedy struck the garden.

The jungle plant took a big hit.

Fresh caviar and more additions

You’d think fresh caviar’s a good thing, right? Not so much.

Several notes and photo roundup

Several quick notes and a full photo roundup from this evening, 06/15/2008:

• We added a few new members to the veg/herb garden this weekend: habanero, peppermint, oregano, and more basil. I wanted to get a serrano pepper as well, but couldn’t find one. The lady at the nursery tried to convince me that “hot chili” pepper was basically the same, but I wasn’t sold. I didn’t recognize the variety, but it looked small, red, and hot. Not what I wanted.

• The cilantro I planted in early may has already begun to flower. I haven’t even really had a chance to use it yet. Why the heck does cilantro bolt so quickly? Is there any way to slow it down? I looked around this weekend for more cilantro seedlings, but no one had any. Bad sign. I’m going to go ahead and let it go to (coriander) seed, and then save and dry the seeds for later use.

• We added a bunch of marigolds and nasturtiums to the beds (particularly by the tomatoes) for their companion properties – pest resistance and predatory insect attraction. I used this site as a guide. Apparently, nasturtiums are entirely edible, and their seeds can be pickled and substituted for capers. Someone’s lox-and-cream-cheese bagel will be appreciating that in a month or two, I’m guessing.

• Some of the tomato fruits are coming along nicely, but a few of the plants still have yet to pollinate their blossoms. I’m blaming the wet weather and hope it turns around shortly. It kills me to see all these blossoms dying on the vine.

Fruits are coming in!

At long last, the fruits are starting to come in!

The zucchini have been coming in for a week or so now – like I said, they’re jungle plants, and grow like crazy.

I’m pretty glad we got rid of those other 3 plants.  I think I started picking zucchini last week, and I’ve probably picked 7 or 8 already.  If it keeps up at that pace, we’re going to have to train the cats to eat vegetables.  The good news is, they do taste pretty good; we sauteed some for dinner last night and Amanda said they were the best she’d ever had (full disclosure: she’d been drinking for over an hour by that point).  We’ve also got some blossoms we’re saving for frying, which will be a new treat for us.

The tomatoes, however, have been the worst teases in the garden.  I’ve been staring at blossoms for what seems like weeks now, waiting for something to show up, to no avail.  But finally, last night, we got itty bitty fruits on the Black Cherry and Green Zebra plants.

I’m pretty sure the Prue and German Johnson will be catching up shortly.  Shaggy’s going to need some more time; he got a late start.

Finally, Rosey the Red Pepper has also joined the party and is fruiting nicely.

Hopefully she’ll shame the jalapeño plants into getting their act together.

Scooby and Shaggy update

Got an updated Scooby pic from Bing last weekend. Here he is, side-by-side with Shaggy from the same weekend:

Aphid infestation, zucchini breakup, and the end of the radishes

Well, I did finally spare some energy for the garden over the weekend, despite the stubborn illness that would not go away.  Stepped out on the deck to find the parsley lookin’ not-so-good:

See those little green buggers on the leaves?  Pretty sure those are aphids … and they were all over the plant.  The sources I read said “remove and destroy affected parts of the plant” or use insecticidal soap.  Since the entire plant was “affected”, I decided to try out option 2 (and move it away from the other herbs).

The good news?  The aphids appear to be gone (now several days later).  Bad news – I think I had too much “soap” in my mix, because a lot of the plant looked “burned” (lots of leaves with yellowed spots and edges).  I removed the “burned” parts of the plant and hopefully it will recover.

I also made some time to thin out the zucchini jungle.  Everything I’d read about zucchini said that they’re extremely prolific plants and take up a bunch of space, so you better love zucchini if you plant them.  Well, I ordered one plant, with that in mind, but ended up with 4.  To remind you, when we first planted them, they looked like this (05/04/08):

Less than a month later (06/01/08), they looked like this:

I’m tellin’ you, these things are freakin’ jungle plants.  It’s pretty impressive.

I like zucchini, but I don’t want that much zucchini, and I also don’t want it taking over the beans and tomatoes – I like those waaay more.  So we decided to keep one plant, as far away from everything else as possible.  We threw 2 of the plants in the compost collection, and transplanted the other one to a bucket for transport to Independence Hell (yep – Bing’s house).  After the eviction, the keeper breathed a huge sigh of relief and now has no less than 5 zucchinis rapidly maturing for our pleasure and is trying his best to fill up all the empty space.

On a final note, we finally harvested the remainder of the radishes.  They were starting to get too big in the ground and some of them had split.  Note to self – do not plant 2 rows of radishes at one time ever again.  Turns out, that’s a ton of radishes.  We gave a bunch of them to our neighbors and we still have way too many to eat.

To do – fill up the empty space near the zucchini (maybe another bush bean plant) and fill up the empty space where the radishes and failed carrots were.  I’m open to ideas on the latter space.  What’s a good summer veg to transplant this time of year?