Garden Summary

The weather for June and July was a bit disappointing. Nothing grew in my garden except lettuce and beans. The basil, tomatoes, and peppers were stunted. The cucumbers and squash were doing tolerably well, but what a difference compared to last year.

August rolled around and we are finally having some hot weather. It's been in the mid to upper 80s for a few weeks with no end in sight. OK, we're having some 70s for a couple of days, but then it returns to hot, hot, hot. The nights are a bit cool, though. I think that actually helps tomatoes to ripen. It's been upper 50s at night.

Squash: my cavilli, zucchini, and summer squash have been going bananas (really I think that term should be going zucchini) for at least a month now. I can't keep up! We have been eating vegan zucchini brownies (incredibly good), spiralized zucchini noodles, and zucchini in just about anything I can think of: salsa, soup, lasagna, pizza, etc.

The winter squashes are fairing well. I have four baseball spaghetti squash, several sugar pumpkins, lots of jack o'lanterns, and ONE large pumpkin trying to grow (they keep rotting off at the size of a peach).

Basil, Tomatoes, and Peppers: the basil is finally taking off. It simply wasn't growing. The tomatoes are loaded with green fruits, but so far only five or six have ripened. To compare, last year, I was picking them in early July. The peppers are finally setting en masse. For the longest time, there was just one. I should mention that there are volunteer tomatoes all over my garden, and they are doing nearly as well as the ones I started in the greenhouse.

Finally! A tomato is ripening.

Next year, I will start them on heat pad in the sunroom. I will try my mom's bucket method with a light. I will NOT put any tomatoes in the hanging baskets of the tomato cloche. One last note in this category: I have an eggplant! But the slugs have eaten two huge holes in it. I am hoping two more develop from blossoms, and that the first one will be the sacrifice eggplant. Sigh.

My first eggplant ever has become a slug delicacy.

The tomatoes in pots have great flavor but the plants don't get very big nor do the fruits. 

Onions: they are doing poorly. My friend and I shared starts, and I gave her red onion starts that I grew from seed. Hers are baseball size. Mine are, at best, golf balls.

Beans: these are doing well. Yeah! John and I became vegans in May, so I wanted to grow as many shelling beans as I could. I have them all over the yard and garden. They are profuse.

The beans happily climb the old wooden ladder I used for support. You would never guess there was a ladder inside all that greenery!

Today, I made a dehydrator out of tongue and groove wainscoting. I was going to stack the layers on top of each other with the tongue and groove part, but that didn't end up being necessary. Instead, I fastened little squares of 2 x 2" blocks to each corner and then layered some hardware cloth (mesh screen) over the top. I made three layers today until it got too sunny and hot in my work area. I will finish this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I hope to have six layers in all. I will use a box fan (DIY hyrdrator courtesy of same onion-sharing friend) to dehydrate the beans laid out on the five lower layers. My friend dried hers on the vine and then laid them out (shelled) on newspaper for three days. I will leave mine on the plant as long as I can, but I know that there will come a time when they will start to get moldy, and then I'll use the dehydrator.

Potatoes: doing fine.

Figs: not as good as last year's 132. but so far I have 74. I am hoping to get to 100. All but three of those came from the main tree, but the new Olympia fig gave me a few. They weren't very good (dry and no flavor).

The smaller ones higher on the branch will not likely reach maturity before the weather turns.

Cucumbers: doing OK. Could be better. I may have to consider a fourth bed for them out front (see below).

The cucumbers are mostly easy to spot growing up the trellis, and it gives the cabbage a shady spot.

Changes for next year: this fall, I will need to move everything out of the greenhouse and put in a black-stained concrete floor. I will also need to build at least three 4 x 10 beds in the front yard so that I can move tomatoes, onions, peppers, and basil to a sunnier location. The saddest thing to report is that my garden is no longer getting full sun from 10:00 to 4:00. It's more like 12:00 to 3:00 at best. The trees in our yard have just gotten that much taller. Cutting the beautiful trees is NOT an option. That means I will have to take apart my tomato cloche and move it to the front. Good thing I built it with screws. On that note, the tomato bed will have to be 5 by 10 to accommodate the cloche.

As for the flower pots, I will buy some plants for the pots on the deck. If I get some six-packs from Home Depot, I should be able to keep the cost down. I will also be putting baby diapers in my coconut lined baskets. They just didn't hold water. I am going to collect the seeds from the yellow nasturtium (below) for baskets again next year. I like its compact, curly growth.

The water just runs right out of these baskets, and some of the plants on the edges died. Better luck next year with the addition of diapers.

Instructables: I have been doing some canning and Instructables has a contest for pickling and canning. I entered two how-tos: bread and butter pickles http://www.instructables.com/id/Nitty-Gritty-Gardeners-Bread-and-Butter-Pickles/ and fig jam http://www.instructables.com/id/Fig-Jam/. I hope to win a prize for having a good instructable. If you want to vote, click on the Vote icon on the top right on the instructable.

Next up will be my dehydrator in action!

~NGG