The garden has been interesting this summer. We got a freak snow storm over Memorial Day weekend. This pretty much did in all the blossoms on the strawberries and we got virtually nothing to harvest. Now the ever bearers are producing a few hear and there, but I am very disappointed as I did not get any strawberries to make jam with.
This snow storm and cold weather also prevented us from putting our plants in the garden until early in June. This is very late and we were not sure how things would transpire. Shortly after we put the tomato plants in, we discovered we had a gopher. Yikes! He has a clematis, hostas and columbine from my cottage garden around my soap shed. He then set his sites on our veggie garden. He got 3 heirloom tomato plants and one roma. He also at some herbs. We tried various methods to get rid of him naturally, all to no avail. We finally had to kill him off with poison. Luckily, he had made his front door under our deck and away from the garden, so it only took one dose and he was gone. While we are very much pro wild life in our yard, these types of critters are destructive and had he been left unchecked, we would have had no garden at all.
Once he was gone, we had no more problems. Now it is Sept. and the tomatoes are starting to ripen. We are finally getting cucumbers and the zucchini are coming a couple a day. One strange thing though, we have had tons of blossoms, but not even half of it is turning to actual vegetables. My husband thinks it is a lack of bees. I don’t know. I have seen some out there, but perhaps not enough. We had so many zucchini blossoms that I thought we would be knee deep in them by now, but we are not. Same with the cucumbers and the cantaloupes. We do have two very small watermelons growing, but at this late date, they won’t amount to anything. The pumpkins and squash experienced the same thing. Tons of blossoms, but no fruit.
On the positive side, the beans seem to be faring well, however, the peas didn’t do that great. The broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower never came up, but the lettuce has done well. We had lots of basil and I am drying it and storing it for winter use. Same with the oregano. The rosemary is doing well also and so are the chives. Next year I hope to get onions in and potatoes as well.
Plus we have only had rain once this whole summer, and it wasn’t much to speak of. It has been a long, dry summer. Luckily August hasn’t brought the high temps that July did, so at least we have that on our side.
I am still hoping to make spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce from the romas. They are starting to ripen, but I need lots of them to ripen all at the same time in order to make sauce. Meanwhile I watch and wait.
Here are the beans, roma tomatoes, cucumbers, carrorts and cantaloupes
Some oak leaf lettuce
Zucchini
French Beans
