garden calamities

it's been an unusual gardening year this summer. perhaps it was the cold spring and early summer and then getting blasted with heat suddenly. i don't know. as you remember i planted for the first time a soil building cover crop in my raised beds last fall. i was hoping to improve my soil which has a lot of clay so amending the beds every year is a must and can get pricey.

well, i'm not sure what i think about the cover crop-it was a lot of work hand tilling it in and i'm having weird funky things happening this year. although the japanese eggplants are doing well-they love the heat.

the yellow squash took off like gang busters-we had tons of yellow spaceships invading the garden. although i did have a bee mishap-i had tons-o-honey bees happily buzzing around the garden before i had flowers-but as soon as things started blooming they vanished!!! perhaps they found a better hangout or got tired of waiting.

so i had to hand pollinate with a paint brush-taking pollen from the male flower and putting it into the female flower- aiding in act of flower sex was a new experience for me. it sure worked- i think their was some fireworks happening.

we were getting so many i was having to give them away-friends ran from me when they saw me coming! then a weird thing happened-i'm only getting male flowers now-no females at all. they keep blooming and then they die. same with my zuchini and petty pans.

it is also happening with my melons.

we only have one watermelon growing(out of all our melon plants) even though the vine is full of flowers. but all the flowers appear to be male. same with my cremshaw, lambkin and cantaloupe. total bummer!!! the fruit needs to be growing by now!!!

peppers at our place always seem to take awhile to get going. i've harvested some serranos. the jalapenos and orange bells are slowly coming around. we tried a new heirloom this year called the nordello.

from italy-a sweet pepper. they are red when ripe but don't seem to turning and they have been on the plant for ages. now the plant has stopped producing flowers-i know if i pick the peppers they will flower more. dilemma-do i pick them or wait for them to turn red?

i planted basil through out the garden this year-the heat is finally getting it to grow.

i just love potatoes-as you can see-i love all the niteshades -damn. my potatoes were not a success this year-i've been harvesting as the vines are dying and some totally dead. here's some russian fingerlings:

as you can see-they didn't all get big enough. they should be the size of the bigger ones. but the vines died before they finished growing. more questions. while harvesting-i had the pleasure of picking this guy up instead of a potato. when it started moving in my hand-i grossed out! potato bugs freak me! here's what he was eating-he was about 1 1/2 inches long.

he died the terrible death of being pulled apart in two different directions by lily and lucie. the chickens love a good game of tug-o-war!! then they chow down!


leaving the tomato discussion for a different post-that's another situation.

on the fiber side-i did get much merino roving dyed for my LYS. i gave a felter friend first dibs on it before i took them to the store and she bought 10 rovings-ha! i had 14. four bags was not enough to restock-so i need to get on the ball and dye some more!

almost done with the log cabin baby blanket-!!!!!! then i need to burn the midnight oil and get something done for the fair-always the last minute no matter how hard i try to be on top of things. i should be making holiday gifts-but hey-why not wait till november-as always-stress on!