We had a home-grown supper Tuesday night: potatoes, squash & onions, cucumbers in vinegar. While I was cooking, my sister-in-law came in, saying she could smell the squash & onions from outside. I sent her home with a few squash for her own supper.
For the most part, the garden is doing well this year (knock on wood). The beans and peas popped right up the minute I planted them (well, almost) and have been thriving. The butterbeans are blooming. Most of the okra is about to be knee high. I had to re-plant some large skips in the okra row, and those seeds have just now sprouted. This might be a good thing, as maybe it won't all start producing at once. The squash plants are acting weird. The first three hills are sporting HUGE, green, leafy plants and have already yielded three or four meals worth of squash. The next four hills are puny, and lime green. The only difference in care and climate of the two groups is that the latter four hills are planted near some sunflowers, which might be shading the squash a little, but not enough, I would think, to effect such a large difference in the plants. Go figure.
Our potato crop may be a little disappointing. You may remember that early in the spring, something dug up about half of the potatoes. We re-planted, but something dug those up, too. (B*st*rds.) We did have some nice, leafy plants. Lately, they have been withering, which I understand potatoes are supposed to do when they're finished making. Last week, I de-grassed the potato rows so that we could find the potatoes to dig them. As I pulled up the grass, the withered potato stems came up, too. I laid the stems back where I'd found them to mark the spots where the plants were. When I left the garden, Pop-Pop went out there and planted tomatoes on top of the potatoes, thinking the spots were empty.
I may be seeing the first signs of blight on the tomatoes. The lower leaves of one or two plants are yellowing, and one has peppery spots. I've been spraying them regularly with Daconil, but used the last of it week before last and didn't remember to buy more. Last week, I sprayed with liquid copper fungicide left over from last year. Since it has rained since then, I went to the garden center, bought some Fung-Oil, and applied it this evening. I also mixed in some stuff that's supposed to cure blossom end rot, hoping to nix two problems with one spraying.
The corn I planted last week is sprouting. Time to think about a scarecrow, I reckon. Don't know what I'll do about the corn that survives the crows, once the raccoons find it.
Every time I see baby corn plants, I think about a story The Husband's family tells about my sister-in-law and a cousin. When they were kids, they would spend summer days with their grandparents. Pappy always raised a garden and would get the grandchildren to help him work it when they visited. My sister-in-law and her cousin decided one day that they would surprise Pappy by chopping weeds in the garden without being asked. Pappy's corn was small, and they chopped down every stalk, thinking they were weeds. The kids (who are now adults with kids of their own) remember this as being the only time they were actually afraid of Pappy. I can sort of see where Pappy was coming from. ;)
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