Garden update

[redbird]

My mother just spent a few days here, and she is Vastly Impressed that I am actually growing cucumbers. The cucumbers aren't doing as well as I would like, but she hadn't quite realized that ordinary people (who are not farmers) grew cucumbers, or maybe she hadn't realized how far a few vines would spread.

She was also very pleased with the cherry tomatoes, as am I.

The overall state of things is: the cucumber plants may be sick, but it's not as bad as I had feared a week or two ago. One of the cherry tomato plants is burgeoning; the other has produced a few fine tomatoes and has lots more coming along but still green. The full-sized tomato doesn't seem to be setting fruit, alas. (Fortunately, the farmers' market in Arlington Center has a vendor who labels things as Yellow Brandywine or Purple Cherokee or Taxi, not just "heirloom.")

The lettuces bolted, flowered, and are busy setting seed. We have a really fine collection of volunteer pokeweed alongside the driveway. (It's generally considered a weed, but it's on the Audubon Society's list of things to grow around here to benefit wild birds and insects, and the downstairs neighbors don't seem to mind it blocking one of their windows.) I was pleased to see one volunteer purple clover in the vegetable garden yesterday; they're very pretty and good for the soil.

I did some extra weeding this afternoon while waiting outside with my mother for her cab back to the railroad station. (I always take transit, because I feel more secure that way, but her trip, her decision.)

Comments

[wild_irises]

Around here, the organic farmers find cucumbers very difficult, because of cucumber beetles. The farm where we get our vegetables grows something they call "painted serpent cucumbers," which are actually very beautiful long skinny green melons. The cucumber beetles like these plants too, but they eat the leaves rather than the fruits.

Good luck with yours!

[alatefeline]

Yay! Delicious beneficial plants!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

The climate is of course entirely different in the Puget Sound area, but my sister and BIL grow quantities of cucumbers. They press us to take cucumbers the way other people do with zucchini.