Your 2015 Garden, what are you doing?

And a teaspoon of hot sauce to your soapy water mix, 1-tablespoon per gallon.

 

Amazon.com: motion sensor water sprinkler

 

LOL I was thinking the same thing @Yard Dart. My Dobie would be up on that sprinkler trying to catch the water in his mouth. Then he'd yank it out of the ground and run around as far as the hose would let him, spraying everything in his wake.

 

I went out to take some photos of the garden slash backyard this morning.
He Who Will Not Be Tamed waiting for me to leave so he can piss on my friggin herb garden. He's killed half the sage and is now killing oregano. I have huge back yard full of trees but no, they have to target stuff I wanted to eat. That bed contains lavender, rosemary, common sage, dill, oregano, vermont cranberry beans, forage kale going to seed, purple top turnips, yellow and red onions, 2 habanero and 2 jalapeno (the only peppers doing any good right now), some white clover I threw in for a lark, echinacea, poppies that have yet to germinate, a purple rosebush, 3 canteloupe that I'm about to put a cage in to take them vertical, and cilantro. I have found that by mingling it all together, the pests don't seem to target any one thing. Well.... all except that black and tan pest there.

Raspberries, blackberries, and grapes. Last year our grapes were wiped out by caterpillars and neglect. This year I've been out there twice a day flipping leaves and crushing eggs as well as smashing the winged filth that laid them. Got some neem oil spray on standby the second I see a crawler.


My miniature hay field. I planted a few squares of Tifton 85 for feeding the rabbits, who also rid me of those unwanted turnip greens, shrub and grapevine trimmings, etc.

Full size apricot tree... I'll be planting cherry trees ahead of it this fall. Dwarf peach that is way overloaded. Been thinning but barely making a dent. Espilliered apple tree that hasn't bloomed yet. I need to trim that one up.


My jungle garden patch. To the left are tomatoes, tomatillos, and black oil sunflowers. Behind them is the chicken yard. To the right are tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini.



On down the way are my sickly peppers. They dumped all their leaves, but when the sun came back they started putting them back on. Just in time for it to rain another three days straight and drown them some more. The monsoon hasn't bothered the tomatoes at the end of their line any though.


I'm starting to think we will never get the aquaponic system back up and running, but the fish are doing fine. I had to build a filter system since the beds aren't ready.


Indian corn and jack-o-lantern sized pumpkins. Water hogs that adore the floods. I never did get my sugar pie pumpkins planted. :/


And lastly, what I brought in this morning. I would have had a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes and raspberries but um, I ate 'em before I came back in.

 

Wow DW very nice. Herbs and Dobie pee.... interesting flavors

 

Can't wait for the DW cooking page for herbal flavorings

 

I can

 

That's how you get authentic kraut....

 

Just so no one else drowns in my footsteps....

Soapy water sprayed on squash bugs kills them dead.
A gallon of soapy water poured over the zucchini plant kills the squash bugs dead. It also kills the plant. Apparently more is not better in this case. :/

 

We have had so much rain, that we are fighting blossom end rot on maters, cucumber done went crazy, squash zucchini slowed down, and just out of nowhere a okra plant popped up and is doing great lol

This Louisiana weather is something. I can't ever remember having so much rain fall so fast and then poof gone. The drops are so big if you look up and one hits you in the eye you have temporary blindness.

We are fixing to start on the fall garden!!

 

This is the first year in my life that I've grown cucumbers that were not bitter. Its also the first year I've grown slicers instead of these spiny pickling kind. Thinking perhaps it was the strain and not me that made them nasty. The tomatoes are coming in fast now, not enough to start canning but will be soon. Onions are baseball sized now. Pulled the last of the turnips. Corn is big but no sign of ears yet, pumpkin plants are going mad, 20ft long vines now and setting pumpkins. Butternut squash going up the fence, cantaloupe right behind it. Lost all but one spaghetti squash, and that one looks sickly. Tomatillo bush is huge and already has split husks on some of the fruit. Grapes are covered but one vine has some kind of blight or something. Every vine is a different strain, that one always seems to get sick. Still crushing caterpillars on the leaves, so far they've failed to infest like last year. Been eating raspberries every day and blackberries are bearing heavy and turning black now. Peaches are still cooking, tree is loaded. Sunflowers all have heads and filling out. Peppers aren't doing f$*#)@all. Except for 3 jalapenos and 2 habaneros I planted in a bathtub, those look great. Wish I'd put 'em all in there. Watermelons and okra are creeping, hoping the heat will get them going now. The dogs have peed the oregano, rosemary and sage to death. Those had been there for 5+ years. Dead. $()&@!ing dogs. Relocating herb garden behind the fence where they're not allowed to go.

I shook a few branches on our apricot tree. Most of the fruit is still a little green but some was ready to come down. I barely made a dent, the tree is groaning under the weight of the apricots. Got two little buckets like this full, going to make apricot brandy with it.

 

My peppers didn't do much of anything either. DW, I think I read somewhere that some plant can be planted next to or around cucumber to keep them from getting bitter. I will try and find it

 

Hope this helps.
Good Companions for Cucumbers;
Vegetables: Radishes, peas, beets, corn, beans, and carrots
Herbs: Dill
Flowers: Nasturtiums, sunflowers, and marigolds

Plants to Avoid Growing Near Cucumbers
Cucumbers grow poorly when planted near potatoes and sage

My son's Scout troop just returned from a week of canoeing up north of the notches. First thing he did last night was raid the garden and he picked several green peppers.
Our menu for today;
breakfast, peppers and eggs
Lunch, sausage and peppers
Supper, stuffed peppers

 

I always plant my cucumbers by the dill and sunflowers. Usually they climb the sunflowers. They always did great and produced tons of cucumbers, but they were too bitter to eat straight. I know an unstable water supply will do it but mine were nasty whether I had them in the dirt or in the aquaponics system. They were National Pickling or Boston Pickling Cucumbers. This year I have some slicer, can't remember the name. They're by the tomatoes, sunflowers, and tomatillos, doing great.

I'm making scrambled eggs with sauteed onions and tomatillos this morning. muy bueno

 

This year we cut back on the number different crops. Sweet corn, Green beans, tomatoes, Zuccinni, Butterbut and cucumbers. All them are doing awesome as of today.

 

I have squash bugs boarers this year. Was researching how to get rid of them. You can cut them out which I did. We will see if plants survive.

But also found this as a preventative, which IF it works will be brilliant