suspension

Dealing with this June gloom. I am used to blazing heat and corn fields that tower over me by this time of year. I see southern gardeners posts about their slowing harvests of zucchinis, tomatoes and the like, and I have yet to get one, and I grow rather jealous.

It's like my garden has slowed down in the last few weeks. All the overcast days, I wish it would rain at least - my garden loves it when it rains.

I've sown mustard seeds with the tomatoes. I also created a bricked off area and filled it with rich soil and sown it with swiss chard. The sparrows tried to steal my seeds, so I left Strummer in the back yard for the rest of the afternoon.

My yellow neck squash keeps threatening to bear fruit, but they just shrivel and die. Should I be hand pollinating? We have tons of flying insects in the garden, so I'm not sure its the pollination. The zucchini plant is still trying to recover from the powdery mildew. I had to prune it almost entirely back, and then spray it with a neem oil fungicide which did the trick, but I am afraid I really scarred her. She's all week, and rather wiry.

After moving the tomato patch around, all the plants dropped their flowers, as I predicted. But in the last few days, have set new ones, as well as growing several inches and putting on a few sets of leaves. I am eager to find a little green tomato there one of these days.

My bell pepper is in suspended animation. It's strange. It doesn't really seem to be growing. Maybe it's the cold?

The eggplants are still setting leaves. As with the zucchini, the leaves are getting huge, so I fear there may be too much nitrogen in the soil. 

 cucumber

 

watermelon

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 Strangely enough, the plant I thought was going to suffer the most has done rather well.The cucumber had a bit of a growth spurt, and I had to add another level of twine for it to climb up. I believe it has set a few fruit.  Also, I lay down composted manure around the watermelon, and it had a bit of a growth spurt as well, and is looking much better after a few weeks of looking rather spindly itself.

The potato is growing like some kind of beautiful, mad weed! at least twelve inches tall now. The method seems to be working as planned. It's exciting! Nothing seems to stop it. I moved it away from the strawberries, as I recently read that they retard each other. The strawberries immediately set out fruit.

Also, I planted my chives near the tomatoes, and it is looking good again! They are companion plants

As a bit of a joke, my mom went out and bought me a chamomile plant which is now growing happily betwixt two giant eggplants. I smile every time I see it, and I fear when they leave it will make me very sad.