Beets prefer a poor soil, too much NPK and you won't get beets.

re aphids. Order a couple handfulls of ladybugs. Aphids are history. Totally organic. And it works.

UT. Aphids are the worst I've seen in years on maters. Think I sprayed so much hurt the maters. So dry the ants moved in an ate them. A few photos.
1 a photo of better bush.
next a shot of ? that has fell over the cage.

Then Cherry sweet 100, which must be over 6' tall and so thick it's hard to pick.

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Recovered from the rains, everything is going pretty well.

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Any day now.

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This is one reason I enjoy this - learning how these foods actually grow. I never knew how Brussels Sprouts actually operate. Apparently they develop along the main stalk.

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mmmm... yummy. What kind of peppers are you growing there?

Jalapeno.

Wonderful . I am a bit of an obsessive pepper person myself . I recently had the luck to come across a second-hand book called 'The Cuisines of Mexico' by Diana Kennedy , 1972 . Her chapter on 'chilies : fresh and dried' is a work of art . Well , the whole book is a work of art .

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It's carrot harvest day. Foggy carrot harvest day

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Some carrots are obscene.

Uhh doesent that need a NSFW ????

Ack! Big hail storm here on Monday. Beat the hell out of leafy things- cabbage, kale, chard. Hostas look like hell, too. Bush Beans a bit tattered, but I got the pods off the ground and they should be ok.
I have some big green tomatos, they got dinged/bruised, but are still on the vine. We'll see what happens.

I wish I had a camera. Minutes after the storm, the ground was completely covered with iceballs. snow in july, then back to high 90s.

Just had the whole guilt trip for not having a pretty garden wiped out. Four straight days of 113-115F temperatures took the whole thing out of my hands. Whoopee, gotta start all over again just when my hyperextension of the knees from the last planting phase was healing and I can walk again :thepain:

Oh no! Its become the garden disaster thread!

Those carrots are in mah bellah now, via an incredible beef stew that put five unneeded pounds onto my frame.

As far as disasters go, the enormous amount of soakage we've had has been great for some things, but hell on the spinach it seems, which simply won't grow right at this point no matter what. Everything else seems to like it.

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Been a while. The heavy rains of May/June turned into hot dryness in the last six weeks. This set up two lots of ripening small tomatoes, and in the last three weeks we made two big batches of chunky maranara which simply could not be beat. The whole thing needs more watering/feeding right now but we can't even use the mates we have brought in. So far there have been about 40 plum tomatoes and 30 "slicers" of varying quality. And a few rotten ones to leave around the edges of the box so that the local rabbit eats those and not the whole ones on the vine.

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Gardening is easy! Last year I threw the rotten toms into the wood pile. And this year, I found these three extremely large and healthy vines growing out of the wood pile. These are now staked and will produce probably 20 excellent fruits. I didn't do anything - I *found* them when they were three feet tall and in better shape than the "real" vines.

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The brussels sprouts slowly continue.

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Once the carrots were pulled, the butternut squash vine magically decided it was time to expand and take up the entire space where the carrots had been.

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The results so far are two absolutely perfect, beautiful squash fruits. Can't wait until these are ready in the fall!