But, things are a moving and it is way overtime for a full report with lots of pictures.
First, the bugs. I started to get a nasty case of aphids last month so I decided to see what an order of ladybugs would do to them. I ordered them and a bag of red wrigglers for the soil and my compost pile (I'll write more on them later). I released half the ladybugs right away and put the rest in the fridge for later. Sure enough, I had not an aphid in sight within 24 hours! Just a few days ago, I released the other half when I saw evidence of more aphids starting on the eggplant. Again, not an aphid in sight now. But, also not a ladybug in sight either. They just don't seem to hang around after supper! Here's a nice shot of them.
For those who remember, I had a small problem with my peppers. The blooms were simply falling right off or even if they fertilized, the little nublets of pepper fell off. It was very depressing. It looked like I might have over-nitrogened some of them because of the heavy leaf growth and others were simply not liking all the sun. I moved them and voila..pepper heaven for many of them. Here is my Spanish Spice pepper showing some lovely 8 inch hanging fruit. Some of the bells are now following suit. The Godfathers and the poblanos are also producing really heavily right now. Right now I'm frantically looking for ways to preserve the bounty for later.
My first eggplant came off the other day too! It is quite small but I understand that is normal for the first one. I'm not worrying too much. There's more growing. Here is a snap of my confusing yellow squash plant. It has no growing tip at all. It produced one male and one female flower and they made one single perfect squash. I'm letting it grow unchecked to see what happens to it. Just out of curiosity :)
And here is my experiment in lettuce. Since I've never actually seen one go to seed, I decided to let one of each kind bolt to see what it looks like. It is quite attractive, isn't it?
Here is a nice picture of my pickings for the other night. It was just enough to enjoy a lovely grilled dinner of eggplant and peppers with a small carrot salad and sliced tomato...yummm. Those Spanish peppers are over 8 inches long just to give you an idea of scale.
This is my largest Butternut squash plant. The leaves are huge and the bloom gigantic. I'm confused about them though. It looks like all the blooms and buds are male. Do they do like Zucchini and produce males first and then females or what? Any info is welcome to this squash newbie.
This bad picture is an early morning shot of my squash bed. Those large and tall bush like plants in the back are actually my Stevia plants. Amazing how huge they are getting, but I'm sure not complaining.
Bed One here has changed over the past month in a big way. Newly planted bush beans and edamame have taken the place of peas and carrots and the tomato plants are producing well, even if they look a bit ragged. Gigi approves as you can see. Beds 2 and 3 are equally changed with more beans of various kinds and peppers transplanted from the smaller pots in the container garden.
This was a short tour and I didn't include flowers this time, shame on me, but I'll hopefully catch up soon. I'd love to see pictures of everyone else's garden.
To finish off, here is a nice picture of Boscoe's shaved behind and leg. His incision looks good and his butt is funny enough to share. :) Happy gardening everyone!
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