Casualties

Well, it was bound to happen. Our garden has suffered some casualties. Can you spot the differences?

June 23rd

August 2nd

Aside from the obvious differences in size, you might notice that the middle and front center of the garden seems a little under-populated (that leafy thing you see front and center is not actually something rooted there but rather a vine from one of the winter squash plants). All three of our spinach plants died, and (the saddest news of all), so did one of our zucchini plants. We're not entirely sure what happened to the zucchini plant; in the past few weeks we've gotten three or four good sized zucchinis off it, and just a week ago Darrell picked two. A few days later when I went out to water, the entire plant was yellowing and completely limp. Upon closer investigation, it appeared that the stem was starting to disintegrate near the soil. Darrell thinks he may have damaged the stem when he picked the zucchinis, but I'm not sure it would have died that quickly. To make matters worse, when I was out taking these pictures it appeared the same thing was happening to the other zucchini plant. I may have to do some investigating into this--I've already used the Internet to determine that our summer squash keep rotting on the stem because they are suffering from blossom end rot, which can be caused by low calcium levels. We might be doing a few things differently next year if a similar ailment has affected our zucchini.


In happier news, it seems that the remaining plants are thriving. Our tomato plants are going pretty crazy--nothing has ripened yet, but two of the biggest ones looked like they were starting to darken this afternoon, so I'll have to keep an eye on them.

I count six tomatoes in this shot alone--how many do you see?

Our broccoli appears to be making broccoli, but we're not entire sure when and how to pick it. I think we're waiting for it to get a little thicker? We'll see.

Although the fate of our remaining zucchini plant and summer squash plants remains uncertain, our winter squash plant doesn't seem to be facing any of the same issues. It's vined several feet outside of the garden (in addition to all over the garden itself), and the rabbits that were living under our front step must have died because it doesn't appear that anything has been snacking on the vines. Which is fortunate, because it's starting to produce some good-looking squash.

Still no produce on the green bean or bell pepper plants, but they continue to grow and are flowering a little more consistently, so hopefully we're on our way to getting something out of those.

As a parting shot, I can't help but share what might be the last zucchini picked from our garden. Here's to hoping the remaining plant and summer squash plants start making a recovery!