Mid Summer Garden 2011

The garden has exploded in growth! It resembles the Amazon back there. I'm getting dozens of cucumbers a day, along with several yellow squash a day. The zucchini are growing well but only giving me about one every other day....so far enough for two loaves of zucchini bread YUM! The corn is almost ready, maybe just another week on the early variety. But the thing I'm most excited about? I have half a dozen cantaloup growing and about a dozen watermelon. I'm so excited to dig into melons!

I'm still fighting the squash beetles but their numbers are nothing like they were last year. Every seven days I spray the squash with insecticidal soap and once every two weeks I spray the cantaloup and watermelon with an insecticidal oil. The soap was too expensive to spray much with ($5 a bottle and I needed two every week just to do the squash) so today I picked up some concentrated Neem oil. It dilutes to 2 Tablespoons per gallon and the bottle was $19. I'll have the bottle around for a couple of years I'm thinking. Much better deal than the soap. Hope it works as well. The only plants under attack are the squash so far, but last year the beetles spread to the cantaloup and wiped it out within a week. So I'm keeping my eyes open. I'm sure enjoying the garden this year.

First kid that was dragged out to the garden.....the whole time "Mom, it's too hot, I want to go inside."

A sea of cantaloup vines intermingled with Butternut squash and cucumbers.

Watermelon!!!

A whiny Wesley among the sunflower forest. Those things require A LOT of water. They are all about up to his belly except one, a few feet from his left shoulder, that is taller than him.

Greta was wondering why Mom dumped her in the middle of the squash and ran to take her picture.

Cantaloup!!! I took this picture three days ago and now they are softball size. Cool.

Butternut squash! There has to, literally, be 50 of them out there.

Zinnias are now my favorite garden flower. There are going to be so many zinnias next year.....I might have to devote a whole bed to them. Beautiful flowers and they bring all the excellent pollinators to the garden.

Children of the corn.....and one picking her nose!