Can you spot the red?

Slowly, plants are producing bounty. My fourth-of-july tomatoes are in full production and I’ve picked a few romas. I have three cucumber plants that all are producing quite a bit. I planted a couple of striped armenian cucumbers and thought they both died and replanted with different varieties. I was pleasantly surprised to fine that one did survive. I have loved the variety too. They grow quite large,curl and are beautiful when sliced. My sister mentioned that one looked exactly like a question mark. I’ve picked quite a bunch off of it already, and have taken them to whoever I visit. Here’s a picture of a small one, not quite ready for picking:

The picture above are my cucumber plants. The one on the left is a regular armenian cucumber. It has a horrible case of powdery mildew. So does the watermelon. But the striped armenian seems a lot more resistant. (It’s on the right.) I’m surprised at how bad my powdery mildew is. It’s killing back the plants. Still haven’t come across a control measure I feel comfortable with, so I’m hoping it just won’t get worse.

My potatoes also appear to have a vascular wilt disease. There’s really nothing I can do there but be disappointed. Hopefully I’ll still get a few.  It stinks that I actually know quite a bit about plant diseases but can’t solve the problem. The funny thing about plant diseases is there’s usually not a lot you can do. Control measure are things like get rid of all your plants so at least is doesn’t spread,  rotate for three years, water properly, and plant resistant varieties. Not a lot you can do when the disease strikes the plant, as fungicides are often pretty ineffective to combat infections once in the plant.

Not a horrible year so far, but not quite as good as I was expecting thanks to a long wet spring.

I think I thought spring was busy only because I wasn’t in summer yet. There is never a dull moment.

In the garden: the only thing blooming is the yucca and roses. I don’t care much about either. In fact the yuccas are slated for removal. They just don’t look that great with quack grass thrown in.

I’ve picked peas, lots of lettuce, and chard. My first banana pepper was picked yesterday. The tomatoes have fruit: they just need to mature. My only disappointment so far is the zucchini. This supposedly indestructible plant has struggled a lot but now seems to be taking off. I planted a yellow and a green variety, but one died. The other was very wilted so I tried to perk it up with some water. A week later when it started to look a little better, I took a look at it and realized that the stem had rotted. This hearty plant still managed to root out above the stem root and is still alive. It’s just also very far from producing zucchinis. Now I know: check the plant and soil before just dumping on even more water.

My blue hubbard squash is taking over. It’s kinda expected. At one of my gardens, I did a traditional row layout and the squash didn’t end up with enough room. So now it’s overtaking the onions.

I have more than enough landscaping project and plenty of heat to do them in. My brother and I went and worked on one for a while the other day and quite after a little over an hour. Too muggy and hot, and we were tired. Summer was made for laziness, even if my to-do list is constantly growing.

Everything is growing and mostly loving the heat. I noticed my peas, that are about 3 feet tall and look pretty healthy, just barely got blossoms on them. I’m wondering if it’s just too shady where they are, or the weather was funky (it has been strange), or its’ not a great variety. Hopefully I”ll get a handful. The tomatoes are also blossoming. I’ve got over twenty plants I think, so I’m excited for the bountiful harvest soon to come. Now it’s just weeding and wait time. I’ll probably fertilize a little as well soon.

I finished the shrub bed shown in the last post. Here’s a better after picture. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, now it just needs to survive the summer.

I go hiking a lot, and I’ve been trying to take pictures of all the wildflowers I’ve found. I’m posting some. I’m still working on my id skills, but I’ve marked what I know. If you know something I haven’t marked, please comment to help me out. I’m too lazy right now to look them all up. One hike was interesting. At the trail head the sticky geraniums were in bloom. Then further up we came across glacier lilies. Normally glacier liles are the first out and geraniums are in late spring, but with the change of altitude mixed in they were at the exact same time.

I also realized I really stink at taking pictures of all the ones I see. There’s also chokecherry, Utah ladyfinger and Indian paintbrush.