Before we get to the lovely part of this post, I need to take a minute and vent to those who understand what I'm going through.... Gardening can be so heart breaking.
This was my zucchini plant.
It provided me with a freezer full of zucchini, grilled zucchini, sauteed zucchini, zucchini brownies... I loved it.
But the cotton pickin' (cotton pickin'?) squash bugs got to it.
There's dozens hundreds millions of 'em.
And nothing makes me want to cuss in my garden like a squash bug.
Every day I find them. And I confess, I'm a squash bug mass murderer.
Get thee behind me squash bugs.
They've finished off my squash and zucchini plants.
Now they're on to my butternut squash and pumpkins.
But I won't go down without a fight.
I want pumpkins on my front porch this fall. Pumpkins we grew in our garden, dangit.
Though some days I feel like it's a losing battle.
Rant over. Thanks for listening. Don't know what I'd do without ya.
On to the cuteness.
You know me and the sunflowers... I just can't get enough.
We have great big ginormous ones. But we also have some of this cute miniature variety.
In other news...
World, may I please introduce to you for the very first time...
Our precious, adorable little pumpkin. I hope it has friends soon. Before the squash bugs build a condo.
We also planted round 2 of pumpkin seeds, hoping for some October pumpkins and some more in November.
The cantaloupe vines are going crazy!
But so far, just this little trooper.
The tomatoes endure though the plants look terrible.
Isn't this one cute? Reminds me of Veggie Tales.
E has most recently decided she's going to get into EVERYTHING. I've picked up the contents of my lower kitchen cabinets at least 27 times this week. So instead of having her pull off all the leaves on the plants, throw all the dirt out of the beds and pick any remaining flowers, I brought her a chair to sit in while I watered.
Worked like a charm until I started picking stuff... then she got right in the middle of it.
Yes. There is a train in the shopping cart. I'll give you one guess where that came from.
I've never had a garden this late in the summer before. By now, in years past, I had completely given up on watering and weeding.
But this contest has inspired us to take this garden on into the fall months.
Which means I'm going to have to figure out how to mow/weedeat around these giant vines that are creeping EVERYWHERE.
It's getting a little nuts. But I couldn't be more pleased.
(Except for that whole squash bug thing.)
Go check out what other contestants are doing this week at:
THE INADVERTENT FARMER'S
8 comments:
I have never had squash bugs but you has so MANY...grrrr that would drive me crazy. Squash is one of the things that always comes through fairly unscathed here, I'm so sorry!
I think you garden is so lovely with its creeping vines and happy sunflowers...if you lived closer I would certainly come and love to sip lemonade and watch the vines grow! Kim
Oh Kim! Wouldn't that be fun! Darn those miles between us.
I have the same evil things killing my pumpkins. I don't know yet if I took drastic measures soon enough yet. At least you have a baby pumpkin, I'm still waiting for that!!!! Your daughter looks precious in her chair.
You have my sympathies! We had those nasty squash bugs the last time we tried pumpkins. This year, it's the wilt. I will never have piles of pumpkins on my front porch like I dreamed!! Boohoohoo.
The rest of your garden is positively lovely. I'm going to come sip lemonade with Kim. I'll even play trains with Miles. :)
I had about 15 growing pumpkins...2 days later squash bugs attacked and I lost every single one of them. I also lost ALL my butternut and acorn squash. My grandpa told me to pick them off, blend them in the blender and pour the guts over the plants. He said to do it every other day. I just decided to buy my pumpkins and squash. Such a bummer.
I love reading your blog.
In that one picture with Miles showing the sunflower and Ella looking down, Miles looks soooo tall.
I miss you guys.
Life is lame right now, but I need to come see y'all!!
I commented last night, but I think it got lost in cyberspace - that seems to happen to me a lot. :(
Anyway, you have my sympathies! We have something different this year, but it was squash bugs the last time we tried pumpkins and gourds. I'm beginning to despair of ever having a pile of squashy Fall goodness to decorate my front porch!
The rest of your garden looks FABULOUS. Let me know if you figure out the mowing around the vines thing. We're having that problem here, too. Although, with the vines dying, maybe it will resolve itself.....
Eeew those bugs made my skin crawl!! No mentioning 'the fall months' yet, it's still SUMMER, hold on to it! Are many of your plants going to come back next year?
Post a Comment