june garden update

while i'm uploading 177 pictures of my latest vacation onto flickr, i thought i'd take a moment to give an update on the garden.

i've been away a lot this month and my garden has suffered for it. i was so hopeful about the zucchini and squash this year. we were keeping careful watch on it to make sure it didn't get squash bores, like last year. and they were getting so big. we even had two yellow squashes coming up. well, i went out there this morning and almost every plant was totally inundated with the bores. the worms were huge and i just couldn't save the plants. so i had to rip most of them out. i left a few in the ground, but i'll be surprised if we'll get anything from them. bah!

the other bad news is that the patsy's beans that i planted along the fence are dead. they were also doing pretty well. last year they produced a small amount but the leaves fell off from the bottom up and i figured they didn't like our hot, dry climate. so i planted them earlier and they looked pretty good. still suffered from the dropping of the leaves, but there were a lot of pods on them when i left for my latest trip. when i looked this morning i found that the plants are completely dead! the pods are still there, but the beans haven't fully ripened yet. the only thing that i can figure is that our neighbor must've spread some weed killer or something around the fence. there is a suspicious yellow patch of grass on his side of the fence that ends just about a foot out. so, that sucks. we should've told him about it; but, honestly, we don't talk to him that much. and he usually doesn't do a darn thing in his yard. plus, he's seen me obsessively watering that exact spot, i would have thought he'd known we were doing something there. but oh well. live and learn i guess.

the rest of the garden is good news. the tomatoes are going and we'll have to stake them soon. the okra seems to be happy about the warm weather too. the melons and cucumber and doing great too. and we've got a bunch of green peppers coming up. i even picked 2 banana peppers to eat tonight.