August Garden Report

It’s a jungle out there!

Once harvesting gets into full swing, weeding kind of falls by the wayside. But I’m always amazed at how peacefully the vegetables and weeds can coexist at this point. We certainly don’t ever seem to run short of produce, in spite of the weeds.

I’m really liking some of the tomatoes we planted this year. Now if only I knew what variety was what! My ever industrious husband took it upon himself to plant the tomato starts last spring but, being the opposite of his anal retentive computer programmer control freak of a wife, didn’t mark down what varieties went where on the official garden map. So I’m not totally sure what’s what out there. I think the ones I’m liking most are the German Pink and Siletz. I think the ones I’m liking least are the Mortgage Lifter and Black Seaman. Then again, I may have the German Pink and Mortgage Lifter mixed up. And according to my list, I also have Amish Pasta planted, but nothing out there looks anything like any Amish Pasta I’ve grown in the past.

On the watermelon front, I couldn’t resist any longer and cut into one this week. It wasn’t quite ripe, and yet it was ripe enough to be very delicious. I hope we get enough heat yet to finish the rest of them up. I’ve also got Pride of Wisconsin melons all over the place, but haven’t yet cut into one.

In the foreground of this picture are the squash. The jury is still out on them, but so far the Table Queen Bush are far out-performing the Potimarron. The Potimarron plants just looked weepy and ill all summer long to the point that we almost pulled them out, afraid they were going to spread some kind of blight or something to the other squash and melon plants.

So I think we’ll be good for veggies through the winter. (Except for pickles. The girls have already eaten one of the seven quarts I did and have started on a second.) As I type this, Matt is in the kitchen canning green beans and has been at it all afternoon and evening, with just a couple breaks. If you call stopping to feed the animals, and stopping again to return escapee animals to their rightful pens, “breaks”.