garden update

The garden has been disappointing this year.  With the rain coming right before the hot weather the weeds got a good foothold and it is challenging to keep up with them let alone get ahead in the eradication process.


The tomatoes were late going into the ground and are still pouting about that.  Now the tomato hornworms have decided to visit.  Last year we had very few of them.  They apparently are making up for lost time this year.


There is one jalapeno pepper on the plants so far and a couple of cayenne.  The habanero plants are alive but struggling.  Peppers apparently are one of the grasshoppers favorites.  


The few turnips that sprouted are doing okay, as are the kohlrabi but the amount of seeds planted does not nearly correspond with the few plants which grew.  The beets in the planter bucket are doing well.  It is almost time to replant each of these for a fall crop.  Hopefully that will be more successful.


We did get a good crop of bush cherries but the birds got most of the cherries on the trees and the majority of the mulberries.  Like raccoons in corn, they know exactly when things are ripe.  We still have some choke cherries which hopefully can be harvested as we put a net over the tree as far as we could reach.


The turkeys are eating most of the currents as they ripen.  There haven't been enough of them to bother picking for jelly anyway.  The raspberries have done better than in the past, but still not enough to do much with other than snack while weeding.


The goats feasted on the plums and grapes when they went on one of their frequent walk-abouts.  No time to goat proof the rest of the fence and not enough pasture in the front to keep them adequately fed so they still get to go to the back pasture.  The garden is fenced on four sides and they haven't figured out how to breech that yet.


At least we have gotten rain.  There are parts of the country burning up from the drought and other parts flooding.  Based on those facts, complaining about the weather here seems selfish.  And as all gardeners and farmers say, next year will be better.