Over the last two months life has thrown many curveballs that have beaned the batter on numerous occasions. You would think that I’d be making some runs here or there but unfortunately I seem to be getting out at third every time. What does this baseball analogy have to do with anything? Well sometimes we get taken away from what we’d like to to in order to see to things we have to do. Which means something gets neglected and much to my dismay lately it’s been the vegetable garden. How bad is it you wonder? (Don’t worry I can’t read your mind, I’m just guessing that that is what you’re thinking.) It’s pretty bad.
Weeds are everywhere including the most vexing garden invader to inhabit the United States of America: Bermuda grass. This stuff is nothing short of pure evil when it gets into a garden. The runners go everywhere and every last piece of root has to be removed or else the grass from “you know where” goes “you know where” — in the garden beds!
Gardener’s Advice: NEVER PLANT BURMUDA GRASS INTENTIONALLY IF YOU WANT A GARDEN!
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| Yes there is a garden under that Bermuda grass! |
It’s enough to tempt a gardener to use some glyphosate. I’ll refrain for now. I think I’ll see what some good old fashioned hand weeding can do to this mess.
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| ‘Tigger’ Melons |
The good news is that despite the tomatoes that desperately need tied up and the weed invasion – the garden is producing. We’ve harvested lots of orange ‘Sungold’ tomatoes that I got from Renee’s Garden, which are one of the most delicious cherry tomatoes I’ve had. The melons are producing well too including ‘Tigger’, ‘Old Time Tennessee’, and ‘Sierra Gold’ cantaloupes. None of these are fit to harvest yet but if things go well I can see eating some delicious melons form the garden very, very soon.
The cucumbers are producing at an extremely alarming rate too – nothing wrong with that! Some are pickling cucumbers which were also from Renee’s Garden and others are plain regular cucumbers from the Greenland Gardener Kit. I need to give you an update on that garden bed soon.
The trellises I built for the cucumbers are doing fantastic! They are heavy enough to withstand the 50-60 mph winds like we had last night and perfect for climbing vine vegetables like cucumbers and melons.
One other issue with garden neglect is the monster cucumbers that continue to grow until someone gets out there to pick them!
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| ‘Red Zebra’ tomato |
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Oh my! A weekend full of weeding…hope it's not terribly hot out. Glad you are harvesting some veggies.
I actually like those trellises so much better than mine. As it is my cukes grow right over the top and hang down and I'm thinking that platform is perfect. May be a chore for this winter. Great idea. I hope you get all that Bermuda grass out. It only gets worse. Sorry you've had such a tough month. Hopefully August will be better.
Glad you are able to harvest some good stuff despite the Bermuda grass invasion.
Up here, the bane of every gardeners life is slugs. Use day you have a beautiful plant, the next day you have shreds.
Hope you are able to get the Bermuda grass tamed, somewhat.
Yael
Great for the harvest despite the Bermuda Grass. Hope that you can get rid of it. We had it in our garden when I was a kid & it was something else.
My feelings are with you on having too much on your plate. I understand.
In time it will get better.