Garden Update

The garden is thriving! Even in spite of the massive earwig infestation we've been enduring. I discovered a non-toxic way to kill them on-contact, I'll share it at the end. I took these pictures a few days ago and already things have changed.

We've been harvesting more summer squash and zucchini than we can consume, but our neighbors are taking some off our hands now and then. Yesterday Blake and I ate four squash between lunch and dinner, fresh off the grill both times. Tonight, we made stuffed zucchini out of that big one you see in the picture below. It was delicious.

Right now the pile on the counter is a little smaller, but we pull off more each day.

We ate those two tomatoes above, these, and some of their friends with dinner tonight

Our one little pea, the plant is only about 8" tall so we're pleasantly surprised
that it could produce anything yet. Today we found two more!? 

This little cucumber got a little bigger, and we ate it with those
tomatoes in a little Greek salad. 

Clockwise starting with the cabbage, onions, celery, okra, eggplant and Thai chilies. 

More eggplant, cucumber, strange bean plant with red flowers, tiny peas and pole beans.
These were all late planters or replants thanks to the rabbits.

Three varieties of peppers and our mess of tomatoes.

Our goofy cauliflower and broccoli, out of five plants only one looks normal, beets, carrots and artichoke. 

Butternut squash!! This plant is HUGE and there are tiny to medium little squash all over it. 

Acorn squash!! Same situation as the butternut, we are going to be up to our eyeballs.

The massive bramble of squash plants and the corn.. oh man.

Yams and potatoes! Not 100% sure what to do with these but hopefully we'll find something in that dirt later.

We also have some adorable little watermelons and cantaloupe developing overnight. Yesterday we found a melon the size of an eyeball (the rest are about marble size) and today it was the size of a chicken egg!! I didn't get pictures of it, but man they are cute :). I think we'll have an easier time sharing the plethora of melon than we will with the squash.

We are mostly flying by the seat of our pants with this garden, but we're learning a lot about what to do next year. We're also getting some nice sun burns tans and have discovered that weeding is a compulsion more than a chore or passion.

: :

Non-toxic Earwig Spray: 1 Tablespoon of non-toxic dish soap - I use Method brand - and 50 oz of water. I put it in a hand held pump sprayer just for that purpose. Blake and I go out at night with our head lamps and catch the little devils in the act. They are on everything! We just spray them and within 6-10 seconds they stop moving. After several nights in a row of spraying them while they're out and about, we've noticed a significant reduction in their numbers. They did some serious damage to a row of our corn, but the other plants seem to be bouncing back. So far, the soap doesn't seem to hurt any of the plants. While I was testing out the ratio of soap to water, we had a few pretty sudsy batches, and we rinsed those plants down with water just in case.