Mid-Summer Garden Status Tour.

Tonight I'll be finalizing plans for the fall plantings, so we took a bunch of pictures of what the garden looks like now before we start ripping things out over the next week.  The kids also got to harvest a lot of fun things today, including the first broccoli that we left in for just a smidge too long (one little yellow bloom on the green head).  

It's funny how this garden did a complete 180 from where we were last year.  I planted broccoli, cabbage and kohlrabi last year and all of it was eaten by bunnies or bugs.  This year I did lose some but they were mostly plants I would have been forced to thin anyway.  The broccoli and cabbage have all bounced back from early bug damage and are pristine now with no treatment required.  We even harvested every kohlrabi we planted.

Peppers produced maybe one or two fruits per plant last year, and this year I have buckets coming in.  I will lose a few plants (and have lost one already) but the ones that are healthy are LOADED with fruit.  Even the beets did well this season when last year they were filled with bug trails on the bulbs.  I didn't really do much different.

The tomatoes on the other hand, are producing about the same amount of total fruit from 14 plants as I got last year from 4.  The weather did delay the transplants a few weeks, but even the later harvest will be less than stellar because the plants are all slowly dying from various blights.  The beans seem to have tapped out a lot quicker than last year, and the onions (which did amazingly in 2010) are small and pitiful.  Don't even get me started on the eggplant again...last year it was my best producer, and this year it's more of an ugly ornamental that produces a few things here and there.

Anyway, here's where we're at currently:

First broccoli!

Harvesting Green Bell Peppers.

Baby birds nesting on the wall above my composter.

Some of the eggplant are beginning to flower, though they are weirdly short.

The front yard garden to the right of the sidewalk.

A cucumber visor?

I only left that green cabbage because I thought it was doomed and wanted to distract the bunnies from the purple one...turns out to have quite a nice head on it!

Pepper Bed.

The bean and broccoli bed.

Searching for yellow beans.

The first Black Krim is about ripe....though the plant is on it's last legs.

I think the volunteer there is a musk mellon.

Banana pepper city.

Beans and broccoli are his favorites.

Pan patty squash and cucumbers are his favorites.

Beans fresh out of the garden (isn't it nice not to have to wash a bunch of chemicals off  first?)