Vegetable Garden Update June 08

Tennessee Vegetable Garden Update: It is time for my monthly vegetable garden update. Since Skeeter also does a vegetable garden, I have asked her to update us on hers as well. Her posting is below. So all you readers in Georgia can get two perspectives for the price of reading only one post!

Above is a sweet little red cabbage. I am very excited to see it growing. I planted a total of 13. Do you think I will be making a lot of slaw and kraut?



Here is a long view to the vegetable garden from the driveway. My PVC arbor is quickly being covered by a Sweet Autumn Clematis on the left, and a Double Carolina Jessamine on the right.

This bed is the far tip of the shield, closest to Mr. Fix-it's garage. It has an Indigo amblantha, zinnias, Siberian irises, and currently some Love in a Mist plants, soon to be going to seed. I welcome these little self seeders in my garden. They will disappear soon after reseeding next year's crop of flowers for me. This bed is to attract the birds and bees.

Here is a long view of the vegetable garden looking toward the end of the shield. This is the right side of the veggie garden. We are looking west. All beds are oriented west to east. In the right bed there are 4 tomato plants growing in the concrete cages, 4 cabbage plants, some elephant garlic, and beans. In the triangular bed on the left, there are 3 green pepper plants, and one eggplant. This is the bed where my broccoli used to grow. It has gone by now and has joined my compost bin.

I have a good crop of Chocolate Eupatoriums growing in the brick. Not sure what I will do with them, but I do have a post prepared for a later date. Anyone want some?

This is my cucumber bed. The three small plants you see growing in the middle of the bed are zucchini plants. The cucumbers are growing further back in the bed next to the 2x4. They will quickly climb the A-frame trellis. Growing the cucumbers vertically is a real space saver. The zucchini will grow fine underneath the cucumbers. There are a few marigolds planted in here for beauty.

The banana trees are doing super great. The second picture above shows the left side of my garden. Here we have two beds, one has rhubarb, basil and chives growing in it. The second and long bed with the A-frames is my gourd bed. It has gourds growing on the trellis, onions and lettuce growing under the trellis, closest to the camera are more red cabbages, and just past the cabbages are green bush beans.

Lastly, I will leave you with a picture of some of the garlic I have been harvesting. I love fresh homegrown garlic. These were planted last fall. I harvest them when the tops begin flopping over and are brown. I dig them up carefully and leave them outside in a basket (under cover) to cure for a few a weeks. Then I just brush off the soil and eat!

in the garden....

Georgia Garden Update: I am a bit disappointed with my Vegetable Container Garden. It is not thriving like we had expected by now. I am sure the horrible heat wave and drought conditions here in Georgia are somewhat to blame.

We have had Good Luck with peppers though. The Green Pepper and the Purple Pepper are doing well and should be ready to harvest any day now.













The Saint is clipping the Cow horn Peppers.



We have already picked some Parsley, Cowhorn and Gypsy Peppers and prepared them in a stir fry rice dish.


I am currently drying the remainder of the Parsley for future dishes.

We also picked a Jalapeno pepper but have yet to eat that pepper.









The Roma Tomatoes look pretty fine thus far but I am starting to see some yellowing of the lower leaves.

The Bush Goliath tomatoes are also looking fine but with some yellowing on the lower leaves as well. In this picture, the yellowing is obvious.
The cucumbers started out disappointing. The first cuke was round and looked like a ping pong ball! I removed it to give the baby cukes the energy they need to grow long.

The plant looks pitiful with its washed out yellow leaves but continues to bloom and produce baby cucumbers.

I almost pulled this plant but decided to give it a few more days and I am glad I waited as it has about 6 babies on it now! I just hope they hold their shape and don't become ping pong balls for me!

The Beans are producing but again, the leaves on the plant look horrible to me.



They are so washed out with watering every day in this heat. I put some fertilizer on them last night and the hot days are not as hot now so maybe, they will survive and be a good bean producing crop in time.




The gourds look healthy and have bloomed but no baby gourds as of yet.

The egg plant has had 6 huge beautiful purple blooms but they fall off and not producing anything either!

The Same goes for the squash.

Dave at the Home Garden, talks about male and female squash and pollination. This may be part of my problem. But I have bees buzzing all over the yard that should be doing their part to pollinate!



I have two plants in each container. I wonder if I should remove one plant to allow the other to have the entire container room for growth. What do y'all think?

Look at those pitiful zucchini plants. This is my second attempt at Zucchini as the first batch, yellowed, dried up and died on me.

While gardening in Germany, we had such great luck with Zucchini, Squash and Cucumber. This is a bit frustrating for us to have such bad luck here in our Container Garden. The Saint and I have laughed that next year we may just plant peppers and not deal with anything else. But only time will tell with another Vegetable Garden Update next month, In the Garden...