You're just a potato bug, potato bug

When Mamie and I were little, there was a song on some PBS show that went something like, "you're just a potato bug, potato bug, a little potato bug." I think Mamie was sick when the song came on, and somehow she was given the nickname of potato bug. Well, I've now met actual potato bugs, and can say to Mamie that they really aren't anything like you. But you are still a little potato bug.

This morning I was successfully able to wear out the dogs long enough to get some garden time in. I pruned more suckers off of the tomato plants, which are just starting to form flower buds and look beautifully green! I did some haphazard weeding as well, and keep telling myself that every pulled weed counts when I look around and see how many beds there are.

Above, tomatoes and marigolds, 6-22
Below, swiss chard 6-22

I checked on my squash field, and the garden dust doesn't seem to have made much of an impact on the cucumber beetles, but they also haven't done too much more damage to the plants, so for now, I'm calling it good. Soon, I'll have to thin out the hills, as several had three or four plants sprout. Above and below are two of the hills, as of this morning.

On my to-do list for this week/weekend is some snow pea maintenance. The plants seem to be having a little trouble grabbing on to the trellis, so I'll have to help them out somehow. They're growing really fast, but as you can see below, they're a little floppy.

And here is a poblano pepper! With the plants that I bought as seedlings, I feel like I can't be quite as proud of their progress, especially when, like this poblano, they were quite big when I acquired them. However, the fact that the poblano plant is alive and producing fruit is a definite victory.

Separately from the main squash field, I have two giant pumpkins growing. My mother bought the seedlings at a library fundraiser, and we transplanted them a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if I've written much, if at all, about them, which is fairly on par with the amount of attention I've given them. Each week, I give them about five more days of life, but they're still hanging in. We refer to them as the more dead and less dead giant pumpkins, so that about sums up their current status. In the above photos, the top plant is the "less dead" giant pumpkin, and the bottom is the "more dead" giant pumpkin. It's all about low expectations here.

And speaking of what good setting low expectations can bring, I'm experiencing a bit of a marigold miracle! Remember those poor marigolds and zinnias that I lovingly raised from seed indoors, only to harshly set them out on a hot day without any hardening off? Well, I was pretty convinced that they were all going to die, given how terribly sunburned and shriveled they got. This week, though, they've staged an impressive comeback. You can see above that new, healthy green leaves are growing, so I think these guys might actually make it. This has not helped reinforce the importance of hardening off for me.

Look at this lettuce! I harvested a bit yesterday to bring over to my parents, and think I'll be grabbing some more tonight for dinner. I'm kind of excited and irrationally nervous for my first partially home grown salad. Like, it's kind of a big deal.

Also a big deal, are my potato plants - good god, they're getting huge. They also have a few potato bugs, which I hand picked off of the plants and put into soapy water. That is very brave for me, because I hate bugs (I know, I know, that's really unacceptable for a farmer). Potato bugs are really big and move slowly, so it wasn't very hard once I got over the ick factor. There also weren't very many, which helped. Then I hilled the plants, which means pushing extra dirt on top of them, so that only the tops show. This was a little challenging since my potato plants are wildly different heights. Some ended up completely buried, while others still look quite exposed.

Above are the cucumbers, arugula, and brussels sprouts. You can kind of see that the majority of the brussels sprouts are growing nicely, but one plant in the middle is stunted. It doesn't look dead, so I'm not really sure what's going on. The cucumbers are all growing well, and arugula has really taken off.

The broccoli and cauliflower, above, also look great. The broccoli plants have almost all started forming heads, and it looks like a few of the cauliflower plants are beginning to develop as well.

Below is the bok choy/beet bed. The bok choy is in the front, and the plants on the left side of the bed, at least, have grown quite a bit in the last week. The ones on the right aren't doing much. I'm not sure if the seeds just didn't germinate there, or if I had technical difficulties while planning. That's certainly possible.