Structural Difficulties

This week we've finally gotten a decent amount of rain, which has been great for the plants growth-wise, but not so good for their ability to remain upright.  Earlier this week Mike had to do emergency tomato support maintenance, as the plants in the tomato/eggplant bed were leaning at 45 degree angles (over the eggplants).  He rigged some twine to help keep them from falling, but they still need a bit of help.  Part of the problem is that I was negligent in my sucker-pinching, so several of these plants have heavy branches that escaped the cages early on.  I think we'll have to set up stakes outside of the cages to keep them up.

Jungle of tomatoes 8-5-2011

When I went out to harvest veggies to bring to Anne and Eric, I discovered that the cucumbers are also experiencing structural difficulties.  The twine at the top of their trellis snapped, so the vines have collapsed.  I'm quite sad about this, as I've spent significant amounts of time training the cucumber plants to use the trellis.  I'll have to ask Mike to see what he can do to fix it this weekend while I'm visiting Anne and Eric.  I'm not sure if it's possible to repair, but finding the cucumbers without the trellis is nearly impossible, so I'm crossing my fingers that Mike can figure something out.

Collapsed cucumber trellis 8-5-2011

I warned Anne that she should not buy any produce this week, and I hope that she listened, because I'm heading down to Connecticut today with two bags of chard, a red cabbage, two green peppers, the (first!) purple pepper, carrots, beets, snap peas, and green beans.  Also, I'm bringing an ample amount of catnip for Tut and their new addition, Frodo. 

Anne's loot 8-5-2011

First purple pepper!

As I was washing the produce, and admiring how nice and straight the carrots are, I realized that the dogs were silent.  As any parent of children or young dogs knows, silence is often a warning that something very bad is going on.  Sure enough, when I went into the living room I found Bullet and Lily busily shredding, and eating, Anne's cabbage.

Red cabbage, post-Lily and Bullet

Because I love Anne, I gave the pre-chewed cabbage to the chickens (they appear to think it's a soccer ball), and went out and harvested a new one for her.  I guess counter surfing is something we're going to have to work on with Bullet....

Moving on, the flower bed is looking wonderful, finally.  The cosmos that I started from seed started to bloom today, and the zinnias look gorgeous.  I love having flowers mixed in with the vegetables, and will definitely be doing a similar layout again in next year's garden.  I'll probably mix the flowers into the vegetable beds rather than having a bed entirely devoted to flowers, though.

Zinnias and cosmos 8-5-2011

Yesterday I did my planting for the fall garden.  I planted the rest of the carrots, beets, and scallions.  I was thinking about doing a fall planting of snap peas, but need to put up a trellis first.  If we get to that in the next week (which I think may be unlikely given the tomato/cucumber situation), then I'll plant more snap peas, but otherwise I think I'll leave it alone.