2026 Garden

7 inches of rain over the weekend brought a good chunk of the state back to decent water levels. I've taken on a new career path so the garden has been a little neglected this past few weeks. Still getting plenty of tomatoes and peppers. Second planting of squash already attacked by vine borers. The biggest of the plants may put off a few squash before it gives up. Next year I'm planting tromboncino squash which is supposed to be SVB resistant. Any normal squash I plant is going to get a side-by-side test of Sevin dust and maybe frequent BT applications. I used to dust liberally with Sevin but stopped out of pollinator concerns but I never had this problem before I switched my pesticide regimen. Im hopeful liberal BT applications will work because its bee-friendly.20260728_072302.jpg
 
Bugs ate my potato leaves and killed most of the plants, ants and grubs did More damage under the ground. Will do another potato harvest next week and with any luck I’ll still have 2 survivor plants for another time.

First cucumbers picked today. Small tomatoes have been trickling in for about 10 days. Pulled a half dozen small carrots yesterday. Just one pepper so far. My 2-yr-old did his first harvesting.

Sweet potato plant has grown quickly, okra should produce a large harvest when mature. Sunflowers and squash look great.

Black walnut sapling fooled me for a potato plant. My daughter wanted to keep it, so we moved it to a pot.
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Just came home from a 10 day, 2100 mile road trip through the South. Garden is in better shape than I expected, some squash will definitely need pulled.
Pulled some tomatoes from the vines for BLT's for dinner. The flowers are doing well, had a good bit of rain while we were gone.
Jr kept up with the blackberries, we have 3 gallons in the freezer and probably another 3 still on the bushes. Big batch of jam this year.

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Picked a nice mess of green beans yesterday. Waiting on peppers green and hot. Tomatoes slowly coming on. Took down the chicken wire on most of the beds. Bunnies have disappeared. Anyway my tall beautiful potato plants really wanted to lay over after the wire was gone. The gherkin cuc's are really producing now. I'm just letting them get big for eating this season. Waiting on the Armenian cucumbers to start producing. Corn will be short as I can't get the watering right but have several ears coming on.
Took a bunch of fresh veggies down to the front ladies at the phone company. They worked hard the other day helping the other half set up his new phone. A good way to say thank-you.
 
Did my bean picking today and decided to get the rest of my corn while I was out there. My small patch got me 7 1/2 dozen ears. Ok for a single guy, I ate a bunch and will have quite a bit in the freezer. I thought rabbits were nibbling my raspberry plants I put in this year and put tomato cages around them. They're gone! Must be ground squirrels. Little bastards. I have two that have a few leaves left that may come back but I figure they'll be eaten shortly. I'll replant next to the house next year so I can keep my eyes on them. Pissed me off bad. I like raspberries and I had 10 plants growing. Oh well.
 
IMG_6423.jpegFinally. I have about 50-75 huge green tomatoes that haven’t really grown on ripened in weeks. And then overnight practically these popped.

Jalapeños and Coolpenos are growing like mad.
 

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