Gardening 2011…..

Don't you just love their sunny faces?
Marigolds are my favorite flower of the summer.  They have such cheery faces and grow with a voraciousness.  I have read that they will deter insects and rodents in a garden and while I love them so, I am not quite convinced of that claim yet.

Normally this bed would be completely full at this point in the garden and the green beans along the edge would be climbing up their poles.  Sad looking isn't it?

Well…this spring a family of wood chucks made their home on our property.  Ken worked at closing up any spots that they could get into in our barn, which seemed to help, but every morning I would be greeted with more chewed bean and squash plants.  Hmmpff!!

…so last weekend, we decided that we would try a different approach with the fencing.  Ken sank another fence around the other 2 and then curved the top 6 inches over making it hard for any critter to get a good enough grip to get over that fence.  So far it seems to be working…yay!  We also had a little help from the universe as well.  Last Friday, there was a little surprise in the road……a DEAD woodchuck!  I don't like seeing animals hurt, but I will admit, I wasn't all that sad.

Except for that one particular bed, the rest of the garden is doing fairly well, other than the usual "buggy" things that one has to contend with.  I have already cut this basil back once and managed to get 12 big servings of pesto into the freezer.  I will be cutting this all back this weekend for another dozen. 🙂

The Butternut is growing in leaps and bounds, but this is always the one plant that I struggle the most with in the bug department.  Squash bugs and cucumber beetles….blech!  So far it is holding it's own in spite of the bugs. 🙂

The tomatoes and cukes are both doing really well too.  The other day I saw a HUGE moth in the yard that looked as thought it had broken it's wing.  I thought it was…yep…it was an Orange Tomato Hornworm Moth.  Stunning insect, but those worms on your tomatoes can be devastating, so I will be on the lookout for them.

…and lastly…today was garlic harvesting day. 🙂
I read somewhere that if you leave them in the ground too long they can start splitting off which is not good.  The very first one that I looked at today had some baby cloves hanging on to it, so I guess it was time to get them up.  Thankfully that was the only one that had split.  I will leave them out in the garden to dry out as it has been kind of a shady day, then I will bring them in to dry out before I store them away.

 
So all in all the garden is doing well in spite of it's ups and downs and working with these cheery marigold faces makes it that much more enjoyable. :0)