I'll be honest. I'm frustrated. I've had a couple of rough weeks in the garden, (but am still loving it!)
A couple of my tomato plants have an awful disease, or fungus or something - it sucks. (Above picture does not do the damage justice, this is on a happier plant.) I've done days and days of research trying to figure out what kind, but nothing seems to match exactly. I've bought this silly expensive organic fungicide spray and thought it would help, but 3 out of the 6 plants still aren't fruiting, and I'm a bit worried about the other 2 starters at the top of the bottom plot. (Yes folks, there is now TWO sections of my garden, but we'll get to that in a minute.) I'm reminding myself that I agreed to tear out things that weren't working, and rather than spend more money to save the $5 plant, I think I'm going to accept reality. It's time for at least one of the Brandywine and Sweet 100 tomato plants to go, before they cause more damage. There is still some sickness in the other plants, but they are fruiting, so I think they can be saved.
In good news, as of June 27th, I have expanded my garden into the small plot above mine. I am now the proud renter of 150 Square Feet total of garden space. I went and churned up and leveled off the plot with soil amender. I tried to build myself a little garden box to help make my space level, but ended up with the wrong strategy, wood and nails, and moved on to creating a pretend retaining wall of bricks instead. It's was a really frustrating experience, but I kept trying to remind myself that at least I had attempted to be handy, and isn't that what matters? I ended up walking out with a mini-harvest, so it made the evening of sweat and muscle aches worth it.
Total harvest for the last couple of weeks is 6-7 Stupice Tomatoes that were delish, and a *serious* amount of green squash and zucchini. Though I am eating squash almost every day, or every other day, it isn't getting old yet - it's just dependable, and I've also had some to share. (Some made it's way into Mike's mom's homemade spaghetti sauce!) Today's harvest after the 3 day weekend (7/6) left me with some gigantic zucchini that will likely make it's way into bread. (Pics to come, it's too impressive to not share!) The yellow squash is turning out to be a waste of space and not very productive, even though it looked like it was going to be an early and heavy producer. I likely won't plant this same variety again at all.
The new space will be home to the sprawling pumpkin vine, and I also planted the sad spaghetti squash starts that have been moping on my balcony since the end of May. Rounding off the mix are a couple more tomato plants (Cherokee Purple Heirlooms, and another Sweet 100 to replace the dying one), a regular and lemon cucumber plant, a butternut squash, some more alyssum flowers, some marigolds, and a ton of sunflower seeds. The sunflowers are already sprouting! (I've been so jealous of the giant ones filling the garden, I just had to have my own.) I also planted some Sweet Pea flower seeds, but those haven't poked up yet. I also moved the trellises from the 2 squash plants, and placed them as potential supports for the cucumbers, and maybe the sprawling squashes above.
The lower section was sprayed with some Miracle Gro via the hose attachment thing when I set up the upper section. Not sure it's as awesome as the other monthly fertilizer, and I don't like that it's harder to keep it off the leaves and get it directly onto the soil this way. May go back to doing it the other way, with the other kind, but thought I'd give this a try.
