Garden? Growing

My straw bale garden is coming along quite well. My peas survived the convection oven blast we had in June—I covered them with shade cloth and managed to keep most of them. 

I also planted tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beans, fingerling potato, and eight zucchini plants—I know! I can explain... The first zucchini I planted rotted. So, I started a second planting in little pots, and only half germinated. But those that grew were doing quite well—until they weren’t. Slugs found them and decimated my entire crop of starts in a single night. By this time, it’s mid-June and I have only nine seeds left. I’m afraid I’ll be the only person in North America that can’t grow zucchini—how embarrassing! 

Desperate people do desperate things; I planted all nine seeds in three “hills” on the side of my straw bales, forgetting two important things. One: what happens if all nine survive? And Two: zucchini don’t trail the way pumpkins and cukes do. Zucchinis tend to grow in a big old clump—and I had planted NINE OF THEM. 

Slugs chopped off one early one, literally “nipping it in the bud,” but the other eight keep on growing. And growing. And—well if you’ve ever planted zucchini you can imagine what my garden looks like. Between the pumpkins that are once again bent on neighborhood domination, and the zucchini –well, it’s pretty difficult to see the forest for all the squash trees. You’ll just have to take my word for it that there are carrots and peppers, et al, in the midst of squash-a-ganza. 

 

My flowers are still losing the battle with slugs, but if you didn’t know what it was INTENDED to look like, some of my pots are quite pretty. 

                                                                And I have blueberries!

Tah-Dah!