Peck of peppers (unpickled)

I picked eight peppers yesterday! Very early in the season, at least for me. They were small, about half the size they could be, but I wanted to encourage the plants to set more fruits, and remove the fruits that were touching the ground (and therefore most likely to get bruised and rot). There are at least a dozen more approaching the same size, to be picked in the coming week. Plus at least three banana peppers.

They're so CRUNCHY. The store peppers, and the larger varieties in general, tend to be so much mushier than fresh-from-the-garden, slightly smaller varieties like Ace.

I finally got a zucchini seed to germinate. I was starting to think I'd gotten a defective packet, perhaps stored badly or something, but now it looks like the poor germination was likely due to drowing in the recent deluges.

Squash summer

I still have hopes that this will be the summer of the squash, and not ALL of it will be summer squash. The sections of the garden that were submerged  yesterday aren't visibly wet, although the water probably isn't far from the surface.

I finally planted the lettuce-leaf basil (13 plants).

I thought the butternuts had drowned, but they seem to be alive, albeit perhaps on life support. We're not expecting any more heavy rain, just the occasional pop-up thunderstorm, for the next ten days, so they may still have a chance. I may plant some more seeds anyway, just in case, but we're bumping up against the deadline to have enough time for them to ripen before the first frost.


Here's the first squash (yellow) of the season, which should be ready for eating in the next week, followed by the first pepper I'm targeting for next week (I want to remove the first harvest while they're still small, so more will set), and a particularly curly garlic scape:

Drought to rain

First, it was so dry that about half of our onion plants died.

Now, we've had so much water that the water table is flooded, and there's about 4" of standing water in the garden. Most of it is in the pathways and the beds are raised enough to be dry on the surface (don't know about where the plant roots are), but one corner of the onion & squash bed is visibly under water. I may need to re-seed (again) the squash, which had JUST sprouted.

Oregano

Finally found an oregano plant. Add $3.50 to the total costs.

Never enough plants

I keep thinking I'm done buying stuff for this year's garden, and then I decide to get "one more thing," and come  home with three things. So -- sage plant, Aristotle basil plants (for my neighbor/co-gardener) and yellow squash plants (also for my neighbor/co-gardener). Total: $7.

I usually grow squash from seed, since it's so easy (and cheap) to do, but I got the wrong seeds (I think; I don't eat  yellow squash, so I don't know the varieties, and the person I grow it for doesn't have any preferences, except she doesn't like zucchini, and the squash seeds I got were yellow zucchini, which I think is different from regular yellow squash), and my usual sources for cheap seeds didn't have any yellow squash, so I went back to the local nursery and got a four-pack of plants. Variety: Park's creamy.

Now, I'm really done. Oh, except I need a Greek oregano plant. Mine died after a couple difficult years, and the local nursery didn't have any. May have to get it in a big box store. Or wait until next year.

In any event, if we have even a halfway decent growing season, we're going to be drowning in squash. Especially yellow-colored, whether zucchini-flavored or other.

Summer squash

Got seeds today: zucchini, yellow squash and a bush variety of butternut. Total cost (including donating the change to charity): $4.

Nightshades

Purchased 24 Ace peppers, 6 banana peppers, 6 cherry tomatoes (variety: Sweet Baby Girl; decided that while I love grape tomatoes, I don't like the only variety available locally -- Juliet) and 6 Jetstar tomatoes.

All but the Jetstars were planted today.

Total cost: $16. Even.