We’re hitting a milestone today. This is post 3000 since we started the blog!

I suppose it’s appropriate to mark the growth of the blog by highlighting growth in our garden. 🙂

Starting with this strange looking growth!

I spotted this strange shape, hidden in near the middle of one of the garlic beds. It looks like a garlic bulb is forming in the stem, instead of the ground! Or, as well as? Will this garlic plant have two bulbs? I look forward to finding out when they are harvested!

While watering in the evening, the girls found that something had squirmed its way under this beet bed and nibbled on quite a bit of it. More rocks and bricks were added to hopefully prevent it from happening again. The beets here had been recovering quite well, once we’d put the netting over it. This damage was mostly likely done by a woodchuck.

Which reminds me…

Yesterday evening, as my daughter went out to water the gardens, she found TWO woodchucks, loafed in the carrot bed in the main garden. The two smaller ones, just sitting there. As she came closer, one ran off, but the other just hunkered down. When she came still closer, it ducked behind one of the logs framing the bed and watched her over the top. She says she came so close, she could have slapped it in the face, while trying to shoo it away! It just did not want to leave! If finally did run off under the garden shed, but she had to practically chase it the whole way.

Brazen buggers, aren’t they?

The summer squash is doing really well and getting quite bit. This is the only bed that is fully mulched, and it’s making a very clear difference.

Next year, we really need to make sure we have lots of mulch available.

The onions we grew from seed are also doing the best of all the onions. It may be easier to grow from sets but, at this point, it seems well worth the effort to start from seed, instead. It’s really just a matter of finding the space to do it. Especially as we plan to grow a lot more next year, with more dedicated interplanting, so they can protect other vegetables.

The Montana Morado corn is doing really well. Some of the plants are about 5′ tall now. If we were not in drought conditions, they would be much taller, but they are still doing better than any of the other corn. So much better that I think we will start all our corn indoors and transplant them next year. Except the Dorinny corn, if we grow that again, since that one is meant to be direct sown before first frost, not after. They may not be as tall as the Montana Morado corn, but they are more robust.

The Crespo squash is recovering from critter damage very well. It has shot out new vines, one of which you can see has latched onto some twine! The smaller transplant (on the right, in this photo) is now the bigger plant, too.

Also, it takes a special talent to put your finger over the lens while using a cell phone to take pictures. LOL!

One of the Mosaic Mix tomato plants has SO many developing tomatoes on it! I don’t even like tomatoes, but I am really excited over how these are doing.

The tomatoes have gotten big and bushy enough that even some of the branches that have grown through the chain link fence are needing support.

Speaking of support…

Once the cucamelons finally reached the fence, they just shot up new vines and tendrils! Hopefully, the fence will soon be dense with leaves.

I need to find a way to put the fallen soil back and keep it there. I think the kittens are playing in the dirt and spreading it around. 😀

Even the Ozark Nest Egg gourds have gotten to the point where they are starting to climb!

If we can manage to keep things alive, we should still have a pretty decent harvest in the fall.

The Re-Farmer