Veggies in the Sun

Cucumbers


Figs


Cherry tomatoes


Eggplant blossom
Here's to a fruitful summer weekend. Enjoy!

A Hot Harvest

My husband was the original garden blogger in our family, but school, work and other hobbies have sucked away most of his blog time. Occasionally he still pens an entry, like today's, which I am reposting from his blog.


The hedge to the right is, in fact, my cherry tomatoes! - All organic folks!

Black Beauty eggplant

My Celebrity tomatoes wear pantyhose to make them look less appetizing to mockingbirds who are easily turned off by this early '90s women's underwear-accessory fashion.

Eggplant, banana peppers, TAM-1 jalapenos, cucumbers, and Large Red Cherry tomatoes.

Veggie Harvest

There's nothing like home grown veggies to make you popular at work.

About every third day, we pick a basketful of cucumbers, tomatoes, banana peppers and jalapenos.


Travis is dwarfed by our tomato jungle. We have about twelve plants that are being supported by six Texas Tomato Cages. I highly recommend the cages. They are worth every penny. They're incredibly sturdy and fold flat for storage. Can you imagine if we tried to used the little pepper cages on the left for our tomatoes?


We trained our cucumbers on a four foot circular section of pig fence but they quickly outgrew it so we increased the structure's height by zip tying our overflow compost bin on top. The cucumbers love it. And by luck, we've found their ideal growing location in our garden. The plants are in full sun, but the fence shelters them from the baking late afternoon heat.


Tsatsiki is a Greek yogurt dip that is usually served with pita bread and gyro. It's one of the many cucumber recipes we've been experimenting with. Our version tasted good, very refreshing, but it was a lot thinner than the spread they serve at the Greek restaurant.

Tsatsiki - Greek Cucumber Spread
1 peeled, shredded cucumber - set in a colander to let the extra moisture drip out
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup sour cream
1-2+ teaspoons chopped garlic
Fresh mint
Fresh Dill
Mix all the ingredients together with an electric mixer.

Weekend Happenings

A caller to KTSA's Garden Show was having the same problem with her Giant Liriope that has plagued mine for about six months. One strap at a time, it's turning yellow and the plant is thinning. I am about 10 straps away from losing an entire plant.

Bob says liriope has no diseases or pests, but it can be planted too deeply and mulched too heavily. Armed with this piece of information, I pulled back the mulch and dirt on each plant until I exposed the root flare. Now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I couldn't resist this Plantain Lily that was reduced to only $1 at Lowe's. This spring, I made a shade pot arrangement with Creeping Jenny, ferns and a Plantain Lily. The lily looks ragged under the more intense summer sun so I moved the pot, and I'm hopeful the new addition can withstand the weather.

For the backyard border garden that I'm working on, I needed Moonbeam Coreopsis. From what I've read, Moonbeam is a shorter coreopsis with lighter yellow flowers – perfect. However, none of my local nurseries stocked Moonbeam so I ordered some online and was surprised when they arrived as knots of roots in plastic bags.

I don't usually mark plants with their ID tags, but I was worried that I wouldn't remember where I planted them. Today, I was relieved to see a few shoots poking through the dirt.

 

In the veggie garden, squash vine borers devastated our zucchini and yellow squash. You can see the areas where the larvae burrowed into the stems. There's not much I can do to fight the borers, plus it's the end of the season so pulled up the plants and buried them as deep as I could in a compost salad.

Parting Shot: Travis spotted this tiny praying mantis in our cucumber jungle.