General
The last three days have been cool for August. We got 1.5” of rain on Wednesday night and the following days were in the mid to low 80s. I didn’t need to water because of the rain and cool temperatures. Plus, rain is forecasted for later today. I picked up trash around all the gardens (probably left over from the county fair) and weeded a little. Weeds are pretty minimal this year. Lasagna mulching the paths around the beds was a great idea!
Harvest
I harvested 7.4 LBS of Mariana Paste Tomatoes, 3 LBS of Blue Lake Pole Beans and 3.5 LBS of Early Jalapeños. Tomatoes and peppers are coming in strong and will probably need a big harvest next week. The potato foliage is starting to brown, which hopefully means that we will be able to harvest soon. Dumping out the laundry baskets and finding them full of potatoes should be fun.
I ran into Becky from the SNAP-Ed Program and she was headed over to make salsa with residents of the senior center. She was very excited that she was able to get most of her ingredients from our garden!
Problems and Pests
Most of the tomato plants in a garden are showing signs of early blight. The Mariana tomato plants appear to be the worst, but are still producing a lot of fruit.
There were all stages of squash bugs on the Golden Glory Summer Squash plants. I manually removed some by knocking them into a cup of soapy water, but squash bugs tend to be an ongoing battle.
There is also evidence of animal activity in the garden. There appeared to be bite marks in some of the fruit. I had to cull 4 Super Beef Steak tomatoes and one 3 LBS Liberty Squash which had bite marks out of them. (Please note my use of terminology from our recent GAP training. LOL.)
The Strike Green Beans had evidence of insect damage on the leaves, but I didn’t see any insects. Both trial green beans fruit appear very spotty, especially when compared to the pole beans. Many of the issues facing the garden seem to be related to the wet summer we are having.
Notable
The iron weed is coming into bloom in the sensory garden and looks fabulous! I saw a black swallowtail fluttering nearby.
The herb garden also looks amazing! It provided me with all sorts of inspiration for something at my own house.
Overall the garden seems to be producing really well. Hopefully we will get a few good sunny days soon to dry things out.
Happy Gardening,
Johanna, OSU Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Clermont County