Weed-be-gone

The garden has been overwhelmed with weeds. As you can see, my sub-title of "daily write-up" is no longer accurate due to the fact that I've been weeding and harvesting and trying to keep the plants healthy.  We had a tremendous storm/wind come through last week.  Most of my tomato cages have been pulled out of the ground due to the growth of the plants and the storm knocked them all over.  I'm thinking the cages are not the best solution for keeping my tomatoes off the ground, so I'll try stakes next year and see how that goes.

I just did a google search for lettuce plants. Mine appears to be alien since there were no other images like mine.  I'm not sure what type of lettuce I planted as I ripped the entire top of the package off.  However, looking at it, it says "Crisp & Colorful" on the bottom. Going to Burpee's website I couldn't really find one that looked like mine.

Having been gone for 10 days or so, I've missed the opportunity to update the blog. But more importantly I've missed the opportunity to weed.  The garden obviously went through a growth spurt.  I like the layout I have here. There's a place for me to get into the garden and the big tomatoes are off to the sides. Unfortunately once I get in there the various squash plants make it difficult to move around.

Our yummy spaghetti squash escaped the fence, but it looks none the worse.  Reading around some sites, it doesn't seem to matter when I pull this off the vine, but some suggest waiting for the vine to turn brown or the shell of the squash turns hard.  Doubt I'll wait that long because just thinking about it makes me hungry.

Here's another view from the other side.  You can see the pepper plants and squash mixed in there, but mostly all you see are those nasty nutrient-sucking garden killers known as weeds.  The poor excuse of a weed barrier has all but disintegrated.  Each step I take tears a new hole, but it doesn't matter anyway because the weeds grew up under the barrier, and pushed it up high enough to find enough light to grow sideways. And now that it's being destroyed, I'm wondering why I even put it down in the first place.  Now I know they say weed barrier is used under a layer of mulch and whatnot, so I guess I can't totally blame it for disintegrating, but I've had success with it in the past.  I will recruit my family and start pulling up weeds the old fashioned way, but I think I'll have a chat with some fellow bloggers about what they do. Taking a look at Skippy's post-vacation garden is a lot different then mine. I don't see any weeds in her garden.

This is about our 2nd harvest from the garden this year. The squash are a big too large for my tastes, but I gave 2 away in the hopes that someone will enjoy them.  The lettuce plants grew up instead of out and look all weird now. I'll have a pic of that next time.  Our first cucumber and jalapeno peppers went to the family that watered our garden while I was away and peas got gobbled up when I turned my back.

Veggies-a-plenty

Here's an example of why tomato cages are the pits. I can't do a thing about this without hurting the plant or removing the cage.  Hopefully the cage can still support the rest of the plant because I'm looking forward to eating some yummy cherry tomatoes.

Here's one of the branches splitting off of the plant. I could just rip it off and be done with it, but I won't willingly rip off a part that's still growing and contains enough of a lifeline to produce those aforementioned yummy cherry tomatoes.

I believe we have our first spaghetti squash. These are my favorite. I've never let them grow up the fence before and I can only imagine the stress it will put on the vine as they get bigger, but you gain the benefit of my (soon-to-be) 1st hand experience to determine this method.

The butternut squash are also coming in. My wife's favorite. She makes fries out of them. Yummm!

And finally my first cucumber ever. It looks a bit puny, but I have high hopes for it and will nurse it along to the delicious veggies it is.

We haven't had much rain in CT lately. While I have been neglecting the lawn... or as I like to call it, the hay field, I've been pretty good about keeping the gardens watered.  Unfortunately, I did not consider our tree that's only been in the ground for 2 years. The neighbors trees seem to be doing well, but ours has dried up and the leaves are brown and wilted. I know this is bad, but I'm hoping it can survive with daily watering.  If anyone has any insight into this, please share.  I looked around a little online, but can't really find an answer. It was mentioned here, but I'm not sure how long "prolonged" means.

The garden is doing well and thriving. We've already eaten some lettuce and squash and the tomatoes are starting to show up. I've done my best trying to guide the tomato plants and keep them in their cages, but inevitably a branch will sprout out undetected and then grow so it pushes the cage up and out of the ground.  I'm not sure there's a fix for this other than to use a different method. This one looks cool, but I'm kind of lost at how the whole plant would stay up. I'm noticing mine have heavy branches that fall down and rip themselves off the main stalk. I've read they will form new root systems and survive and I know I have to keep them off the ground, so I'll probably start tying them off to stakes.