Garden Update: Beetles, Bottom Rot, and a Few Big Wins

It has been awhile since I shared a garden update, and for the most part, things are going well. But as always, there are some plants not doing so well.

The Struggle is Real for Brassicaceae

My cauliflower plants seemed to grow well, but have yet to produce any cauliflower. They were an early variety, so it seems I won’t be getting any this year.

The brussels sprouts started out well and I could see the brussels starting to form, but that is probably as far as they are going to get. The plants started to lose leaves and seemed to get hit by bugs pretty bad. When I scanned them with Google Lens, it appears they may have both a bug infestation and a fungal issue.

This year I was actually able to harvest a few heads of sprouting broccoli before the bugs or fungal issue took hold. I am considering that a win.

At this point, I’m not sure how many heads of green or purple cabbage I will end up with. But I did harvest one green cabbage. Another win compared to last year!

How Everything Else Fared

While there are still plants that didn’t do as well as I had hoped, the list of struggles is much shorter than last year.

Yesterday I was able to harvest the rest of my radishes, beets, carrots and beans.

Beans

My beans got hit hard with Japanese beetles a few weeks ago, which is partly my fault. I didn’t get beetle traps up soon enough, and then I made the mistake of putting the trap too close to the beans. Needless to say, the beetles ate well. So I took the time yesterday to pull all of my bean plants and plan to replant some in the fall.

Tomatoes

The Purple Cherokee tomatoes are having a hard time making it to fully ripe without bottom rot. After some research, I learned that inconsistent watering, the drought and then tons of rain, can cause this in tomatoes. My guess is it’s happening more with them than my cherry tomatoes because of the size difference.

The cherry tomatoes are just starting to ripen, and I was able to harvest quite a few yesterday. I may need to string up some of the plants, since they’ve grown too heavy for some of my tomato cages.

Tomatillos

My tomatillos seem to be doing well, and the husks have started to form.

Peppers

The last time I checked my garden, the peppers weren’t doing much. But what a difference a few days can make. Yesterday there was the start of quite a few peppers on almost all of the plants.

Watermelons

I thought I might have to build some hammocks for a few of the watermelons, but as of right now, they seem to be doing fine.

Canteloupes

The cantaloupes are coming right along. This is the first year I’ve made it this far with melons, so I’ll need to do some research on when to harvest.

Cucumbers

My three surviving cucumber plants are producing more cucumbers than I expected. But I do want to can pickles this year, so I have another round of seedlings starting indoors, and I plan to transplant them soon now that I have some room in the garden.

The early effort put into my garden this year seems to be paying off. Even if the results of the brassicas aren’t as good as I had hoped, it is still much better than last year. I am looking forward to seeing how the season ends and have started planning what I will be planting for the fall.

From the Garden to the Kitchen

Most of what comes out of the garden gets sauteed up for my lunches and dinners during the week. But I’ve had an overflow of zucchini and cucumbers, so I tried out two different zucchini bread recipes and a refrigerator pickle recipe.