Garden

While the girls and I were away for 3.5 weeks it rained. A lot. So much in fact that most gardens around here are not doing well.

The squash (spaghetti, butternut, and the mystery hybrid) all have powdery mildew. Today I ripped out all the plants. The mystery is taking up a great deal of garden space and I don't even know if it will taste good or not. We have harvested about 10 of them and I will test them out. The spaghetti squash and butternut were near the sunflowers so had the most amount of mildew.

The mystery hybrid. I thought it was acorn when I transplanted it from another section of the garden. But then when the leaves got bigger I thought it was zucchini that had volunteered from last year. Nope. Hybrid. Lesson learned. Don't save volunteer squash.

Pickling cukes!!! Even though the vines looked terrible and the leaves were obviously dying, I was able to harvest all of these before ripping out the plants. Pickle canning time!!!

 I picked what butternut and spaghetti we did have to see if it would ripen off the vine.

Fennel way past harvest time. I learned some interesting things about fennel today via YouTube...

I cut the bulbs and will use them soon. So. Much. Fennel.

And will replant the root parts of them to hopefully grow more!

Stay tuned for more garden goodness... I have been clearing out an entire bed to plant fall and winter greens. I also plan to plant other things where the squash bed was, but need to prep the soil first. Our tomatoes don't look so hot either, but I will leave what green ones are out there to ripen and then need to get rid of the plants.

And damn the rats. I see their home. Stay away from our veggies!!! Go eat the random pile of mildewy crap I pulled out and left to wilt before hauling it to the curb.