The Good, The Bad, and The Wicked-Ugly

It's about that time. Baseball has its All Star Game, usually played on or near my birthday...the halfway point between Opening Day and The World Series. 

Here in Zone 7/Piedmont NC, it's the halfway point in our 2013 warm season veggie gardens, 3 months from the Average Last Frost Date (typically quoted as April 15) and 3 months until the Average First Frost Date (typically quoted as October 15). So how're things going, you ask? Let's take stock, shall we?

Starting with The Good, as you can tell in that photo above, the new tuteur in the Center Square of the Box Garden is a green success! The Kentucky Wonder pole beans are beginning to produce, now that the vines have reached great heights. And while the Scarlet Runner Beans (an old-world variety I'm trialing this year) haven't made any beans yet, they are showing off their striking red flowers (seen close-up). The dwarf sunflowers add contrasting color to draw the eye...and carry out the theme introduced in the stenciling I did on the topper.

What may not be evident from that picture is how over-the-moon happy I am with the raised beds in the Box Garden. Although I have long enjoyed using landscape timbers and recycled crates to create (mainly flower) beds for aesthetic reasons, I have resisted joining the raised bed army now for years, mainly because I simply didn't understand how veggies could do as well in intensive growing conditions as they could in regular garden rows.

I have maintained a healthy skepticism, say we say, about the almost religious fervor some folks use when singing the praises of the intensely-marketed Square Foot Gardening, mainly because (1) Mr. Mel takes credit for "inventing" something (intensive garden practices) that have been in use for a couple centuries in France and other countries...what he should be credited with is inventing a catchy name and a clever way to market the concept in order to garner fame and fortune; (2) in the Way Back Kitchen Garden, we have plenty of room for "raised rows," 40' long x 4' wide, with 3' aisles; and, (3) truth be told, many intensively-planted raised beds tend to look...well, 'unkempt' is the kindest word I can use.

OK, sign me up as a soldier! I am a convert to raised beds, primarily because I can control the soil-mix, allowing me to grow decent carrots and beets for the first time here in our hard-pack, clay-soil heaven...and I figured out that I can keep them from getting too rangy-looking simply by daily maintenance. Plus, I can garden intensively without feeling the need to hammer-and-nail a square-foot grid on my boxes...which Mr. Mel insists makes them SFG-official. So there!

Also in The Good column here at the midpoint, I have to sing praises of the two varieties of bush beans (all seeds of which I got at the Seed Exchange at Old Salem last January) which have been extremely productive, and of a new variety of salad tomato I was encouraged to try by MG friend JA called Sun Gold. At this point, I'm almost ready to start looking for the 'pause button' on both of these, as I cannot just stroll out to the garden to observe anymore...I must take some kind of container to harvest (bush) green beans and Sun Gold tomatoes!

In the "coming along nicely" category are the three varieties of okra (a beautiful row as you can see above, just starting to flower) and the trellised Kentucky Wonder pole beans (just beginning to flower and produce), below. The peppers are starting to yield a green one here and there, with several jalapeños and one giant sweet red on the vines. The newly-planted pumpkins (replacing the two rows and one grow bag of garlic) have all germinated and are adding inches daily. And, slowly but surely the replacement cantaloupes (from seed) are starting to flower (but not fruit)...remember, lost the first seedlings to cutworms. 

The rest of the row of tomatoes are loaded with green and ripening fruit. The pink-fruited heirloom/OP German Johnsons (below) are ripening daily, and I picked my first ones today, including those two you see below. The Celebrities have one or two ready every couple of days, and the Big Daddys have one about every three days. And you should see the salad variety I started from seed, the Juliets...just loaded with green tomatoes!

Mmmm. Tomatoes. That leads me into The Bad category. I have fingers and toes crossed that I will be able to harvest all the fruit currently ripening on the tomato vines...since I have seen evidence of blight on the leaves. Late blight, not typically seen outside of the Mountains, has been confirmed in Guilford County, and I think all this wet weather we've had this season will only make fungal problems worse. I've used Neem oil, which has some fungicide properties, but it has been raining too much to apply Serenade...my next and only remaining organic line of defense. I do have seven replacement plants ready in containers if necessary to pull any (remember the suckers I started earlier this year?), but we are nearing the last date to plant tomatoes (July 15). I feel like it's a race at this point.

Also in The Bad category falls the cucurbit row, in general. While I have harvested enough Straight 8 cucumbers to make dill pickles; enough yellow squash to eat and freeze a few; and enough zucchini to have them grilled as well as grated for zucchini bread (making the latter today), I see signs of fungal damage here, too. Losing leaves at a rapid rate on all. Had to take out at least three squash plants due to wilt. And the squash bugs are still laying their eggs on the remaining leaves. Grrrrr.

But nothing...nothing...compares to the downright Wicked-Ugly category. I have lost my entire crop of ripening watermelons and corn...to raccoons. Remember, I thought I'd lost the corn to wind damage? Well, it righted itself and set ears...and now all I have to show are empty cobs and stripped shucks. Here's the heart-breaking evidence...first, today's destruction: the remaining 6 Sugar Baby watermelons; next, the remains of the Silver Queen crop.  

Makes me want to whack something with my National Wildlife membership card.