The First Zucchini and Cucumber

I did not get out to my garden today until after dark so I was lurking again with the flashlight. This time in search of progress or improvement since I laid down straw. My squash is still rotting at a pretty good rate. I'm going to treat the garden with bone meal tomorrow and hope this will stop the rot on the squash and beefsteak tomatoes. Of course in the garden there is always a little disappointment and then comes a huge reward! This zucchini and cucumber tripled over the weekend and I finally got to cut something out of the garden! I am so proud I had to show you my big harvest!

Question: When the squash or zucchini starts to form can I clip off the bloom? I'm wondering if that will help them not rot. The blooms get pretty gross as the squash grows.

Yellow bell pepper on it's way, lots of others. My peppers seem behind some of the other blogs I've seen. They've grown a lot since I gave them more compost but still small. I put extra straw around them to protect their roots since they don't grow as deeply as the tomatoes.

I lost the first round of squash but the second round was close behind. I took Cindy's advice and put straw down to keep them out of the dirt. We've had so much rain the dirt is holding a lot of moisture.

The red grape tomatoes are going crazy!

The cucumbers are really coming along, this is by far the biggest one so far. The cucumbers are a bit unruly, they keep wanting to attach to the tomato and pepper cages and run behind the garden. I go out every day and reroute them back to their trellis.

Before and After Photos

Tomatoes and Squash Before (about 6 weeks ago)


Tomatoes and Squash Today!

Two New Additions

We had 2 stumps ground out today making way for new garden areas. Since it will take some time for us to decide what we want to do with the space I decided to try growing a watermelon and honeydew in the freshly turned dirt. I went to the garden center to get straw and saw them sitting there looking very sad in what is left of the vegetable section. Stay tuned, I would love to have a watermelon or two!

My first Black Pear tomato

Just something pretty, a cucumber blossom!

Baby cucumber, there is going to be a lot of them! They love the climbing wire I put up for them with the left over wire from the tomato cages.

Is this blossom rot? The zucchini were both fine yesterday! How can I stop this?

Ugh... Bugs...

Please help me...

I think I have slugs and maybe aphids again (see previous post Ready, Set, Go)?

In case I am correct I did the soapy water spray and will rinse in the morning. They seem to just be on the squash right now. I wonder if I should treat the tomatoes just in case? Will it hurt the blooms?

Any advice or if it doesn't look like aphids let me know!

Slug Trap to check in the morning

Are these aphids or slug eggs?

Definitely slugs I think?

More mystery bugs...

Finally, what is this thing?