All my stuff is still in the stunted phase. Of the 4 cucumber plants one has about 10 big leaves and has been flowering. Another has several smaller leaves and a couple bunches of flowers. Another has flowers but only a couple of tiny leaves. The last one I thought was dead has sprouted small leaves from a node near the ground while the stem going to the second node is dying back.

My onions haven't gone anywhere except to die and disappear for the most part. They haven't sprouted any new greenery since they were starts. Actually they still look like weak starts.

Tomatos, I'm gonna have to wait and see. Some are over two feet tall, not much flowering going on though and I'm out trimmong leaves to try and train them up the stakes. Maybe I should just tie them up when they grow for a while and not trim them so much but what I don't want is bushes, they just go every which way.

I'll probably be eating some mustard greens when this current round of rains ends in a couple of days.

Hank

Hi Hank,

It just started raining here a few minutes ago. I was out picking tomatoes and was getting too hot, so I am kind of relieved to be in out of the heat for a little while. We are not getting the heavy rains that have been falling in parts of Oklahoma this week, but have had really brief showers in the early mornings for a couple of days now.

Right now we are having a thunderstorm! Seems like it is more thunder and lightning, and less rain at our house, though it is raining hard at the western/northwestern edge of Love County right now, with possible hail.

All the stunted plants are so frustrating, aren't they? It is odd. People who are not vegetable gardeners often think that the more it rains, the better the vegetables will grow. We know better though. If anybody doubts that too much rain can be bad for a veggie garden, then they should look at my pitiful stunted plants. Every time the plants start to dry out and grow a little, we'll have several days of heavy rain and be back in a situation of too much wet soggy soil again.

Every vegetable garden I see in our area has the exact same problems. As bad as I think that my tomato plants look, I have seen a lot that are more stunted than mine. Everyone is struggling to get a decent harvest of anything. I am grateful for the rain we have received and know we need much more to undo the damage from the recent drought years. I just wish the veggie gardens weren't paying the price for us receiving rain.

The other day I told my husband that this would have been a good year to not even have a vegetable garden, if I had known in advance what the weather would do.

Hank, have you grown tomatoes before in our climate? I never prune my leaves off unless they look yucky and diseased.

I had a neighbor who carefully staked and pruned her tomato plants one year so they would not be too bushy. She was following the dirctions in a gardening book probably written by someone who had never gardened in our state. Well, those plants weren't too bushy, all right, but they also never produced a single tomato all summer or fall.

I have never seen anyone stake and prune a tomato plant and get good production in our climate.

The average tomato plant in the ground in our climate should produce 10 to 15 lbs. of tomatoes. In order for that to happen, though, that plant has to have a lot of leaves!!! Think of the leaves as the 'factory' that produce the fruit. Too few leaves = too few fruit. That's just my opinion, but I am 48 years old, I have gardened since I was a child, and I grow thousands of tomatoes a year, so my opinion ought to count a little. :)

Today I brought in 5 gallons of tomatoes, about half of which are large beesteaks. Of the remaining tomatoes, about half are paste tomatoes and half are cherry or grape tomatoes. None of those plant have been pruned and, in fact, their foliage is too stunted and too sparse. I'd be happier if the plants had twice the foliage they now have. In this wet year, though, it probably won't happen.

Dawn

I don't think my tomato plants have enough foliage this year. They are growing and they look heathy (well most of them) and they have lots of blooms and fruit, but I am wondering if the rains washed away all of the nitrogen. I would be happier if they were a little bushier and a little darker green but thought I might be a little late to add anything. What do you think?

I just went out and checked my rain guage, got 1 and an eighth inches overnight in my yard. I'll hold back on trimming the tomato foliage for a bit and see what happens. Here's something I'd like to know, how do you know when a tomato plant is putting out a branch with just leaves Vs a new branch aka stalk? That's what I'm really trying to prevent, a second main stalk from starting.

Dawn, does your family have to pay income taxes in both OK and TX? I wonder sometimes how many Oklahoma residents work in bordering states and come back to their homes in Oklahoma every night. On the flip side I wonder how many residents of states bordering Oklahoma come to Oklahoma to work and go back to their home state every night. I get the feeling Oklahoma relies on bordering states economies picking up the slack and providing Oklahoman's jobs because our leaders don't know what they are doing.

Soonergrandmom,

I have had the same problem and I went ahead and fed them Miracle Grow for Tomatoes, which I usually avoid. They responded INSTANTLY with beautiful new color and new growth. I believe the excessive rain has leached much of the nutrients out of the soil, and it is impossible to work in new compost and other amendments while the plants are growing.

I also have been top-dressing the beds with compost and continue to feed the plants a little compost tea and liquid seaweed as a foliar spray.
Hope this info helps.

Hank,

I leave all the leaves, including the suckers. Every leaf that grows provides both photosynthesis for food production and shade from our summer sun. Without a heavy leaf cover, the tomatoes sunscald and are ruint.

My husband and son pay state income tax quarterly to the state of Oklahoma, since Texas employers do not/will not withhold it from the paychecks. There is no state income tax in Texas (instead, they have horrendously high property taxes that increase every year without fail) and, of course, federal taxes eat up a huge chunk of income also.

In our county and surrounding areas, MANY, MANY people do work in Texas, and a lot of them drive down to the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area just like my husband and son. Wages, salaries and benefits there are much higher than ANYTHING you can find in our part of Oklahoma. For example, schoolteachers can take a job just 'over the river' in Texas and make $10,000 to $15,000 per year more than they make in Oklahoma.

I love Oklahoma, and I think our leaders are doing a better job of attracting new industry to our state, especially the Ardmore Development Commission, which has helped attract several major employers to Love County and Carter County. Wages and salaries, though, lag behind those offered in Texas and I am sure many Okies cross the state border to work in other states.

Dawn

My harvest this week? One bell pepper! lol lol lol
Great huh? At least it was a yummy one.

My garden has NEVER been worse. It was better when I knew nothing at all and just stuck things into the ground many years ago.

We got all that rain which missed you Dawn. We have been at the lake for over a week. Ah it was so NICE to Get AWAY from here and all the STUFF I get dragged into...lol.

Now we are home with 5th wheel only partly into the back yard due to DH getting truck stuck trying to get it backed through the gate....haha. DS had to pull him out with his Jeep. At least the trailer didn't get stuck too. That might have been a big problem. Good old Montana not making them incredibly heavy.

Our yard and my mom's yard is all grown up and needs mowing but it is still wet and DH hurt his back putting dirt into the ruts he made getting stuck.
We are a mess. I would rather just pack up the RV and LEAVE than to deal with everything.....lol.

I hope ALL rain misses us for a long time to come.

Some of my flowers are looking great and some seem to have not grown much at all since I was last at home. The sweet potato plants are still not growing in spite of fish fertilizer and the cypress vine and cardinal vines are just sitting there. Whatever....

Hope you are all well and enjoying "summer"....if you call this summer.

G.M.

I have a big crop this week 2 tomatoes LOL

The plants are loaded but we are getting rain again and so they are staying green

I am soooo jealous!! I thought my garden was doing fantastic but compared to some of these posts, I don't know. I got really excited when I found a 4 inch cucumber the other day. I am picking some cayennes which have decent heat, jalapenos which depending on which one you eat, has heat and some taste like bells. I am still getting quite a bit of greens and salads. The other day I picked mesclun and came across curly kale which is delicious on hamburgers. My green beans are not ready to pick, tomatoes are just big and green and finally I am getting baby watermelons the size of little peas. All and all I am still happy. Today I picked kohlrabi, carrots and beets and made a "kohl slaw" with tangy dressing. As for the rain, we are getting our share. I went through the Glass Mountain area known as "Cheyenne valley" where they reported 10 inches in about an hour. WOW. The sheriff of Major county was telling me how they directed traffic when the tornados crossed the road. Stop traffic let a tornado pass through, let the traffic go, stop them on the next one. I had to laugh.

Hi Y'all!

Merry heart, I was thinking you must be at the lake when you weren't on the computer for a few days. What lovely weather you had this week, well, except for the rain! I think my DS and his girlfriend are going to Lake Murray today. She has been wanting to go swim and get a little sun, and the weather has not made it easy.

I gave up on the sweet potatoes, pulled them and put them on the compost pile. The weather just hasn't been good to them this year. Ironically, the ornamental sweet potatoes are very happy.

I agree that gardening conditions are the worst ever this year. I would rather have drought. Sorry, but it is true. In the veggie garden, I can always turn on the soaker hose and slowly add enough water to keep the garden going and producing for at least a couple of months in a drought. With too much rain, wet soggy soil, and constant clouds, though, you can't do much. I'd rather have a dry year than an overly wet one. On the other hand, the trees and wild areas really need the rain to recover from the drought of the last two years, so I guess the veggies/flowers will just have an off year.

Sheepie,

If the sun ever shines, you are going to have a tomato explosion!

I know it is frustrating to have big greenies that won't ripen. I have picked some as soon as they have a little blushing of pink and have finished off their ripening in the house. They have ripened faster than the ones I leave outside on the plants in the cloudy weather. I am probably compromising a little on the flavor with the ones ripened indoors.

This week I picked a Beefmaster that had fully ripened on the vine and it was so yummy I could hardly stand it. It is the only ripe one that plant has produced so far, but there are lots of green ones.

River22,

Wow! When we have a heavy downpour like that, flooding results and we have a few hours of craziness, with the local law enforcement guys and local volunteer firefighters out re-routing traffic and rescuing stranded drivers. We have had two major heavy rainfalls in our part of the county in the last year that resulted in heavy flooding, but our worst one was only 9.25" in about 4 hours times. I can't imagine 10" in an hour. I hope the tornadoes missed all the people and their homes.

I think your harvest so far sounds lovely. In a year like we have had with lots of rainy, cloudy weather, the harvest is usually a little late, and often it is very frustrating. ANY harvest should be considered a triumph! I am sure you will be harvesting much more as the summer goes on. Isn;t it wonderful to prepare and eat food you have raised?

Between the wild weather and the pests who want to eat everything I grow, I am always thrilled to actually harvest food we can eat. My biggest problem this year is that the deer and the racoons think the garden is theirs. I only have a 4' fence, but I hope to double that to an 8' fence before next spring.

Happy Growing everyone.

Dawn

river22 - Don't get discouraged yet, remember most of these people that are harvesting so much are in Zone 7. We are going to be a little later on almost everything. Today my pea vines are starting to turn yellow and I am so glad. I have picked peas everyday for six or seven weeks. I am tired of eating them and I have put about 20 small packs (for stir fry) in my freezer. The gardener in me won't let me tear out the vines as long as they are producing, but the "pea-picker" in me has had enough. I try to plant just what I can use fresh and never plan to can or freeze anything, but I don't throw it away if I get to much either. The exception to that is salsa because a few jars of that is always nice to have.

Soonergrandmom,

I always get tired of the beans in the same way that you are tired of the peas!

I always plant too many tomatoes for us to eat, but I can, freeze and dry some, and give away the rest. Even then, I do get tired of picking them in July when the harvest is so bountiful and the weather is so hot!

A lot of my neighbors always have more beans, corn and zucchini than they need or want....and it gets to where you can't even give it away!

Dawn

Now, Dawn, it's a great year for new plantings of perennials, shrubs, and trees! I haven't had to water but once, and the new plants are establishing just great!

For veggies, I would imagine it is kinda bad, though. My two little tomatoe plants are trudging the road to production, though. I was a bad girl, and didn't get them in the ground until a couple of weeks ago. However, they are putting on new growth now. I always add chicken manure to my soil when I plant things, and the tomatoes are putting on new fruit as well. Chicken manure has more phosphorous in it than cow manure.

I have giant sunflowers in the yard, though! My gosh, the ones I planted last year, didn't get near this tall, and these are reseeders from last year's SFs! Gimmini Xmas!
I have heard that often annuals' that reseed, do better after they resow than they do the first year planted. This has been true of borage, cleome, nigella, and annual salvias.

I hope y'alls veggies produce a mountain of food for you. If I could grow them, believe me, I would. I love sqaush, okra, green beans, corn, onions, and all that stuff that I miss eating from the garden when I was a kid. I haven't had corn on the cob straight from the garden for probably a good 20 years. Even if you buy it from the Farmer's Market, it's lost some flavor between the picking and the shuffling it off to market. I manage to MAKE room for a couple tomatoes, and that's all I can do unless I inherit the property next door to me. LOL!

Susan

Hey Susan,

It HAS been a great year for everything except the veggies, and I have been re-doing some borders and adding to others to take advantage of the favorable rainfall and cooler temps!

My tomatoes have begun producing really well, considering the weather, and the peppers, herbs, squash and melons are fine. The deer are jumping the garden fence and eating whatever they want, but are leaving piles of deer scat in the pathways in return. The racoons are climbing the garden fence and eating the still unripened corn. The bobcat just likes to sit in the garden and look around. It is a crazy year.

Most of my plants that reseed themselves do become more vigorous as they become more adapted to our climate, including Texas hummingbird sage, salvia farinacea, four o'clocks, hyacinth bean vines, morning glories, zinnias, some sunflowers, cleome, verbena bonariensis and veronica. I do have a lot of sunflowers that I thought were hybrids that re-seed and the F-2 and subsequent generations seem virtually identical to the F-1, which makes me wonder.

I bet your tomatoes will do just fine even though planted late. This year's temps are perfect for them so far, and it hasn't heated up excessively yet, so we should have a prolonged harvest this year.

By the way, my tomato hornworms are HUGE this year, much more so than most other years, so I think they are liking the weather too.

Dawn

Okiedawn - I know about those people that grow too many vegetables. In Alaska we would say, "If you go to town be sure to lock your car, otherwise it will be filled with zucchinni shen you come out."

I gave up on the pollinators and hand pollinated a couple of yellow straight neck squash blooms. Guess what? Squash tonight. I guess I am going to have to do that with all of them. What a pain? Guess I shouldn't complain, at least I don't have squash bugs.

Sooonergrandmom,

Love the joke--it's an old one but a good one!

Last year some good friends of ours had a garden for the first time. We had been supplying them with fresh garden produce for 15 or 20 years and so, naturally, they wanted to share their garden produce with us. They planted a whole row of summer squash and zucchini and brought us bags and bags of the stuff! Bags and bags and bags. All summer long. Not that I didn't appreciate it, but I grew all we need for ourselves as it was......

I am glad hand pollination is working. Since it warmed up here, the pollination process is working as it should. However, with the return of the rains this past weekend, the pollinators may flee for a drier sunnier location once again!

I haven't had squash bugs yet, either, but the stink bugs just showed up!

Dawn

You said Cleome... :(((( I had 3 little seedling survive the frost, and they had just reached about 2 feet tall, when something came by and ate them. They weren't nibbled on at all, just cut right off at the base. :((( They were the only plants that were eaten. I think the deer must really like Cleome becuase they had to jump over a 6ft fence to get them, and being the ONLY plant that was munched on... I don't think that I'll be planting any next year. Which is really a bummer, I love the flowers and foilage is almost as beautiful!

Courtney

Okiedawn - Glad to see you are safe. Just saw the flooding of your neighbors in Sherman and Gainsville and got on to see if you were posting. Man that is nasty.

Hmmm. I didn't think deer would like cleome, Courtney. Are you sure it wasn't cutworms?

The reason I say this is that cleome foliage is very sticky and pungent, and almost prickly sometimes to the touch.

But who knows what deer will eat???? I've got tons of seedlings if you want some of those, too.

Susan

Soonergrandmom,

It is so sweet of you to be concerned about me! Thank you.

It is so bad in Gainesville that I cannot begin to describe it. You cannot believe that one day's rainfall could cause so much devastation. Some of our firefighters and county deputies went down to the Gainesville area to help with all the water rescues--they are such great guys! We carried water and Gatorade and food down to some of the rescue personnel.

There were literally hundreds of "outside" fire/rescue and law enforcement personnel in Gainesville to help out. They came from all over North Texas and from southern Oklahoma as well. I know that some came from as far away as Dallas and Lewisville. They were still rescuing people and searching for missing persons late this afternoon. We saw people (and pets!) sitting on rooftops, much like what you saw after Katrina, although these folks were thankfully rescued very quickly. Many businesses suffered quite severe flood damage, and I saw at least one church that had flooded.

I am always complaining about the rain 'missing' us or going around us, but this time I was grateful that it did!

Last year, Thackerville had a mild tornado just a couple of miles south of us, and Gainesville had a more severe one about 15 miles south of us. It seems like the bad stuff skips right past us every time.

Well, we did have flooding in our part of Love County once last year---over 9" of rain in one day, with most of that falling in just a couple of hours. So, I know what it is like to see water rising, and cars floating right off the roads!

Takes me back to my favorite short explanation of the seasons we have here: Drought, Drought, Drought, and Flood.
It is true, isn't it!

I feel so bad for all the people in Gainesville and Sherman and the surrounding area who have suffered losses today. There are a lot of folks in shelters tonight. A few people did not survive and more are missing. Many more face cleaning up massive destruction done to their homes, landscapes, businesses and vehicles. I am grateful this weather missed us.

Dawn

Susan,
Would cutworm make it appear as if they'd be hacked off with a machete? The only thing I could think of was deer, any of the other creatures I've seen I guessed would have been nibblers (rabbits, aramadillos, possum, gophers, etc). I have suspected that it might be something else though becuase they only ate one plant per night. I would think that a deers stomach could hold all three. They plants were looking wonderful and healthy before disappearing. I did use asprin water on them, so I wonder if that might have made them more appealing to the deer. Who knows. I'm sure the deer are eating whatever they can find with all of the land that's being cleared out around us right now. I'd love to have some more for next year. Would you be willing to try to save me a few seeds? I think I'll keep them staked up in pots closer to the house next year. :(((

Dawn,
I'm glad you guys are doing okay in your area. I heard on the news last night that Gainsville got an inch of rain every 15 minutes!!! I can't even imagine what that would be like.
Tell ALL your men thank you. Most of us sit and watch it on the news, I appreciate the men and women that put themselves in harm's way to rescue the people in need. They are true heros!

Take Care
Courtney

Boy, I just don't know, Courtney. Some of the rural folks will have to answer questions about deer. As a citified gardener (citified, now, not certified), I don't have to cope with deer, thank goodness. Usually, though, the things that literally cut a plant off at the base, are cutworms, hence the name. You can protect your plants from those abominable cat-men, by putting a "collar" of sode bottle around them (at least 4" wide) or devise something of your own to protect the stems from cutworms. There are both city cutworms and country cutworms, too, BTW! But, I think the city cutworms are a little punier than the country ones. Must be something to do with that "cornfed" upbringing! Hee Hee!

It was awful about the flooding in Gainesville! And the fire in South Carolina, too. Lots of things going on right now - lots of not-so-good things! Mother Nature has sure been whacky this year.

Susan

Hi Courtney,

I'll pass your thank you on to the guys. Thanks. AND, I have a story for you.

A couple of weeks ago, maybe in early June, Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow wrote a newspaper column about USO budget cuts and how they would affect the D-FW Airport USO. The fear was that some of the members of the armed forces wouldn't be able to get some of their favorite snacks.
Do you think the patriotic citizens of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area were going to allow that? Oh, no, not at all. Generous citizens started sending $$$$ to the D-FW USO, close to $400,000. in all. Yes. Four hundred thousand dollars. That is more than the D-FW USO's budget for a whole year! How's that for a show of support for our troops???? I love it!

Oops! I forgot to say anything about your cleome. Guess I had the flood on my mind.

I have never had a cleome eaten by anything that I can remember since we moved here in '99 and I grow them both inside the fenced in cottage border, and in a non-fenced area as well. I have to tell you, though, that deer will eat absolutely ANYTHING if they are feeling hungry. I have had them eat some very prickley plants, including huge coarse pumpkin leaves. They also eat my okra down to the ground every year. Still, if it was a clean cut, I suspect something other than a deer. There are some cutworms that cut off plants about 1/8" to 1" above the ground. Also, unless your cleomes were extrememly well-rotted, the deer might pull them up completely out of the ground. That is what they do with my peppers.

Lately, there are turtles and deer eating tomatoes in my garden. I let them have some. I just keep thinking that God is watching and he would want me to let them eat. I am such a softy any more.

Today we had wild turkeys in the woods right on the edge of the garden. They are probably here to see if the raccoons left them any corn! Our garden provides not only for us, but for a lot of wildlife as well.

Hi Susan!

Gainesville and the Sherman area both suffered SO MUCH damage. It is mind-boggling what a few inches of rainfall can do.

The news of the nine firefighters' deaths in South Carolina was STUNNING and devastating. I know that such things happen. Indeed, we know firefighters who have died in the line of duty. It is never easy to lose one, though, and to use nine at once is so hard to comprehend.

I think that Mother Nature may be going through menopause or something (tee-hee) 'cause she IS all crazy this year.

Saw the tattered remains of another Luna Moth this week at the fire station a few miles from our home. It appears there are quite a few of them around this year. All of a sudden we have a lot of tarantulas again, just like we did the first couple of years we lived here. Perhaps their population is cyclical like so much of the wildlife???

Dawn

Dawn,

That is an awesome story! I love it! It's funny how detached the media is from everyday Americans. They are generally so negative about anything military that I don't even read the paper or watch anything on the news except for the weather anymore. I used to be a HUGE news junkie!! Of course that's when DH was on a ship in the middle of the gulf, and I had to get every bit of info that I could about what was going on. Now that he's home, I'm concerned, but not obsessed. I stick to the DOD and Military websites for news now.

I hadn't thought of turtles!! We have had quite a few box turtles coming through our yard, especially with all the recent rains, it seems like they have been searching for higher ground. Would cutworm eat the ENTIRE plant in one evening? Wouldn't I also have a problem with them in other parts of the yard like the veggies, or some of the other plants? I looked up pictures of them online when Susan mentioned them, and I don't recall seeing any of them around, but that area has the landscape fabric, so I guess it'd be a good plce for them to hide.

BTW - Since the topic is actually This Weeks Harvest. I'm excited to say that I harvested my FIRST EVER snap peas and chives tonight!! Our yard in Cali was too small to have a veggie garden, and before Cali I was an apartment dweller, so this is the first time in my life that I've had an actual Veggie Garden. I can say that I have learned a couple of good lessons so far: (feel free to laugh!)

~Peas and Cucumbers need upward support or they will twist themselves up into a mess.

~Pumpkins, Watermelons, peas, and Cucumbers are vining plants are should not be placed next to each other (in rows that are 6-8 inches apart).

~A 10X12 garden is probably too small for 30 pea plants, 20 cucs, 20 watermelons, 8 pupkins, 2 rows of corn (about 15 to a row) and a row of 25 green beans.

~Some weeds are good in the garden!! I've noticed that the cucumber beetles are all over a spiky tall weed that I found growing in the corn row, but not one of them were on any of my prized veggies! (I've been squishing all the eggs that they've been laying though because I just don't want to take any chances with the next generation!)

~Dogs like to chase frogs through the veggies, but not through the grass.

~Toddlers like to chase frogs through the veggies AND through the grass.

I know if I'd have asked for advice on all of this BEFORE I planted my veggies I would probably not have had to learn this the hard way. But I am enjoying it so much that it's okay. BTW - I'm going to have a few Pumpkins come fall, does anyone want any??? LOL!

Courtney

Dawn, the larvae of Cabbage Whites just LOVE cleome. Sometimes I barely have foliage on my little ones. And yes, cutworms will cut them off right at the base, just like they've been hit with a machete, Courtney!

Last night my little sphinx moths were out nectaring again on the lavendar and Monarda. Geez, I've got to figure out which species this is, and it's darned hard to get a photo of a moving object - one that never stops. By the time my flash photo gets the the picture, the moth has moved away and I get a nice photo of flowers and no moth.

John Nelson, our state lepidopterist is anxious to see what they are, too. Always looking for new species. I should probably come camp out at your house, Dawn. But, I'd be too a-scared of the bobcat, snakes, and other critters. I don't mind seeing my little garter snakes and the domestic cats that roam the neighborhood, but you're talking man-killer stuff out your way.

Wonder if I could get road runners to take up residence in the city????? Ha Ha. I never see those cool looking birds; never even seen a scissortail, which is our state bird.

I agree with you that weeds can be beneficial in distracting some bad bugs away from your veggies and ornamentals. Although now I'm starting to get the oleander aphids on my milkweed, earlier I had aphids on some very tall weeds (marestail) that I grew in a pot (accidentally), and the ladybugs were all over those aphids. I don't want to harm a ladybug, but I try to move them around to plants that I don't have any butterfly eggs on, because they will EAT the eggs and tiny larvae.

I had a new bug in the garden this year. In the stinkbug family, but smaller, black with red spot. Someone mentioned it on the Butterfly Forum, having found it in her garden in Mississippi. Anyway, it lands on my little Sleepy Orange larvae and just sucks the life out of them. I only found one so far, and I keep checking my Wild Senna (that has all the cats on it) to make sure I don't find anymore. They will get squished if I find them attacking my babies. I use digital execution - between thumb and forefinger.

Susan

Courtney,

You know, I just had to pass on the USO story to you after I read it in Sunday's paper because positive media coverage on any military issue is so rare anymore!

We have turtles everywhere this year, much more so than in past years. Even in a year where I rarely see a turtle, there is always one or two plodding around the yard and garden, eating whatever strikes their fancy. This year, there's more than one or two! They are even digging up bermuda grass and laying their eggs right in the yard. Hmmm? An animal that digs up bermuda grass? I need more of those!

Cutworms are sneaky. I can have 50 bush bean plants and they'll take out only 1 or 2 here or there, some years. Other years, they go right down the row and saw them all down. Some of them eat everything they cut. Some don't.
Sometimes what I think is cutworm damage is actually plants being gnawed in two and then devoured by pillbugs/sowbugs (Slug-go snail and slug killer takes care of those bugs). Sometimes birds will nip young plants in half and it resembles cutworms. So, a lot of times, if you can't see the pest while it is active, it is hard (impossible!) to be sure what the pest is.

Congratulations on the harvest! I love fresh chives. For a few years I had huge rows of chives as a edging on both sides of a raised bed that was 4' wide by 30' long. Last year, they mostly died when I gave up and quit watering the garden in June. However, a few came back and I transplanted them into my cottage border.

Your Veggie Garden 'lessons learned' are priceless. I am here to tell you that learning these things 'the hard way' is the most fun!

I agree that some weeds are good in the garden. By being smart and observing what bugs like what weeds, you will learn which weeds to allow as a 'trap crop' for pests. The main reason I interplant herbs and flowers in my veggie garden is because they attract beneficial insects OR trap harmful insects making them easy to catch/kill, OR improve the flower of a veggie (like borage and basil improve tomato flavor). It doesn't hurt that they are pretty or that they smell good too! This is also the reason I plant a mixed cottage border around my veggie bed.

For what it is worth, I ALWAYS plant too many pumpkins and winter squash and ornamental gourds and I ALWAYS plant them too close together. Some years, disease and pests will wipe out some of them, but since I overplanted, I always have plenty. In a good year, I will have wheelbarrow loads and they make GREAT late summer to late autumn displays around the yard, garden and barn. After that, I give them to the dogs to play with and to the compost pile to feed it. Often, the pumpkins/witer squash/gourds reseed in the dog yard where they climb the fence, and in the compost pile, where they cover it up and hide it pretty well.

Oh, if you have a fairly cool space to store them, some pumpkins and winter squash can be stored for MONTHS and then eaten, too. I have kept fall-harvest pumpkins in my tornado shelter until as late as February and March some years, and they were just fine for cooking/eating. I have also kept fall-harvested winter squash in my garage through the spring without a serious loss of quality.

I am glad you are having a wonderful June in the garden. Now, if it would only stop raining!

Dawn