Journal of a Gardener

August 18

We got the first lima beans today.  Patty cooked some for supper and froze a pint.  She also canned seven pints of okra and tomatoes.  We got okra, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.  At our amazement, there was a very good harvest of beans.  I cut the first 9 butternut squashes, choosing those that were darker, larger and had stems showing color change to brown instead of green.  I also pruned the ends of some of the vines.  I am assuming that these two actions will allow the plants to better feed the remaining squashes.  There are 35 or 40 more to harvest.  The nine that I cut weighed 25 pounds averaging 2 ¾ pounds.  

August 17

Day off from garden

August 16

In the afternoon we got okra, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

August 15

We had a good harvest this morning.  I pulled all of the remaining onions (about 50).  We brought some home and placed them in a net bag to dry.  The greener ones I hung on an improvised rack in the barn.  I pulled up the zucchini, yellow and spaghetti squash vines and moved them by wheel barrow to a burn pile fifty yards away in the hopes that I took most of the squash bugs with the vines.  The afternoon was cool and dry with a high cloud cover, and so I went back and chopped out some weeds, used the tiller where there was open space and sowed about 100-150 square feet in turnip greens.  Now I wait for rain to bring germination.  Patty canned seven pints of tomatoes while I was back at the garden.

August 14

No visit to garden today

August 13

We brought home the first three cantaloupes today.  The last rain was two weeks ago tonight.  The garden is showing the stress, but clay holds moisture well and the foliage is full, so the ground is fully shaded.  Somehow the okra, tomatoes, peppers, beans and winter squash keep on producing.