the empty space

Now that the insects have had their way with the zucchini in my garden (and the zucchini lost), I have a large empty space and quite a bit of gardening season left. At the moment I'm researching if it's a good idea to seed something else after this insect has devasted that part of my garden. Initial readings are leading me to believe I'm ok with something simple like lettuces (always needed and never enough garden for this). I think I'll research this some more before the weekend in an attempt to not waste time... cause that would be a fun change of pace :)

In the meantime, my eggplant is really starting to thrive. I'm not sure if it's the weather change of the fact that there's more room and sunshine now that the zucchini is out of the way... I'm afraid I didn't allow enough space in my planting. Now that I've had a fill of zucchini, maybe I'll get to enjoy the rest of the season with a fill of eggplant.

Learned a new word today... frass :(

About a week ago my zucchini started losing leaves, this weekend there seemed to be some sort of disaster going on. After researching on the internet I found out that I have frass… the results of squash vine borer. So that’s the end of the zucchini. I’m not too upset though I’ve gotten more than the seed cost of harvest so far this year, I was just hoping for a few more.
Next year I’m going to look at some prevention techniques. I was reading about several methods from floating row covers to creative usage of women’s panty hose.

In the beginning...

In the beginning there was dirt, a big sunny backyard in the city and a desire to save money while enjoying fresh veggies. Ok, a bit dramatic, I know.

Over the years I’ve had several failed attempts to have a garden in the backyard, but in the last… oh about 4 years, I’ve been much more successful, well in relation to my failures it’s what I call successful.

It started with one small raised bed in the center back along the fence. Then a couple years later I talked the hubby into extending the raised bed on either side. Not long after we setup a compost bin, and then this year another raised bed. Slowly but surely I’m transforming the backyard into a vegetable garden…. albeit, not a pretty one.

This year’s tomato plants are sprawled all over. We were gone on vacation for a couple weeks during their major growth period and I wasn’t here to tie/stake them up. On top of that there were high winds. The result, sprawled tomato plants! Fortunately that hasn’t stopped them from producing and I’ve canned 6 quarts of sauce so far, and it’s still early in the season. Speaking of which, I need to go harvest them…