It’s A Jungle Out There

 

I snapped some photos of the jungle in the back yard I used to call my garden! It’s a tropical mess. The tomato and cuke plants are getting buried by the gourds and giant pumpkin and butternut. I can’t get to the sugar snap peas because I planted them too close to the corn!

It was so hard to find the little tags on the twigs I put beside each plant that I made new signs that stick out of the ground about 5 or more feet! I made them out of old bamboo rods with paint sticks taped to the tops. I wrote on the paint sticks with  a permanent marker…the name of each vegetable….like large pumpkin, small pumpkin, regular cukes, pickling cukes…etc. After I stuck them all in the garden and stood back away from the garden, I took a good look. It reminded me of a Democratic Convention!!!!! Instead of IOWA or some other state it says CORN or  GOURDS! It  was   pretty funny.

   

The butternut is coming along well and I found a giant pumpkin today! That was exciting because it’s hard to get underneath all those leaves without the bees getting you! See the bee inside that squash blossom above? They are all through the garden and very aggressive. The copper beetles are becoming less of a nuisance lately. The bees took over their job, but at least the bees are good for the garden!

  See the ARC shaped gourd hidden in the above photo? We have been picking 4 to 6 cucumbers every other day. We eat salads every day and what a difference with the added freshness of those juicy cukes. My popcorn leaves are keeping right up with the regular yellow corn. Can’t wait to see if it matures and what it looks like. Harvesting should be interesting. It’s always fun. It’s my favorite part of growing a garden! Finding all those hidden treasures under the massive leaves!! You never know where a vegetable is going to end up or what strange form it will take. My next project is to make some old fashioned sour pickles in a large wide mouth jar. No canning….just drop them into the vinegar, solution. I have two recipes. Both are from elderly ladies here in my town and are almost identical. I have another one for dill pickles. I will share with you all when I do it.~..~ How’s your garden doing?