Annual Garden Report

Help!  I need a machete!

Everything is just di-VINE in our garden this year. 

Things were going along quite smoothly until we left town for a week.  Neil had reduced the number of plants to something quite manageable for two people.  We had just enough beets, onions, carrots, and it looks as if we will have the perfect number of tomatoes and peppers.  I have already made seven strawberry rhubarb pies.  There is plenty of rhubarb left, but the rhubarb behaves itself quite nicely in the corner of the garden.

The green beans are problematic only because Neil mixed bush plants with pole beans.  The pole bean vines are strangling the bush beans, but I've managed to save enough for us to eat, and they are delicious.

While we were out of town, the four vine plants EXPLODED in size after a fair amount of rain and warm weather.  We were already up to the gills with cucumbers and zucchini--I made zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, zucchini pie, zucchini fries, zucchini stir fry, and zucchini bake.  And yes, I am that woman who brings a bag of zucchini to every event.   Now the cucumber and zucchini plants are  intertwined with the butternut squash and the pumpkins.  Seriously, the squash has gone viral and is taking over our 12x24 foot garden plot.  I keep hacking it back and cutting it off the fence, so it won't become an entrance ramp for varmints.  As you can see, everything has run together and looks quite healthy.  Normally, by this time of the summer, a vine-killing mold cuts short the life of some of these plants.  Where is the mold when we need it most?

If that doesn't happen, I'm seriously hoping for a drought or a plague of locusts.