All About The Garden

Lest you think all I do is fawn over the chickens, Brain.  Here's an update on the garden and how it grows.      The rain we had made a great deal of difference.  For a little while I was in sheer heaven when I would go out back into my delightful garden paradise.  Alas, the spider mites attacked the tomatoes for the third straight year, the temperature climbed into the 100's, and the mosquitoes bred like, well, like mosquitoes, worse than rabbits, unless you had tiny, nearly invisible, blood-sucking rabbits.  Welcome to a Texas summer.   I tried a couple things to combat the spider mites this year.  First I removed all the affected tomatoes and put the dead branches in the trash instead of trying to compost them.  Then I sprayed the rest of the plants with Liquid Lady Bug (costs a fortune, I bought it on Amazon. com) and last but not least I ordered and released a bunch of lacewings.  The result?  I STILL have spider mites in the garden.  Any suggestions would be so appreciated.  I've tried using soapy water but the mites just get clean and inspired to do more damage.  I hate those wretched things with all my being!  B. installed a drip irrigation system this spring that runs through three of our raised beds.   While I attribute the success of the Cantaloupes to this fancy new way of watering, we have also taken to calling it, "The Drip Irritation system" because it breaks so often.  Sometimes the water pressure pushes one of the ends off of the tiny hoses and we have a remarkably large fountain spew into the air.  Zoe loves that, "Gaaahhhhhhhhhh! Water!  Me eat!"  Other times the seal just wont seal, and the system wont turn on (so the garden fries) or wont turn off (the garden floods, we waste buttloads of precious Texas water and I sink into terrible guilt).  The latest trouble is the timer, which up and quit working entirely.  I am busy reading reviews and looking for a replacement.  The trouble is, this drip irritation system is just like the Roomba; a pain in the ass, but once you have had one, you can't imagine living without it (hmm that sounds a lot like husbands too, come to think of it- just kidding Sweet B!)

Its 'Lope-zilla!  The biggest of the cantaloupes we harvested this summer.  The rain perked the vines up again and there are new 'lopes now, but I don't know if they will make it to adult "'lope-hood."

So many tomatoes made it that I didn't buy have to buy maters from the store for two months  AND I had dishes like this delicious cold tomato and corn soup nearly every day.

I had chocolate and lemon tomatoes combined for a meaty zing.  All fresh from the garden (before the spider mites attacked again).

Ripening lemon tomatoes.

The Blackberries outdid themselves this spring.  I think they really liked getting out of the pot and stretching their roots in the raised bed.  That and all the rain we had this spring.

The Peppers did very well too and they are still going, but suffering under a merciless assault by aphids now, alas.