Beware the Wild Garden

So after contracting poison ivy perhaps in our garden, I decided I needed to venture out and see if I could find the culprit today. I wore long pants, wellies and a long shirt in addition to disposable rubber gloves. I didn't find any poison ivy, so maybe we're lucky and it's actually at Sandy and Jack's house.

I did find the garden in a pretty wild state though. Weeds are hip high, but our plants are doing mostly well. I saw some pumpkins turning orange, tomatillos like little lanterns plumping up, lettuce struggling against the heat and tomatoes aplenty. I thinned the carrots a bit - pulling carrots so there's about an inch of space between them so that they can get big. I did maybe 3' and got a couple sizeable bunches of small carrots. I also found a huge critter eating our tomatoes:This is a tomato hornworm and it's a sizable pest. I found three of them in a short period of time. My garden bible says the best way to get rid of them is by hand picking them off. I have to say, I was pretty squirmy trying to get one off the vine, but I think we should do a hornworm picking party soon to get these bad boys. They look to be capable of doing some serious damage to our tomato crops if we don't intervene soon. You should see the droppings they leave! Holy crap!

So, fun things that should be done in the garden this week:

• Dig up the red potatoes. Check the pattern of the brown on the leaves to make sure it's not blight.
• Finish thinning carrots. I started on the uppermost section and got about 3' in.
• Strip lower leaves from brussel sprout plants to encourage sprout growth.
• Pluck tomato hornworms
• Keep harvesting summer squash!

Maybe we can try to arrange a couple of folks to meet out in the garden at a time to work for a bit each night?

I'm thinking we don't need to tackle the weeds as they seem to have overtaken quite a bit, but we can stomp them down and care for what we are growing.