Thank you for explaining your method. I like your pot idea and May try that as well. So I guess I still have to make the mound. The first time I covered the mound with ground cover material and cut holes in it to plant the slips. I only have 12 slips so may do a combination of the former method and yours. Have plenty of old gallon pots I can cut up!!!

During last evening's garden stroll I noticed that all of a sudden things are taking off. There's that period when new plants grow slowly and you start wondering why. Then all of a sudden they seem to "catch" and move into their first growth spurt. And so it is with some stuff in the garden.

Squash plants are starting to grow faster. The cukes are now about 12" tall and in about a week they'll lay over and start running. The sweet potatoes and Blue Lake pole beans are vining. Last night I helped about six more sweet potato runners weave through the lowest part of their fence trellis. The corn beds are looking great as are the tomatoes and bush beans. I told Pickles last night that this is the time of year in the garden when I hold my breath, waiting for the first bad thing to happen. This is that pre-disease, pre-insect pressure, everything-looking-good time. The "golden hour", so to speak, and it makes one wonder when the bubble will burst.

As I may or may not have mentioned a while ago, I got to thinking about that kaolin clay based Surround that some of you spray on some of your veggies for bug protection. And I wondered if kaolin clay painted on squash stems might harden and deter squash vine borers. The theory is that they won't be able to chew through the hardened clay. Oh, for sure the larvae can climb above the hardened area and do their damage but at least if the frass holes are higher on the plant they'd be more visible.

Kaolin mines are everywhere around here and I was able to access some high grade processed kaolin powder that I mixed into a nice soft, very paintable consistency. Last evening I took the kaolin slurry I to the garden and applied it to the stems of the Tahitian melon squash and to the straightneck yellow squash, making sure I got it painted on all the way to the bottom.The zucchini and spaghetti squash stems weren't long enough to really do yet.





By the time I was done for the evening, the slurry had hardened up nicely. There's also some DE dusted around the stems. And in the process of painting the straightneck, I discovered there's the first baby squash on the way.

I got to thinking that maybe I can incorporate some bT dust into the mix. That way if they do try o chew through the kaolin, they'll get a belly full of nasty. We'll see how this all holds up after a rain. Maybe I'll keep painting the stem all the way up as it grows. We'll see.

What a great idea! Hope it works!

Good luck with that kaolin! I tried it many years ago (spraying, that is!), and it sort of worked, but they grow so fast that an uncovered stem would be somewhere, unless I sprayed them twice a day! I'd get a couple squash - more than unprotected, but they would all get the SVB eventually.

Last year I experimented with growing a summer squash vertically, tied to a stake and kept the bottom of the vine powdered with bT and Sevin. It seemed to keep the SBVBs at bay until the day I spied a leaf and stem about 3' up on the plant wilting. By golly, an SVB had somehow gone way up there!

Yesterday I got the pea vines pulled out and found a few surprises. First, there was one small volunteer potato plant growing in there too. Attached to the roots were three little 1.5" taties. Must have missed one as potatoes grew in that bed last spring.



Then there were a bunch of purple coneflower plants hiding in the middle. I pulled out the little ones.



After the potatoes were pulled last spring I had grown the coneflowers from seed and planted them down the middle of that bed. Guess I didn't get all the roots dug out when I removed them this spring to plant peas. I will pot up the larger orphans and think about where to replant them when they're a bit bigger or give them away.



The corn tassels are starting to release their pollen. It's amazing how more silks keep appearing overnight where there were none the day before.



Another amazing thing is to see how fast the sweet potato vines grow in one day. I need to take some daily measurements just to see how fast. Every day I'm helping more get onto the trellis and directing those who are already climbing. They seem to want to grow horizontally towards the south. I'm directing them upwards but will probably give in to their desires!

Wow, sweet potatoes must be sipping rocket fuel.

It's not hard to see why they are doing so well. Such wonderful gardening and such good care evident.

Two days ago I pulled the Lorz Italian garlic as the tops looked ready and I could feel clove division around the bulbs. First time I've grown these. I laid them out on a big window screen I had bought at a yard sale for $1 and put the set-up on the side of the pole shed that usually stays dry. Well, you know the rain HAD to come from the other direction yesterday and soaked them good. This is about half of the garlic on the screen:



So this morning I rigged up a line of baling twine right down the middle of the pole shed up near the ceiling and clipped the garlic to it. Once it dries out a while I'll get those few dirty papers off the outside and trim the roots a bit before bundling them and hanging them in the shed to cure some more. That worked really well the last time.



Being new stock there were only 28 bulbs and most of those will be held back for fall replanting. There's still 3/4 of the planted garlic out in the garden but they're not ready to dig yet. That would be some Russian Inferno, Siberian, some mixed bulbs and five plants from one beautiful bulb I got in Walmart's grocery section and couldn't pass up buying.

It's too wet to play in the garden but there are saved micro tomato, scallion and daikon radish seeds dry, ready to clean and put into envelopes. I've already assigned beds in general for next spring by figuring rotation and color coding the beds on the garden map as to plant families like legumes, etc. The fall garden planning is almost finished and needs just a few final touches like a good doublecheck to make sure anything planted in the fall that runs late into spring won't interfere with spring stuff that needs to go into those particular beds early, like peas. It's a good think I love jigsaw puzzles...

OK, we got 3" of rain yesterday. First rain in three weeks and it came down hard four separate times. How did the kaolin painted on the squash stems hold up? I went and checked this morning.

Unfortunately most of it was washed off except for where it was in a crease or depression on the stem or in a leaf axil. I thought that might happen but I was hoping it wouldn't. Heavy sigh, having hoped it would have been thick enough and hardened enough to not wash off.

I had a little success with SVB's last year by keeping the base of the plant powdered down with Sevin and making sure to reapply after a rain. I'm thinking I might try that on the yellow squash and use only DE on the zuke and see if there's any difference in deterrance.

That’s a lotta garlic!

[mention]PlainJane[/mention] , we use a lot of fresh garlic but a whole lot of it gets thin sliced, dehydrated and whizzed into homemade garlic powder. Waaaay more tasty than the stuff in the stores. Gotta keep it in the freezer though as it doesn't have any of that commercial stuff in it to keep it flowing freely.

We got another 1.9” of rain yesterday afternoon but I was able to walk around the garden in the morning and see what’s what.

The bush beans have really grown in the last few days. Eight days ago I ran string along both sides of each row to keep them from flopping later (Pic in Post #459). Today they’re up over the strings!



The Blue Lakes (on the right) are still developing buds but the Contenders (on the left) are starting to bloom.



The Tahitian Melon Squash (front) and the Spaghetti squash (back) are starting to run.



And finally there’s the flower/blueberry bed.



I grew the purple coneflowers from seed last year and the plants got about 2’ tall. This year they’ve about doubled in size!



They were supposed to be a temporary thing as we were going to move them out this fall and add three more blueberry bushes to the two already on the other end of the bed. Hmmm, gotta do some thinking on that one. Maybe double the bed size by tilling up more on the front edge of the bed, move the coneflowers there and add new blueberry bushes where the coneflowers were. Coneflowers in front with blueberries behind. Gotta get Pickles' input as she always has good ideas.

So far this morning we’ve had another half inch of rain. However, the radar shows a window of opportunity shortly where I can go run some string around two of the corn beds. So far there’s been no wind with these storms, just straight-down rain but I don’t want to tempt fate! One of the corns is pollinating right now and ears forming. A blow down would be a disaster. Better to be safe than sorry!

Lol, digging up those echinacea will be fun.

Yesterday I worked on inventorying the contents of the seed box. All the spring stuff has been planted so it's a good time to check the seed stock to see if there's anything I need to get for fall planting. In the end I have everything I need for fall but identified a few more things needed for next spring.

This is what I found yesterday when I discovered the arrival of Japanese beetles.



The interesting part is that while they chewed on the Millionaire eggplant on the left, the Chinese String eggplant (one of this year’s toys) hasn’t been touched at all. Maybe they just hadn’t had a chance yet.


There were no beetles on the plants in the middle of the afternoon today. I will check this evening when it becomes shaded and cooler to see if the beetles prefer a cooler time like I do! I have read that the first Jap beetles are scouts and will report tasty findings to their friends. If you kill the first ones you find you'll have a lot less of them later. Old wives' tale? I have no clue BUT it does seem to work. Or is some other factor at play? Who knows. However I will be ready to do battle with any that I find. There’s a cup of soap water at the ready.

This is Rosella cherry tomato and she’s a big one, almost to the top of the second cage.



There are a bunch of cherries set and I can’t wait for them to ripen. Soooo sweet! Probably one of the sweetest cherry tomatoes I’ve had and yet with good tomato flavor. Last year was the first time trying this one. Thank you, [mention]Ginger2778[/mention], for the introduction!



Early Girl truly lives up to her name. She’s always loaded up first. This year is no different.



And finally, even though the summer tomatoes are still green it is time to start a few tomatoes for fall. That will happen tomorrow so that we can enjoy them a while before first frost comes.

I think Rosella is truly outstanding. So glad you like her! That Early girl is spectacular.

I've had an orphan German Johnson tomato hanging around in a pint cup and it was 15" tall so this morning it joined the three other tomatoes in what is now called The Tomato Annex. I might have mentioned that it's an area near the house where I planted three tomato plants to see how they'd do there. I had to beat back some honeysuckle trying to encroach on them and gave the whole area another layer of leaf mulch.

The Purple Russian was a freebie from Baker Creek and the other two didn't do so well in too much shade last year so they're getting a second chance this year. Left to right are German Johnson, Purple Russian, Super Sioux and Rebel Yell:



Two days ago it was discovered that the deer came to visit the separate ares where the potatoes, pole beans and watermelons are growing. They pretty much stripped all the leaves off the beans from about 15" above the ground to the 5' mark but left alone the leaves above that level. It doesn't show up well in a photo so I took one of the young watermelon. It's missing about half of its leaves. For overnight protection I opened a tomato cage and laid it over the melon.



Afraid that the deer would be back and have a ball munching the bush beans that are flowering, I went ahead and set up a netting tunnel over them. Better safe than sorry! Had to put extenders on to keep the netting up off the beans.



The Zuchetta rampicante squash is starting to climb after I tied it to the fencing. Onward and upward!

Those dang deer!

As Roseanne Rosanadana used to say on SNL, "It's always something!"

This year, just out of curiosity, I'm growing a corn that can be eaten fresh early and let dry for grinding flour later. I've never grown one of these dual purpose corns before so I thought I'd give it a go. I've read that if the silks get real dark It's likely past the "milk" stage and on its way to being starchy.

Last night the coons decided to test the corn. I guess it wasn't as ready as they like it because they only messed with four stalks; three on one side of the bed and one on the other. I bet they're the same ones who have been toting off one of the cats' shiny metal water bowls.




To see for myself I pulled three ears whose silks were almost toasty and we had them for lunch. Although edible they could have used a few more days to get bigger. But at least it looks like there was good pollination.

Got the first two straightneck and one zucchini squash. The zuke got grilled along with chicken for today's lunch. Corn, grilled squash and grilled chicken. Summer is officially here.