Behold the first cucumber of the year! It's an unnamed pickling variety, but it was delicious fresh.
Of course, the second cucumber of the year:
Probably a squirrel or a brown rat.
But then I got two slicers so all was good again. And then the massive heat wave struck and there was absolutely no fruit setting despite an impressive number of flowers. I did find (and squash) one striped cucumber beetle and two spotted cucumber beetles, but I haven't seen any more and the vines remain vigorous. So thankful for the rainy weather that preceded the heat wave that helped most of the plants survive it, though I was hand-watering certain plants twice daily at the end. The heat wave broke with a thunderstorm in the afternoon of July 4th that dropped at least an inch of rain, which was fantastic, much appreciated.
I mostly have to hand-pollinate the squash since I'm keeping most of it under insect netting to foil the squash borers (unfortunately lost one zucchini plant today to them...figure by the size of the worms that the eggs had already been laid by the time I had netting available), but there is one monster squash plant that it's impossible to fully cover and this little bee is absolutely pollen-drunk. Not sure if it will upload with the detail, but if you zoom in you may be able to see that she is just completely dusted in pollen.
And speaking of that monster squash plant...
So I saved the seed from a Honeynut squash I got in the fall and grew up six healthy seedlings from it this spring. I had looked it up and all the seed that I saw for sale was open-pollinated so it should breed true. Five of the plants are nice, polite bush-types. The sixth is sending out huge vines everywhere and had set three fruits that look like this:
That is not what immature Honeynut squash looks like. This is what immature Honeynut squash looks like:
The fruit from the monster squash look more like regular butternut type. So. I figure one of two things must have happened. Or maybe three.
One is that the farmer had OP Honeynut seed but grew other kinds of squash nearby so the particular squash I got had some naturally produced hybrid seeds in it. Two is the seed the farmer used was hybrid and I didn't find that possibility in my quick internet search. Or three, it mutated or reverted. I'm thinking #1 is the most likely. Hopefully they still taste good because it looks like this one plant might outproduce all the others combined.
More carrots and beets harvested today. Going to roast these and turn them into veggie burgers. Probably lentil-based, but I also have some red kidney beans so we'll see. I got another dozen carrots harvested before the heat wave. Still several dozen carrots and a dwindling but significant number of beets left to harvest yet.
I really need to do something about these. I scavenged a big pot and some potting soil from the alley recently so I think if I add some mostly finished compost to the bottom I can fill the pot and transplant all the decorative sweet potato vines into it. Maybe I can put the ones intended for food in the spots where I had to pull blighted tomato plants? I guess it's good that I was able to produce enough seedlings this year that I've completely run out of room, but boy do I wish I had more room.
The Genovese basil I transplanted in a few weeks ago got away from me and needed it's first harvest done so the plants will bush up. I have plenty of pesto in the freezer still so now I've got four very full trays in the dehydrator full of basil. Which is fine because I use a lot of it throughout the year. I'll just sprinkle what I have leftover from last year in the chicken coop.
And for my bonus flower...one of the free gladiolus bulbs I got from the Little Free Library this spring is blooming! Such a gorgeous purple.
