rebeccmeister | Even more photos

It has been a while since I've shown you anything from the garden, and

scrottie put a lot of work into making it even better while he was in town, so it's time for an update. Plus, stuff is producing.

I am most pleased with the squash bed, although I had to spend a lot of time pulling grass out of it not too long ago. I also started to encourage the wandering squashes to wander away from each other instead of towards each other. I hope they can fight off the grass and make some delicious squashy things. There are a lot of promising flowers and buds going, at least.

Eventually, I hope to expand the front garden. My new roommate, who arrives in August, is bringing a dog along with him (Golden Retriever mix - not too bright, but affectionate). While he says that she's pretty good about staying out of stuff, I still think it will be easier to garden in a space where she can't get to things. Besides, the strip along the driveway gets the most sun out of anywhere on the property.

I am thinking that I will employ solarization to get rid of the grass along the rest of the strip. There's bermudagrass or something very much like it growing all over the place here, in that aggressive bermudagrass way, where even if you try to tear it out, the roots grow back and neighboring grass quickly sends over tentacles to reestablish. Hopefully I'll have time over the weekend to dig the requisite trenches, et cetera. Then hopefully this will create enough space for a sweet fall garden and some more flowers. Overall, a garden of that size is about what I think I can manage.


Pepper Season. The first serrano from the front bed ripens.	Escaping Squash. I had just about given up all hope that any of the squash plants would get into the ground in time to grow and produce fruit. Apparently Texas weather is more agreeable for squashes than Arizona weather. You can see the loofah squashes starting to climb up the fence. I think that's a watermelon escaping off to the right. Hard to tell with the rest of the squashes, but I suspect a number of them are cucumber volunteers.

Flower Bed. At least I have a few flowers going.	Doubly protected strawberries. I finally put up some shade cloth to protect the two surviving strawberry plants, in the hopes that I'll actually get some fruit next year. We shall see. There's a lot of competition from birds and squirrels. I figured out that the volunteer plants that are "helping" to shade the strawberries are turnips. I may pull them out in early fall.

Fig tree. On this trip, S brought a fig tree with him that he had started from a cutting off of the fig tree in his landpeoples' yard. He was amazed by how many leaves it added upon its arrival here. A number of people here have fig trees going, which bodes well for this little guy.	Tomato bush. The tomato plants are outgrowing their cages. I need to build a bigger wooden frame to surround them. I should add on some chicken wire to it to keep out birds and squirrels. When I have a bit more free time.

Satsuma stretches. The satsuma tree has also added on some branches and seems pretty happy about life.	Tomato harvest. S had been harvesting tomatoes before they got fully ripe, to keep them out of the squirrels' hands. I've been so busy I haven't been able to stay on top of things in the garden, but it looks like the birds and squirrels have mostly given up on eating all of the delicious tomatoes.