Hooray for Melons!

I found some very helpful information about growing melons on this website. This one is also helpful. From these sites, I learned that I should pinch off the vines with melons 2 leaves after the melon to help the plant focus its energy on the fruit. I also raised the growing melons using large cleaned yogurt containers to prevent rotting. I also learned how to watch for the melons to be ripened for harvesting.

The squash bugs continue to offer me a good battle every day as I go out to water. The ants seem to be enjoying this plant as well. I have tried about 4 different pesticides and haven't had much luck so far.
I am pretty sure that these melons are Minnesota Midget Canteloupes, but since they grew from my compost pile, I am not sure.

GROWTH

Gets me all giddy inside when I see that my seeds are doing what they know best.

CUCUMBER:

CORN:

A cat still got into my young growing corn to do its business, even though I have the netting over it. Only one of the growing corn seedlings was ruined. It has been windy the past week, so it is hard to keep the netting where it belongs. I will tie it down better to avoid this in the future.


Compost CANTELOUPE plant is looking healthy. Still battling the squash bugs.

August Planting

Last night I planted:

3 small rows of SWEET CORN,

one hill (6 seeds) of CUCUMBER

& one hill (5 seeds) of ZUCCHINI.

I covered the area with the corn and cuccumber with netting to prevent cat and bird disruptions.Estimated Harvesting Dates:

Sweet Corn: Nov 20

Zucchini: Oct 26

Cucumber: Oct 31

Here is our front lawn today, 2 weeks after grub killer was applied. Looking much better, but still ugly.

Fall Planting Schedule

Plant this week:
SWEET CORN, CUCUMBER, ZUCCHINI, YELLOW SQUASH, BUSH BEANS

Plant in September:
CARROT, SUGAR SNAP PEA, LETTUCE, CABBAGE, CILANTRO, BROCCOLI

Plant in October:
CARROT, SUGAR SNAP PEA, LETTUCE, CABBAGE, SPINACH


Even though it is late to plant corn now, I am going to give it a shot and hope for the best.

A Lot of Hot and a Little Rain

My garden consists of 8 cherry tomato plants, 1 better boy tomato plant that has never produced a tomato and my compost cantaloupe plant that has many pretty yellow flowers, large and small. I have been battling the squash bugs on the cantaloupe plant with shovel and pesticide, but they seem to be winning the fight. I wonder if I will get any melons.

Cherry tomatoes took about a month off in July and didn't produce since it was so hot. Then, we had a few monsoon storms in a row and it gave them deep watering and a bit cooler weather. So, there are about 6-7 tomatoes growing again.

Strawberry plants on the side of the house are having a rough time because of the heat and my inability to water them all day long. I hope they stick it through until nicer weather comes along.

The citrus trees look much healthier these days since I slightly increased watering. I don't think we will have any grapefruits this season since they all dropped at the beginning of their development. The tangerine tree has TONS of fruit and we are very excited about that.

Our front lawn is infested with GRUBS, the early stages of Japanese Beetles. I treated the lawn with grub killer granules on Aug 10th, and I didn't notice improvement until I just looked at the photos I took on the 10th and compared to the grass today. The grass is much more green and the brown spots are much smaller. I hope for more improvement and to control the grub problem better in the future.

This photo was taken the day I applied the grub killer granules, Aug 10th.

Flashback: I ended up pulling out my sad dehydrated-looking corn stalks in mid-July. I peeked in at a cob of corn and the kernels were small and dried out. It was just too hot. I wanted to plant corn a few weeks ago for fall harvest, but I could not find the early variety at either of the nurseries I went to. I will try corn again and hopefully have better luck next time.

I mentioned in my last post that I have two cherry tomato plants that only produced 3 tomatoes between the two of them and that they stayed green for about a month. They finally turned red in July and I picked them. They tasted good and were about 3 times as large as all the others from the other plants. I believe those two plants are from the seeds I planted and the 6 other plants are purchased from Home Depot as young plants.

I've been loving the rain we are getting; it makes our backyard look so alive! I look forward to cooler weather that will be calling me outside to my plants once again.

Frustrations and Beauty

My compost cantaloupe plant is infested with the squash bugs since I have let the squash plants die out. I pulled out the other surprise plant from my compost because it was looking too hot and I squashed as many of the bugs as I could with my shovel (about 30).
I need to purchase some pesticide.

I have two "cherry" tomato plants that have produced 3 large tomatoes between the two of them. They have looked about this size and green for over a month now. hmmm.

I am still hoping for some corn although it is way too hot and odds are the corn will be fried before it can fully grow. I water thoroughly twice a day.

I am concerned about our citrus trees. Below is my grapefruit tree, the leaves often look sad like this and I don't see any growing fruit on it anymore. It appears that the fruit all withered and fell off on the ground. I have been constantly dripping on all the trees (each day a different tree) and increased the water within the past week hoping to help all the trees out. The most western orange tree and the tangerine tree still have many growing fruits, so I have hope for them. I am sad to think that our harvest will not be as brilliant because of my failure to water them enough.

The dropped grapefruits:

Here is proof that the sunset can be just as beautiful in a not-so-beautiful part of town. Even while being adorned with power lines.

My Zucchini Problem

I think I have figured out a problem that may be causing my zucchini plant not to give me any squash. The Squash bug:
This guy is causing me some trouble. I started seeing them after I watered about a week and a half ago. They would come to the top of the plant and sit on the leaves after I was done saturating the ground around the plant. I started killing them by flicking them off the plant and brutally smashing them with my hand shovel. I hadn't seen them for a few days, so I thought I had defeated them, but this morning, I saw babies and a daddy (or mommy).
I read a bunch of helpful information on this site about common problems with growing zucchini: http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/problems/solutions-for-common-problems-growing-zucchini.htm