GA: Bush bean harvest in full swing!

^^^

Nooooo --- the neighbourhood apple tree is GONE!!!

What a sad realization!  The neighbourhood apple tree, which gave THE most delicious, perfect apples I have ever tasted in my whole entire life, is no longer there!  No sign of it.  Come to think of it, I don't remember getting any apples from it last fall, though with Scooter's illness I never realized it at the time.  So, I think the apple tree has been gone for at least a year or so.  Sigh.

GA: FOY bush beans!

 That's about 65 days counting back to the first ones started May 24th, though there have been a few rounds since then, so who knows which these are from.

GA: FOY carrots!!! They look great!

Woo hoo!  So exciting!  Nice and long, they look very good.  That's 68 days to maturity -- in line with the 75 days google says.

GA: Belstar broccoli is delicious -- so SWEET! and doing great!

Wow!  My first year trying Belstar broccoli and so far I sure do love it!  Several plants have given their first head and are now into side shoots.  The flavour is spectacular -- it's delicious raw and is actually so sweet when eaten raw!  Some of the heads have had "brown bead" (per google) -- where some of the little unopened florets are dried out / brown and tend to fall off -- but I just throw it all into the recipes and it's great, no issues.

The piracicabas on the other hand haven't been doing great.  Their flowers are long and spindly/measly.  Thank goodness for Belstar to the rescue!

Next year I'll definitely grow more Belstar and fewer piracicaba.

GA: More beets sowed where pulled wilted zuke

I mixed in a bucket of condo soil, then placed beet seeds here and there (not pre-soaked / not pre-germinated), then covered with condo soil, then put burlap.  [A few days later I realized I forgot to add amendments, so lifted the burlap and sprinkled kelp, mrp, and az, then put the burlap back on.]

[I'm writing this on July 28th as back-fill -- not sure exactly which day I sowed them, but it was less than a week ago.]

GA: Oh no!!! A 2nd zuke lost! (presumably borer, but not pulling it quite yet) --> NOT the borer

Egads!!! The most productive plant has wilted!  This makes a second plant lost!  I'll leave it for a few days to finish ripening what it has.  I didn't check the stem closely because whatever (but will check it out when I pull it to see if it's SVB).

--> Update on August 1st 2025:  Pulled it today after harvesting its last two zucchinis.  There were some squash bugs on it, and found at least one or two borers in leaves/stems, but the main stem seemed clear of borers.  So, I'm guessing it died of some type of disease transmitted by the squash bugs and/or cucumber beetles, rather than SVB.

MAJOR FLOP: garlic :(

Oh man -- $50 of seed garlic.  $50!!!!!  is getting me about $5 worth of garlic.  Womp womp.

So far I've pulled the west half.   All elephants are single-cloves -- they never turned into bulbs.  Almost all regulars are itty bitty.  I mean, usable, but like $0.10 worth of garlic each.

I'm sure the other half will be similar but I'll wait a week or two to pull those.

I have no idea what went wrong.  I've grown garlic in the yard before with good, or at least decent, results.  In past years they scaped nicely, etc.  Oh well!

GA: No longer removing squash bugs / cucumber beetles, will see what happens

Yes, I've decided the plants are big enough and que sera sera.  Let's see what happens!

WTH, garlic -- cloves in the stem!?!

Wow, I've never had this happen -- many of the garlics have a place in the stem where new garlic "cloves"?? are popping out.  I noticed this a few weeks ago.  Today I pulled on of them -- it actually does have a garlic bulb at the bottom -- pretty small though.  I think this was one of the "regular" cloves I planted last fall.

Also, a few days ago I pulled one of the fallen-over plants -- it wasn't a bulb but instead a massive clove.  I think this was an elephant one.  It never bulbed, I guess the original clove just swelled up.  It wasn't the best garlic but it was edible.

GA: All temporary covers now removed (zukes, butternut, watermelon)

 All temporary covers now removed (zukes, butternut, watermelon).  I'd been doing it gradually over the past few weeiks.

I've decided I'm just not going to do the insect check with the butternut at all -- it's on its own.  Watermelon too probably.

(The permanent covers are still over the potatoes, broc/kale/chard, onions, and leeks -- these covers won't come off at all.)

GA: Oh no!!!! A zuke plant looks struck by SVB already!?!?!?

Oh no!!! Can it be the SVB?!!  It feels like only a week or two that I took the cover off.  But overnight the plant is all wilty, not due to lack of water.  The strange thing is I can't find a point of entry on the stem.  Oh well, I'll wait until it's totally kaput, then will have a closer look when I pull it out.

GA/BY: Harvest so far (seems puny)

Here's what's been harvested so far this year:

kale

chard

broccoli (including a nice head of Belstar tonight)

basil (not a lot though)

stevia

peppers -- mostly jalapeno or hungarian sweet, not a ton -- and all pepper plants look kinda pathetic

garlic scapes from the few garlics that produced scapes

No zucchini yet, though looking at last year the first was July 4th, and this year a few are on the way so it's not that far behind.

GA: No squash bugs/eggs last few days --> A few days later, more appeared

After a couple of weeks of near-daily checking and removing squash bug adults and eggs, I didn't find any at all today or a the last time I was there a couple of days ago.  Here's hoping they're done?!

--> Update:  A few days later I found more -- and am still finding them occasionally as I write this update edit on July 14th 2025.