Dig-in composting

This summer I started burying compostables directly into the garden soil.  When my fridge bin is full, I dig a hole and dump it in, and recover it with soil.

This is to avoid odours from the bin which I seem to get every year.  I don't mind the smell, but I'm sure my neighbours do!

I've put a rock over the spots, with a note in a little Ziploc bag showing the date it was buried.  Will be interesting to go digging later on to see how it's going.

So, the compost bin isn't getting much contribution this year.

The most promising cushaw didn't take :-((((((((((

The one along the east edge... that flowered and looked beautiful... now has clearly not taken, turning yellow.

wahhhhhhhhhhh

Might not get even a single cushaw, to at least know what a cushaw is like!  Crazy.

Explosion of three-lined potato beetle (x7 caught today)

Where did they come from all of a sudden?  On the central ground cherries.

(The ground cherries still look fine, I think they're healthy enough to tolerate some leaf-eating.)

Lady bug eggs hatching, outside ones getting eaten by something!!

The lady bug eggs on the asparagus ferns are hatching!  Both inside ferns hatched today.  I set one outside for a bit, but then it disappeared, I think it fell from the wind because it wasn't secured very well.  Darn.

And, one of the outside ones, within a few hours after hatching almost all had disappeared!  There was a larger grey/mottled beetle hanging around nearby, who I assume ate them.

So, I brought in another of the unhatched ferns inside.  Total of two batches inside, with the plan to raise them for a few days until they're bigger, to give them a better chance of survival so they can get busy eating those asparagus aphids!

Reference: Cucumber diseases

A good article, but I still can't find what's wrong with mine.

https://dengarden.com/gardening/Plant-Diseases-that-Affect-Cucumbers-and-How-to-Treat-Them

Mystery disease affecting bean, squash, cucumber, ground cherry, tomato, sunflower

Took photos today of a cucumber leaf, a ground cherry leaf, and a bean leaf.

For the life of me I google and google and google and can't find quite what this is.

I assume the bean thing is something different though based on leaf appearance.

Arghhhh the mystery!!  >:(

OMG!! A butternut!!!!!!!!!!!!! (vertical)

How did I miss that!  A clearly-taken butternut is on one of the vertical plants!!!  It's a great size, clearly has set and looking fantastic!  Hopefully I will have at least one butternut this year!

Tomatoes: Container Scotia stinky, removed it; Container cherry gross-tasting, removed most of it

An unpleasant odour from the yard this evening, can't put my finger on where it's coming from.  But it seemed to come at least partly from one of the container Scotias.  So I harvested its green tomatoes, and removed the plant (for yard waste pickup).

The container cherry was so diseased (pale etc.) and its latest tomatoes were foul tasting (sharp/bitter) -- so I removed it and discarded its tomatoes.  Well, I left a few inches of stub at the base in case it wants to grow back healthy.

Garlic harvest: 0.6 lb total (well a few heads still in garden)

Harvested most of the rest of the garlic.  Disappointing harvest... The Duganski are so tiny.  The German White were certainly bigger overall, but still several of those are on the smaller side.

0.6 lbs total, including the ones I pulled a few weeks ago.

Container carrots good (first carrot harvest)

Harvested two carrots from the hanging-basket-type-container.  One had reached the bottom of the container as it started to bend to the side :-) 

Flavour was kind of meh but edible.

Potato harvest: Eramosa

Decided to go ahead and harvest the Eramosa potatoes since it was the first to die.  Probably should have waited another week or two, but whatever,

Modest harvest :-(  1.25 pounds.

Hopefully the others have done better...

Planed potatoes (in fridge, from last fall's harvest)

Used the pot freed up by harvesting Eramosa, to plant potatoes that had crazy long eyes, from one of the bags of small white potatoes harvested last fall.

Garlic harvest: Yup do not plant Duganski again (too tiny) -- German White decent size

^^^

Powdery mildew is resuming again (after vinegar spray a few days ago)

Sprayed with the same mixture again this morning.  Worst in central patch.

Lady bug eggs & asparagus aphids found on asparagus ferns

Bright orange eggs drew me to look closer at the asparagus ferns along the NE wall.  Turns out there are a bunch of aphids!!!!  Not totally infesting the entire plant, but, certainly hundreds/thousands in particular areas.

Cool though that lady bug eggs were laid there!  I have been seeing several lady bugs in the garden including on the asparagus.  Hadn't noticed the aphids until now.

Brought these two ferns with eggs and aphids inside, in a jar with cheese cloth cover.

Tomato harvest now in full swing

Oh boy!!! Going to be LOTS of tomatoes this year, what with 6 full-size big-tomato plants (plus the two younger scotias in pots), plus the two cherry tomatoes!

All varieties are having ripened tomatoes now.

Young rondes once again looking yellow :-( and zucchinis also not looking great

That one ronde harvested yesterday was great, but all the other new ones are back to looking pale / will die before blooming.

The zucchini will have at least one more ready to harvest in a day or two, but not sure about the other upcoming ones...

1 zucchini (kitchen window) + 1 ronde (air conditioner) harvested

A rebound after whatever happened to all the summer squash plants.

Green and Red Shield (Stink) Bug

Found climbing living room patio screen.  Re-released.

First beet harvest

5 good sized ones.  The others need more growing.