Thursday, August 13, 2026

Recent VEGarden Posts
24 Jul 2006
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Cabbage White Butterfly

Pretty little thing, isn’t she? Sure, think that now. But here’s what she did to our cabbage before she got wings: Originally, I was only going to post the cabbage picture and title it something like, “What has gone wrong!?” But after reading about cabbage-eating insects, seeing pictures of the cabbage white butterfly, and realizing that I had taken a picture of a very similar butterfly on our pumpkins this morning, I decided to compare pictures and, sure enough, this is a cabbage white butterfly. (Here are some pictures from other people: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, and the larve who ate our cabbages: Link 4. Chris pulled off tons of green worms from the cabbages every day. They...
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23 Jul 2006
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Busy Bee

I’m a bit concerned because our squash, pumpkins, and zucchini don’t seem to be developing any female flowers. I saw a few small zucchinis a couple of weeks ago, but they’re mysteriously gone now. Maybe we have a garden visitor? I know that female flowers come later than males, but the squash and pumpkins have all been flowering for over a month now. There is one small pumpkin that’s been growing. It’s possible that the heat has been keeping the females away – it’s been pretty warm and dry lately, and we’ve been needing to water quite a bit. Hopefully they will come soon – I’m expecting a lot of pumpkins and winter squash this fall.
21 Jul 2006
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Chioggia Beets

I pulled five beets from the garden (in the front yard) this morning. They are fairly large, and the rest still have some growing to do. It took about 64 days for beets. We grilled these along with some other vegetables (pretty good, actually), and I’m planning to use the leaves in a curry tomorrow.
20 Jul 2006
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Sunflower

On a whim, I went to the Food Co-op early this summer and picked up some raw sunflower seeds to plant along the house. They took off nicely, and the first sunflower opened up a couple of days ago. It’s a bit deformed, and I’m not sure if they will have edible seeds or not, but they add some color to the garden.
19 Jul 2006
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The Jungle

It’s beginning to look, and feel, like a jungle out there. I’m a bit concerned that we planted things too closely together this year. Only time will tell…
18 Jul 2006
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Blossom End Rot!

Oh no! A lot of our tomatoes have giant brown spots on the bottom. I did quite a bit of reading and searching the Internet, and it looks like we have Blossom End Rot, which is not a disease but a calcium deficiency. Because it’s been so hot, the tomatoes haven’t been able to take up enough calcium through their roots, and when it doesn’t reach the ends of the fruits, they simply stop developing and rot. Fortunately, this isn’t a fungus or a disease – but having weak tomatoes like these on the plants can attract insects and fungus so we’ve been pulling them off. I quickly got some hydrated lime, diluted it in water, and added it to...
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13 Jul 2006
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Spike

Spike, a pink bi-colored eggplant, has been appropriately named for the spikes on his leaves. (Her?) If my counting is correct… in the back we have 6 black eggplants, 6 white eggplants, and 1 pink bi-colored eggplant. In the front, it looks like we have 3 black, 6 white, and 3 pink. This is judging only by the color of the plants, and the ones in the front are considerably smaller than the potted eggplants in the back.
03 Jul 2006
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Baby Roma Tomatoes

I was looking at pictures from our vegetable garden last year (July 2, 2005), and I’m pretty impressed with how things are going this year! Our tomatoes are at least twice as big, fuller and more fruitful than last year; our beans are obviously going to produce more, and our squashes… well, some of them now have vines that are as tall as I am, and last year they were just barely starting to bush out at this time. We’re still quite a bit behind Easy Bean though – the only things we’ve actually used from our garden so far are chard and beet leaves. They already have cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and fairly large zucchini. I suppose they have ten...
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23 Jun 2006
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Back Garden

Beans, Broccoli, Tomatoes, Buttercup Squash, and Cucumbers. A lot of growing can be done in a month! Our beans are happily climbing up the trellis (some are vining 4 feet up already), the squash and pumkins are giant and have tiny buds, the tomatoes have flowers, and the beets and chard are actually looking like beets and chard. We planted some yellow summer squash where the spinach was, and it’s coming up nicely but I hope there’s enough summer left for it to produce – it’s about three weeks behind the rest of the squash. I realize now that pictures don’t really do the garden justice – things look healthier and fuller when you’re actually standing next to the plants.
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