JCC The JCC Gardening Club

Gardening is awesome, for all those reasons. I also love the excuse to be outdoors during the nicest* part of the year. Plus, free tomatoes!!

We got some really good soaking rain yesterday, and I am actually excited to go in to work tomorrow and see how the plants have taken off. We needed the water, I spent 3 hours watering on Friday and hardly made a dent in the dry soil.




*nicest meaning hot as hell this week apparently. whatever.

 

Peak pepper is upon us. Run for your lives! Honestly, I have to put peppers in everything I make. Have you ever tried putting banana peppers in banana bread? It's not as bad an idea as it sounds.

 

Those peppers are so sexy looking. My god.

 

I went over to help a friend get ready to move today, so she let us raid her landscape. Got some bamboo shoots and lemongrass.

 

Lemongrass dual purpose: nice little landscaping plant and even edible in parts. Bamboo grows so damn fast. Planted some years ago in my backyard rail line and it shot up. Went on vacation for a few weeks….came back and

 

Correction : bamboo barely grows at all for a while, then shoots up in all directions until you are enveloped.

 

like the pictures everyone, been very dry this season here in New England. Will try to get some pictures up soon.

 

here it is; the first garden tomato. I had to pick it a bit unripe, just to be sure. If I wait until it's perfect, something else will come along and eat it for me. One of those Chicago field mice maybe.

 

We have pickles in our garden you guys!!

 

Tomatoes are just about in their glory now:




Disiree potatoes are getting quite big (will be plenty for baked potatoes on those cold autumn/winter nights)





Runner Beans are ready for first "pick" on Sunday

 

those beans are incredible.

 

Those potatoes are gorgeous.

 

Here is my small patch of popcorn, first time growing popcorn, it takes a little longer to grow so hopefully we have a warm fall here in maine.

 

Corn looks very good.

I think my sweetcorn will be ready to eat around two weeks.

 

My Brussels and Spouting Broccoli plants seem to have come down with an infestation of the dreaded cabbage white fly caterpillar.

Am going to have to get insecticide out and start spraying tomorrow before they do too much damage.

 

there's an online store that actually sells whitefly parasitic wasps.

 

What you gain from getting rid of the caterpillars you lose by stung by wasps though?

 

you knew when you got into gardening that there would be sacrifices.

 

Potato plants, photo taken sometime in early june I believe.



and the harvest from a couple days ago.

 

Very nice.

What variety of Spud are they?

 

My tomato plants are losing a lot of foliage as a result of a spider mite infestation. I've been trying to knock the mites off by hitting the undersides of the leaves with water from a spray bottle, but only limited success so far. I'm an apartment dweller, so I can't use a hose. Anyone else have experience getting rid of the little jerks?

 

purple viking

 

Hi Mara,

Haven't had experience of Spider Mite's but you can see a bit about them here;

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=190

Since spraying with a pesticide I seem to have gotten on top of those beastly white fly caterpillars. My brussels and sprouting broccoli plants are now looking well again;

 

I've grown my first cauliflower... Quite pleased about this because someone said cauliflower is one of the hardest vegetables for "first timers" to grow




Meanwhile the Buckby Pea plants have died and remaining pods have dried out so time to start harvesting next years seed




These seeds will make up next years crop... From life, to death, to rebirth... The cycle of life.