August in rearview mirror

About a week ago someone on Instagram mentioned that looking at all the pretty pictures of other people’s thriving kitchen gardens and ample harvests can be somewhat disheartening if all your veggies are either suffering from disease or being munched on by critters. So for anyone thinking that our garden is a magical place where nothing ever goes wrong and that I know all the trade secrets, I am determined to give you the whole picture – the good and the bad, the successes and the failures.

Lets start with the good:
We’ve been harvesting lots of crunchy cucumbers and hot chili peppers. The ever reliable chard gives us bunches of leaves every week. The basil that I planted in the cold frame to provide a little extra warmth, grew like crazy and we’ve harvested more than any year in the past, even after taking off the lights before our holiday.

We’ve been picking boxes full of blackberries and fall raspberries “Autumn Bliss” which would have cost us a fortune in the shop.

Our three year old “Glorie van Holland” apple tree produced the first fruits this year and though there are not many, they are huge and delicious. The mirabelle tree in our back yard was so laden with fruit, some of the branches were hanging to the ground.

We picked many a bouquet both from the perennial cut flower border and from my experimental 3 m2 with annuals.

And now the failures:
This August has been the wettest month on record and it was not very warm either. On one hand this meant that we did not have to water the garden at all but unfortunately it also meant that our tomato bed never really took off. Before the plants grew to a decent size, they were blighted. The “Losetto” tomato once again proved to be the most resilient but even so, our tomato harvest this year was very poor. Yesterday we gave up and pulled the plants out. I gathered some of the better looking fruits, hopefully they will ripen inside.

Our two zucchini plats did start well and produced some great fruits and then more or less stopped. Hopefully they will pick up again if we get that fabulous Indian summer that’s being promised. The same goes for my butternut squash, it needs heat to set fruits and so far there are only several tiny ones – fingers crossed they will have enough time to ripen.
The bed bellow is companion planting of kale and citrus French marigolds (tagetes), the strong scent of the marigolds supposed to deter the many pests that plague all brassica plants:

What? You don’t see any kale you say?

Oh, that’s right, the rabbits ate it! Apparently they don’t mind the smell of the marigolds at all.
They also ate all my broccoli, completely annihilated my edamame soya and nibbled on the French beans, parsley, late lettuce sowings and carrot tops.

They even started on the bitter endive plants. I had to put netting over the bed to save the crop.

For the record: we do have a fence all around the garden that we check for any holes – we have not been able to figure out how the rabbits get in. Also, the damage is much bigger than last year before we repaired the fencing at the back of the plot.
The carrot and beets bed has not done well either, possibly due to the presence of this guy I discovered when pulling out weeds.

The larvae of May bugs feed on plant roots and develop in the earth for three to four years.

To end on a happy note: this is the annual vegetable polyculture experiment in our community garden of which I showed you a pic last month. It is doing great despite there being lots of big slugs. The slugs ate most of two cabbage plants but leave the rest be and we’ve had some beautiful harvest from the plot shared between the volunteers.

The other part of the community garden is productive too;