Deer-free so far. Only mammal intruder: a chipmunk.
The garden is making lots of greenery, but so far, aside from the two-inch cucumbers climbing the fences and the two-inch green tomatoes, there isn’t much productivity yet.
What you can’t see here is how well the beans (heirloom goose beans, turkey gizzard, Christmas limas, etc) are doing.
After the shoots were up about a foot, I stuck “pea brush” in the row–rangy branch tops from a maple I cut last fall and heaped the brush out of the way near the garden. The bean vine tendrils wrap themselves with amazing speed around whatever support they can find, and they are up to the tips of the twigs and twining around the tomato cages, too. This will turn into a jumbled mess when the tops get heavy with beans (he said optimistically) but by then, aesthetics won’t matter. It’ll be all about getting in the harvest.
Tomatoes this year, heirloom Rutgers, German Johnson (not doing so well, won’t plant these again) and especially Mortgage Lifter. They could all blight between now and fruit ripening, but if they all mature the flowers they’ve set, we’ll be making salsa, juice and ketchup plus the whole tomatoes plus onions and peppers in quarts.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s a really nice looking garden……….
If you get enough tomatoes, maybe take some of the green tomatoes, and cook up some fried green tomatoes……..they are good…..throw in a couple of cold beers, and it’s a nice meal in the evening….
keeponhoeing
Mark
Looks good, Fred. The narrow shape should help discourage them from jumping it, too. Chipmunks only became a problem for us when we tried to grow strawberries.
By the way, I hate to be a pedant, but shouldn’t it be “&c”?
Nice….Isn’t that a cottontail over in the right corner?…(smile)