The garden is under 14 inches of snow, so it’s all indoors effort at the moment!

Green peppers are finally showing decent fruit.  It was not a good idea to put them south of the fenced cucumbers; too much loss of sunshine.

Cucumber vines are 85% wilted now and prolific production has slowed to a crawl–more like what we can keep up with!  I have seeded some more to see if we can get a second crop before fall.

Zucchini are way to plentiful at 4 plants–back it off to two in coming years.  And don’t wait for the second day when one is ‘nearly there’ or the next time you see it it looks like a MLB bat.

Beans and beets (third set each) are ready to come in; probably time for another round of each.

Packed plenty of mulch over top of the potatoes planted last week, mainly to feed the soil, but also to cool them off some.

At least 8 nice pumpkins are about 14 inches in diameter, some nearly fully orange while others are still green. 

The cabbage sets I purchased are doing gang-busters but my own seedlings are still barely over transplant shock, with a lot of insect leaf damage to boot.

Mature cabbage need netting over them to keep the marauders from eating the tops off–and the bean patch has been a feast for the rabbits, too.

The big goal and question for the season is timing for an equally productive fall/winter garden.  Lots to be learned here.

Potatoes were planted very densely  (about 6″ spacing) on 5 August.  Wanted to get them into the ground to mature before mid-fall.  UPDATE: this planting was far too late and the few potatoes we harvested were only about the size of nickels to quarters. Disappointing—looks like the early July replant of a few years back is the way to go.

Cucumbers are prolific, showing signs of some leaf wilt. 

Pumpkins are developing some powdery mildew as well.

Read the OSU literature [click here].

I ordered the potatoes for immediate planting, and garlic won’t arrive until after 1 September or so.

I picked a 1/2 bushel of blue lake beans from the row (as opposed to raised beds), our first summer squash, and cabbage planted way back in March.  The cabbages were looking beautiful and recently the damn rabbits or deer cut a line right through the well-formed heads.  So, we will cut around the teeth marks and eat them before they spoil.

Ordered 20 lbs of potato seeds along with some heirloom vegetables. 

We’ve been eating all we could from the garden lately, and far more cucumbers are produced than we can consume.  We’ve got about 4-5 open squares and 2 open ‘rows’ — soon the bean and beet rows will come free for some more late arrivals.  The fall harvest is my challenge this year–followed by some winter greens.  This is the challenge I enjoy most–beside the delicious, fresh, organic veggies.

The tomatoes are showing real wilt problems.  We’re getting red and plump fruit, but the vines are getting more anemic looking each day.  I don’t expect to have anything near like we had last year–enough to can and can and can–and finally cry ‘uncle’.  \

I made a pickle barrel compost bin with a closet valve and length of PVC.  Supposed to create compost in 14 days.  Stay tuned!

Likewise, we picked two pecks from the 2nd square of Blue Lake Beans – they were beautiful, plentiful and about 6″ long.  There was a dramatic difference in productivity between the outer perimeter plants (more) and inner plants (less plentiful).  Perhaps a bit too crowded on the inside which must affect productivity.

Planted three seed trays of ‘fall garden veggies’ — should be plenty of productivity from these well into the earliest days of December!