August Garden

This has been a terrible summer weather-wise. Way too much rain, too much humidity. Our backyard is a swamp and there are a million mosquitoes everywhere. The garden has not fared well either. It was like a switch flipped at the end of July - everything went from beautiful and healthy to dead or blight ridden.

And then there's Morgan. Morgan Mayhem, living up to her name. No matter how many barriers I put up, no matter how many times I fix the deer netting, she is a whirlwind of destruction and chaos. Digging up the black plastic. Digging holes in the beds and flinging dirt everywhere. Killing one tomato plant. Ripping down half my giant basil (don't worry, I made a huge batch of pesto that night). I've given up. I'm out of netting, and what's the point? She's just going to rip it up anyway. She knocks down all the barriers. She's broken the gate. I have lost the battle this summer. And since the garden is doing so terribly anyways... it's not worth the battle. I'm waving the white flag.

Tomatoes

I've had worse years for tomatoes - their robust health in July set the stage for plenty of fruit. However, the weather in August has caused a lot of the tomatoes to literally rot on the vine. Soft spots, mold, pests... and now the plants are wilting from blight. We have been able to enjoy plenty of delicious tomatoes, I even made a good sized batch of freezer marinara... but at the same time, it's pretty tragic to have to throw so many away.

Herbs, Beans, Greens

This is my only bed that's doing well. The herbs are unbothered by the weather. The rosemary is a decent size (and I'm using it), the oregano is a monster, the basil was enormous (until Morgan smashed it) and it's still quite big, the thyme is doing mostly well. The swiss chard keeps coming back no matter how much of it we eat. The vine spinach is very tall and has lots of leaves we're eating (the flavor is very similar to baby spinach - it's nice!). The beans don't want to share the tower at all and are trying to take over the entire thing despite my efforts to trim it back.

Vines

Everything here is dead. Cucumber vines, melon vines, squash vines, pumpkin vines. The blight hit hard and everything withered fast. We did get a bunch of cucumbers, 2 melons, 6 butternut squash... but no pumpkins.

Flowers

You know thing are bad when even the zinnias aren't doing as well as usual! They are usually about 5 feet tall by now with a million blooms. The stalks are short, falling over with lots of blight spots on the leaves.  I am getting bouquets of flowers (pretty bouquets!) but it's about half of normal. The heirloom flower mix is a mixed bag - some things are doing really well, some things aren't. I don't think I'll do it again but it's been interesting to mix in something new.

At least the butterflies are happy...