I think I am not able to keep the hay moist enough even though the hay bales were well seasoned and should theoretically hold moisture well. The two eggplants and the two peppers I decided to grow in the hay bales are not doing as well as if they were planted in the ground. Fix-it thinks they are never ripe since they are short so he tends to leave them on the vine longer than I prefer but they still taste pretty good. My favorites though are the short pickling cucumbers. Japanese cukes are burpless and pretty mild. I wish I knew the specific names but I'm sorry I don't at the moment. It takes two to make up one regular cucumber. The Japanese cukes are skinnier and tend to curl, even when grown on a trellis. As such I have a few plants planted and those Japanese cukes produce like crazy. My friend Naomi prefers Japanese cukes to the regular pickling kind. This year has been totally better-tons of good cukes of all kinds and they are not bitter. The ones I did pick last summer were bitter. I endeavored to have LOTS of cukes this year since I barely got any last. This is one area I am not surprised about. I got behind in the vegetable garden and really did not pay much attention to what I was planting. Next to the lettuce is a planting of summer squash or some other vine. I suspect the A-frames will be covered soon but I'm not sure if the bushel gourds will have time to develop as there is no sign of them so far. The ones that did though are growing fairly well on the A-frame. The bushel gourds growing on the A-frame have been a disappointment. I'll sow another sowing in a few weeks to carry me into the fall. Hopefully with more shade and consistent watering the lettuce will not be so bitter. Fix-it says the lettuce is bitter but oh well, we can't have it all I guess. I made a later sowing of the lettuce seeds and they are doing well as you can see from the picture above.
I have achieved that goal though not due to shading the lettuce. Let's start with the A-frame and my goal of picking lettuce and tomatoes together. As an added bonus I get some fairly good color from this garden. These flowers are tall but because the perennial garden is on the north side of the vegetable garden the flowers do not block the sun. Here you see many flowers blooming in that garden. The vegetable garden is bordered on two sides by the Sunny Perennial Garden. The summer is usually not an issue due to the sun passing directly overhead but now that the sun is sinking to the south I have way too much shade.
I am challenged by mature oak trees on the southern side of my yard which blocks the sun from the vegetable garden during the spring and fall. The next picture shows the vegetable garden looking east-southeast. I open this post with a long shot of the vegetable garden looking west. Hopefully soon some more veggies will come into play. We've been enjoying lots of fresh cucumbers and tomatoes. Fix-it is here and able to walk outside and collect the veggies. It is not quite to the point that I cannot walk in it but it is getting close. The vegetable garden has taken off and totally changed from last month.
What a difference a few months makes in the garden.
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