The Joys and Perils of Organic Gardening

This week was so crazy busy that, once again, I didn't get to check on the garden at all.  

We have everything set up on a drip system, but are trying "dry farming" our plants this year and only water them when they start to wilt, maybe 2 times a month at the most. So far, I think it's working pretty well.  Our tomatoes are doing much better than they did last year.

Saturday morning, I made myself walk the 10 steps out in the back yard and go visit my garden to see what was waiting for me.  

The random zucchini plant that sprung up out of nowhere gave us one zucchini and it's over a foot long!!!  And there are more tiny ones waiting to grow this week.  

The yellow pear tomato plant that also planted itself from last years rotton tomatoes gave us more tomatoes than all the plants we planted COMBINED.  It's also loaded with green tomatoes that will be ripening up over the next several days.  

And then the cucumber plant....  

The cucumber plant that I put on the side of the house in bad clay soil because I ran out of room in the raised beds in the backyard....  The cucumber plant that never gets watered or fertilized....

I am pretty sure that I picked 50 pounds of cucumbers.   Last week, there were several the size of pencils.  Today, they were the size of baseball bats. 

Note to self:  Check the garden more than once a week.  It takes 10-15 minutes.  You aren't THAT busy...

While I was pecking a peck of peppers to make into pickled peppers, I saw what I thought was a pepper move.  Only it wasn't a pepper.   

I screamed and started having a panic attack.  I don't like bugs at all.  They creep me out and give me nightmares.  But I dislike eating chemicals more than I dislike bugs, so I don't spray my garden and let nature take it's course.  But this is the first time in three years here that we have had a tomato worm. 

YUCK!!!  

I made Dave grab the gloves and extract him from the garden.  These guys are scary and they BITE!!!

Once the garden intruder was disposed of, I checked the garden throughly before I finished picking and weeding.  Don't want this guy and his family munching our garden away.  

How is your garden growing this summer?  

Are you tired of cucumbers and zucchini yet?