The Bare Garden Continued

I have three bell pepper plants this year and they have grown very slowly. I have not even seen a single fruit on the bell pepper plants. I am going to put them in a different location next year along with more manure.

This year, I have not had an issue with aphids. Since last year, I have been spraying Volck horticulture spray on all the fruit trees in my yard. Last year, I had a lot of aphids on my trees which then spread to the garden. This year, there are no aphids (that I can see) on my trees. Another thing that "bugged" me last year was the June Bugs. I have an apricot tree in my yard and last year I had a ton of june bugs eating the apricots. I didn't get a single apricot because of these bugs. I had put up a japanese beetle catcher and I had put some of the rotten fruit in the bag. I placed the bag on the opposite side of the yard and I did catch a lot of them but like some people say, it just attracts all the bugs in the neighborhood. This year I was more aggressive with killing the june bug larvae when I came across them in the garden soil. So far, I have seen only one june bug, which I promptly killed. However, the apricot tree has only a few fruits and they are still small and green.

Last week, I noticed the pickle cucumber plant also started getting powdery mildew so I saturated those leaves with Neem oil. I noticed that several pickle cucumbers are round and yellow. From what I read, this means that I need left them on the plant too long and they have turned yellow. I am not sure how that explains why they are round. Maybe they are not getting enough water.

The Jalapenos are doing ok. This plant over-wintered from last year and has been slow growing this year.

The Bare Garden

Well, its July now and its clear that this garden is not what it was last year. So far, I have only picked one japanese eggplant for the season. Last year, I was picking four or five eggplants every weekend starting around the end of May. I have only picked one round red tomato. Last year, I had buckets. I have only picked two yellow squash where last year I was picking several every weekend. The zucchini has been the most prolific plant in the garden this year. I have picked about one large zucchini every weekend from one of the three plants. Only one of the plants has grown fairly large. At this point, my garden is more of a testing ground and I am trying to reduce the impact of powdery mildew which devastated the garden last year at this time. The larger zucchini plant started out with powdery mildew this year around the end of june. Last year, I had learned that people use Neem Oil to fight powdery mildew. I purchased a 3 or 4 gallon sprayer and as soon as I saw the powdery mildew, I sprayed the leaves with Neem oil. I saturate the leaves front and back.