Yet another week has passed and we're successfully starting cucumber and zucchini season! I've been trying to figure out which part of the gardening season is my favourite, and I can't really decide. Each of them has its own beauty, but also challenges.
Right now, the challenge is to keep an eye on all those cucumber and zucchini plants to act as soon as there are any changes as they could be affected by mildew, squash vine borers, squash bugs, aphids or who knows what. Luckily, we haven't had many issues yet, just a couple of zucchinis which were not well pollinated. However, this is just a cosmetic issue for me and as I don't have time to pollinate those flowers manually I simply accept when those insects don't do the best job possible.
In the first years of gardening, I didn't enjoy yellow zucchinis so much. They have different taste and texture than the classic green ones, but I grew to enjoy them and as I find them more resistant I might only plant the yellow ones next year.
At some point there were four bees inside, and by the time that I managed to take a photo one of them flew away. I hope that they did the job properly this time!
Our first pickling cucumbers...
I like to eat them right away, but they are even better if you leave them overnight in the fridge and eat them chilled. So good!
They are difficult to handle as the entire plant is somehow prickly. It's kind of hairy and those tiny hair like to stay stuck in the palm of hand which is less than pleasant.
Yes, this is how my hands look like every morning and every evening - dirty (in this case from harvesting raspberries). And here you can see those tiny hair all over the plant.
These are waiting for tomorrow 😊
I'm very particular about which ones I pick and which I leave on the vine for a day or two. My husband finds it confusing which is not surprising, so it's my job and he only waters them, but leaves them hanging.
And look at my first eggplant! It has chosen a very interesting position on top of the plant, so we'll see how this will go. I will wait for a few more and then I'll remove the rest of the flowers, so that the plant focuses its energy on the fruit instead.
Last year, was my first year growing pumpkins and failed spectacularly as I planted them too late and they didn't have time to grow and didn't produce anything. I have learned from my mistake and this year I've planted them much earlier. Right now, they are full of these gigantic flowers waiting for pollination. There is a lot of buzz going on, so I think that the bees are busy...
This little hard worker is covered in pollen...
If it goes well, we will have more than enough pumpkins for entire winter!
There are tons of these baby butternuts...
I need to wait for a little while and see which ones are doing well to remove the excess because the goal is to have maybe four to six good-sized butternuts per plants instead of plenty of tiny ones.
And here we have my cucumber forest in the greenhouse. It's six plants and they are full of flowers which you can't see very well because they are hidden behind these large leaves.
There are some baby ones already! I've got these seedlings from our neighbour, and I couldn't be more grateful as I didn't manage to grow my own this year. He gave me a couple of his cucumbers last year and they were delicious, so I can't wait for mine.
My peppers are growing well too. It's not bell peppers, so don't expect huge bushy plants. This looks exactly how it should be.
There are quite a few growing already. However, their ripening period is quite long, so it will take a few weeks before I can harvest them.
My beans are flowering and this will be the best harvest I have ever had! Every year, I was able to harvest maybe a handful each day, but this year it is going to be so much more. Luckily, we love green beans!
I have three varieties - green, white and purple.
It was easy to see which rows are the purple ones, not only because of the flowers, but because the plants started growing as purple. I have never had purple beans, but if we like them we will plant more next year because the slugs don't like them so much.
As easy as it is to see which ones are purple, it is difficult to see which ones are green or yellow. One of them grew really tiny, so I won't plant them next year anymore, but I will figure it out as soon as there are some beans.
Here is already one resting on the leaf 😊 But it is so tiny that I don't want to assume its colour yet.
These flowers are pinkish, and I can clearly see that there are differences, just don't know which one is which.
I don't know if other gardeners do the same, but when I'm planting something I don't use any signs because I'm convinced that I will remember what I planted. Well, looks like I should start using some signs instead.
This tomato plant is not more than 50 cm tall and it's full of tomatoes. My mom sent me the seedling and I've planted it in the garden even though it says that it's a balcony tomato. I think it's because of its compact size. So far it's doing very well.
Other plants are the mystery and I will only know once they're ripe...
I didn't sow any tomatoes this year because of our move, so my mom bought some at the market and my sister brought them from Slovakia to Switzerland. You might wonder why I didn't buy them here. Well, you would understand if you knew my mom...
I'm sure that this is a golden pear. I had them last year too and they were the best plants ever. They kept producing until November or until the point that I refused to harvest them as it was too much.
They keep producing more and more flowers, and I love watching them. Many gardeners find growing tomatoes complicated, but I think that if you understand how they grow and choose the way you want them to grow then it's only about maintenance. And the volumes are worth the effort...
My volunteer tomato doubled in size since last week. And now I'm convinced that it will carry some tomatoes before the season ends.
To the fridge full of red currants and raspberries, we have added gooseberries too! It's been too hot and many berries are 'cooked', so I harvested the good ones already. I hate harvesting gooseberries as the plant takes every chance to scratch the hell out of me. Its thorns are worse than roses!
Talking about roses - the second batch is in full swing...
No filter needed - this is such a beauty and it smells sooooo good...
My hydrangea is fighting against the heat well. Some flowers and leaves got burnt, but overall it stays healthy.
My borage forest took off. I forgot to take the flowers for the salad today, so will take double tomorrow. Can you spot the slug? They are getting heat resistant now!
We're expecting some storms tonight and I honestly hope for rain only as my cucumbers are looking so good and storms wouldn't help them. Fingers crossed!
Thank you for reading and until next time...
