What a Difference a Year Can Make!

I had an occasion yesterday to take a few pictures of the garden.  Several turned out worthy of saving. When I printed one of them out and placed it in a folder that I keep, I couldn't help but notice that it was a similar shot to one I took just one year ago.   I thought some of you might want to see the comparison of what our garden looked like just one year ago in June of 2012 and what it looks like now.  Amazing.

Green Meadows CG  June 27, 2013

This second photo was taken early in the morning so I didn't have the advantage of the morning sunlight that is lighting up the first photo.  In the first photo the first section of 24 beds had just been finished at the end of April and most of the raised beds were planted in May so the vegetables were just starting to gain some size.  This year our beds were planted in March and early April.

When to pick squash

Can you guess which of these yellow squash has
just been sitting around developing lots of seeds?

At this time of year and with as much rain as we've been getting squash grows like crazy (as do the cucumbers but that is a story for another day.) One day you have tiny barely formed squash and 2 days later you have eating sized squash.

If you are trying to grow baseball bat sized zucchini than just leave them on the vine. But if you want nice tender zucchini, you'll need to pick frequently. And carefully look under every leaf.

The zucchini in this picture range from baseball bat
size to young and tender.

Picking frequently encourages the plant to keep producing and it also keeps the vegetables from getting rotten from sitting on the ground. The goal of all plants is to reproduce by flowering, fruiting and setting seed. The larger you let your veggies get, the closer to completing the life cycle the plant gets. Which means the plant will decide it doesn't have to flower and set any more vegetables for you to eat.