The Harvest!!!

August has been quite rewarding for our garden.  As we are in our first year, we keep reminding ourselves that this is a trial year and ANY produce would be fabulous.  The hard work is paying off.  We have been able to harvest and donate buckets and bags of produce to the Cumberland Food Pantry, Freeport Community Services and Preble Street Resource Center.  Tomatoes, summer squash, beans, potatoes, greens, etc. have been delivered to the appreciative folks working to help neighbors who, for whatever reason, would not have the resources to obtain fresh, healthy produce.

As Hurricane Irene swirls around us, and hopefully passes Maine without too much damage, it's a good time to catch up on the blog.  I was looking at some photos I snapped about a month ago and then another group yesterday, and it's amazing to see the changes that have taken place in this short time.

Not only is the field full of produce, but it is surrounded by a very happy looking perimeter of sunflowers!  For weeks, it seemed like those sunflowers were going to remain about 6 inches tall and never flower, but they have really taken off.  I only hope that their sturdy stems will hold up.

This past Friday, some local girl scouts with their leader helped with the harvest--picture to arrive shortly.  On Saturday, we picked up anything that could become a projectile in the storm -- our sign, buckets, row covers, etc. Fingers crossed that all will be well when we get back to the garden tomorrow.

Bugs - the bad and the ugly!

It's been too long since the last post, but we've been busy!  The good news is that we have started to harvest zucchini (ok, you probably have too many!) and beans, potatoes, tomatoes, cukes and other veggies should be ready soon.  By the way, the peanut experiment didn't work, but it was fun to try.

Happily the dogs (and their owners) are now accustomed to the garden, and we have had far fewer fence mending episodes.  The latest battle is with tomato horn worms--they look like something out of a cheap horror flick--big, fat and bright green.  Horn worms camouflage themselves superbly;  they are the color of the tomato plant, AND, they will put up a huge fight to not get picked off the plant.  They devour the tomato leaves, and left unchecked, would decimate all of our plants.  However, after lots of picking, and not too many tomato stems stripped, we think we got 'em for now.  P.S.  Karyn is offering 50 cents for each horn worm picked and destroyed--I think her kids are getting rich!

The other battle of the garden is in the cucumber and squash families which are being snacked on by the cucumber beetle.  We have picked hundreds (maybe more) of these nasty creatures, but they seem to reproduce at a rapid speed.  Hopefully we can eliminate them and save our produce.

It is interesting (and frustrating) to experience these pests that don't typically appear in a small home garden--but when planting a large plot, they call in all their family members for the big feast!

Speaking of things that are interesting, how about the weather this summer?  Brutally hot July, followed by a wet and cool (so far) August.  Never a dull moment for gardeners!