July Recap 2022

Although we initially had issues expanding, I had high hopes for our summer garden. We spent May and June adding a drip system, amending with compost, and laying down landscape fabric in the pathways. The goal was to provide enough food to allow us to cut back on grocery shopping and supplement our pantry both this fall and winter.

You know what that they say about the best-laid plans. While the garden was thriving the first week of July, we took a short trip to Florida. We came back to this:

Cucumber plant eaten by cucumber beetles — Cucumber beetle damaged plant

Although we had someone homestead-sitting in our absence, cucumber beetles and squash bugs had destroyed a good chunk of our garden.

I felt very disheartened. Our sitter had put down diatomaceous earth and neem oil to try to get a handle on the pest pressure but it was too little, too late. Walking through the garden, we noticed what had to be thousands of beetles eating everything from our tomatoes to our squash. While I try to stick with organic methods (and we tried everything, including vacuuming the beetles up and drowning them in soapy water) we faced the very real reality of losing all of our harvests.

As a last resort, we put down some Sevin dust with the understanding we were only going to treat at ground level and we kept the application to the minimum amount possible. While I hated the idea of using it, with food shortages and being on a tight income, I knew we needed to get something out of the garden to make it worthwhile economically.

Since we used the minimal amount we could, we still have some beetles and squash bugs. However, I have been happy to see that we plenty of bees and I haven’t found any dead ones in the garden.

Front yard garden

squash and tomatoes — Part of our garden expansion

When I first started planning, I made sure to plant some squash varieties that I knew were resistant to pest pressure. I have been very pleased with the Long Island Cheese pumpkins. We attempted to use a row cover over our zucchini and patty pans but the bugs still found their way in and demolished them quickly.

Sunflower with a bee — So far, the bees have been all about the sunflowers. Most of ours are volunteers.

Vine peaches on a trellis — One of the new varieties we added are vine peaches.

The only real success we’ve had has been with our basil. It has next to no pest damage and I have been using it in our cooking, dehydrating, and making tea.

Corn — We planted painted corn and amish butter.

Okra plants — Okra thrives in our poor soil

Acorn squash plant — Recovering acorn squash

While many of my plants are recovering from the insane amount of pest pressure they experienced while we were on vacation, our tomatoes continue to struggle. Not only are we in the middle of a drought, but we don’t have a drip systems set up in our raised beds which has led to a lot of issues with blossom end rot.

That being said, we did get to pick our first harvest and I am SO thankful for the amount that we were able to produce, especially considering all of the issues we have been having.

High tunnel

I know a lot of people have so much success with gardening in high tunnels… however, I am not one of those people. We have less pests to deal with in our tunnel but, even with a shade cloth, keeping the temperature down has been a real struggle. The beans I planted have yet to set blooms and my cucumbers have been slow to grow. The Marketmore Cucumbers have been the most successful.

Bell Pepper plant in hight tunnel — Bell Pepper

Bean plants in high tunnel — I ended up pulling these beans as they never developed blooms.

Pepper plants in high tunnel — More peppers

Marketmore cucumber plants — Marketmore cucumber plant

Planning ahead, my focus next year will be on researching varieties bred specifically for high tunnel growing.

On the homestead…

It’s been fairly difficult to keep our rabbits cool and happy; we’ve tried everything from fans to ice packs. We’ve settled with keeping them on our front porch or in a rabbit trailer that can be moved around in the grass. We decided to try breeding them as they are finally old enough and their ears have begun lopping.

We came home from my daughter’s dance class two weeks ago to find three babies! I knew most rabbits don’t really show when they are pregnant but, since we hadn’t seen them breed, I assumed it hadn’t happened yet.

three baby rabbits in nest — The one things they do consistently is sleep.

rabbit — Meet Kristoff. He’s our only male.

We have also been keeping some of our chickens and our rooster contained to breed Brahamas. This keeps the eggs we sell unfertilized and works out better for our customers.

Once a month, we incubate at least 8 eggs. Our hatch rate could be better but this should allow us to retire some of our older birds.

three chiks — Our newest batch with 6 out of 8 hatching.

baby chicks — Now that they have feathered out a bit.

For the rest of this month, we are going to focus on harvesting and preserving. Hopefully, we will be able to get some rain FINALLY. With temps in the 100s for most of July, we are also hoping that temperatures lower a bit to allow our tomatoes to fruit.