Re: Welcome to the new list//Garden report

**Janet Wintermute jwintermute@erols.com>**

Yikes, another post from a greater Washington, DC, gardener--Margaret in 
Laurel, MD, is about 18 miles NE of me in Adelphi.

She says, of her zucchini situation,
>   I  got  a basket full of zucchini before the borers got to 4 of my 5 
> plants
>(sigh).  Is it  too late to plant some more?...probably..but I'm gonna try
>anyway.

Depending on microclimates in your yard, Margaret, you may be able to 
garden until Christmas!  I have certainly had homegrown vine-ripened toms 
at Thanksgiving many a year here.  But if you're in doubt about zucchinis 
and still long for a squash-type adventure, plant patty-pan squash 
instead.  They grow really fast and will probably give you a mature crop 
before our first killing frost.  You might be able to extend things for 
them by putting bedsheets on top of the plants on nights when frost is 
predicted, too.  Just be sure to yank off the sheets the next morning.

>   I am dog paddling in tomatoes...for a while anyway...I seem to have
>some kind of blight setting in.  My own fault probably...I didn't spray
>anything this year, I've been lax about regular watering and the weeds are
>taking over, too.

Don't beat yourself up about this.  Tomato plants die and blights are one 
of the mechanisms that keeps this cycle in motion.  I don't think one can 
defeat blight by spraying anything.  One hopes that early blight won't hit 
since that can affect the plants before they've got the fruit-production 
thing going.  Late blight doesn't make much difference, and neither 
specifically affects the fruit itself.

My plants were scrawny again this year, following a number of years when 
they were fulsome and heavy with fruit. I fertilized only at outplanting 
time with Osmocote and did not mulch the beds.  I really did not have the 
energy to put into my garden this year, and weeds got the better of me in 
the flowerbeds out front, too.

Don't beat yourself up about this, Margaret.  Gardening is supposed to be 
fun, not an onerous chore.  When it reaches chore status is when you should 
look for a new hobby.

>  What with mom dying of lung cancer..I got a bit distracted.

Been exactly there, done exactly that.  My sympathies, bud.

>   Final count.....I have already harvested 1 basket of zucchini,  3+ buckets
>full of tomatoes, 4 cantaloupes, a bunch of brussel sprouts, a double handful
>of strawberries (hey it's their 1st season in the bed...give them a chance).

Tell me about your successful cantaloupe adventure.  I tried 'Jenny Lind,' 
a 90-day old-fashioned open-pollinated variety 2  years ago with no results 
at all.  The plants set a total of 2 lopes, both stopped growing at 
softball size, and neither got eaten due to rot coming up from below on 
each fruit.  Very disappointing.

What variety were you using, Margaret?

>     I'm still waiting for the peppers to turn red...so far on my 2 plants I
>have 5 nice blocky fruits set, my eggplant however croaked without doing
>anything this year.

Peppers, which I didn't plant any of this year, are often quite tardy in my 
experience here.  They should be loving our hot, humid summers, and some 
years they do great (1994 was a banner year for them), but other years they 
don't get very big foliage-wise and don't set many fruit.

Are you able to get your peppers to grow thick walls like the ones in the 
grocery stores, Margaret?  I've always found mine to be much too 
thin-walled to suit me even though they look great and taste good.

>I have some onions, garlic, and carrots decorating the
>garden with their tops , so I'll (hopefully)be getting something from them
>later.

Leave a few carrots unharvested; they'll go straight through a typical DC 
winter just fine.  You can dig a few up in January and February and have a 
treat.

>      I pulled up the lettuce, broccoli and spinach in late June when it all
>bolted but , except for the parsley with also bolted early, the herb garden
>is going full blast .

We had an exceptionally hot June (followed, thank heavens, by much more 
pleasant weather for much of July), so I'm not surprised you had to give up 
on the greens.  My parsley died out completely in early June, but I 
understand that some varieties of parsley (maybe all?) are biennials.  This 
would have been their second year, so I guess I should have expected that 
result.  I was hoping for self-seeding, but forget it.

--Janet

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