July 29, 2006

Beans, Beetles and Eggplant


You know you've become obsessed with your garden when....2 minutes after arriving home from getting a haircut you do not look in the mirror once but, instead you head straight out to the garden to see what's going on.

I was alarmed when I first got out there because all of the tomato plants looked toppled over and were dragging on the ground. We had some pretty hard rain last night so I'm guessing that was what caused it so I spent 20 minutes tying things back to their stakes and cutting off a few more yellowing disease-y branches. The plants are still covered with about 10 times the number of tomatoes I had last year (although still green) so I think everything is going ok.

Then came the excitment!

I harvested 2 eggplants and lots of greenbeans. The eggplants were from a seedling I got in my seedling class and they were marked as Nadia Eggplant which would make them fat-ish and round-ish and just like the other two plants I have which have nothing harvest-able yet. In fact, these eggplants are long and skinny and I think they might be Ichiban Eggplant. One of them actually sprouted what I can best describe as a "handle." Very strange but, absolutely thrilling! This harvest represents the first non-leaf thing I've harvested since way back when I got a measly handful of strawberries in June!

When picking the greenbeans (which is kind of hard because they really blend right in) I noticed some lacy looking leaves which looked to me (burgeoning bug freak) like evidence of the Mexican Bean Beetle. I found one and after 3 attempts I managed to capture and kill it! Beetles.... it seems drop to the ground when touched, a nifty trick when you're being hunted by a hunched over human being trying to catch you from above. I know they're supposedly look-alikes but it didn't look much like a ladybug to me -- more orange than red. Speaking of which...one of my plot neighbors has this really strange, tall flower in her plot that attracts zillions of ladybugs. She has no idea what the plant is and neither do I but, its amazing to look at it and see all the happy bugs crawling all over it.

Sorry the picture is fuzzy but, anyone know what this plant is?

PS: I'm not holding my breath but the sole pepper plant that I assumed was a goner has a teeny tiny pepper on it.

PPS: My neighbors zucchini grew some little tendrils and was starting to climb up one of my tomato plants. I laughed out loud when I saw it but, seriously, that is not cool. I'm a plant lover but, I had to foil those plans with a scissor and quick. Its survival of the fittest out there....unless your keeper is a crazy garden lady with something sharp.

8 comments:

Carol Michel said...

The plant looks like tansy to me. It self sows readily, so I would advise removing the flowers before they set seed.

kathy said...

Looks like tansy to me too. Your veges look great! Especially the eggplant. I'm hoping I get a few of them this year, but mine are still small.

Black Eyed Susan said...

Thanks so much for the speedy information. I'll tell my neighbor. It's been flowering for at least a couple of weeks now so some seeds likely drifted but, I'll tell her to cut them ASAP!

kate said...

Your eggplants look scrumptions!! Nice beans, too...a beetle is currently at my beans, they are full of little holes. And my cucumbers are climbing all over my tomatoes...but the cucumbers seem to have some blight so it might not be a problem for very long. :( It is a real mess, when you let the garden get away from you...

Anonymous said...

Yeah! Who can think of your hair when there are treasures to be harvested in the garden. I know exactly what you mean.

DECO said...

Your plants looks perfect!
A garden is a planet...

Janelle said...

Helloo mate great blog post

Janelle said...

This is a great post, thanks for writing it