I take it all back

Yesterday, not 12 hours after I wrote about how worried I was about the transplanted eggplant, it had already started to perk up. And today not only is the stem lifted up from the side of the pot but all four of the green beans I planted in the same pot have sprouted.

Recovering eggplant.

Baby "Provider" bush beans. You can't quite see the fourth one from this angle but the stem is pushing up the dirt between the left and middle seedlings.

In fact the whole front was looking pretty nice this morning, after the rainy day we had yesterday.

Of course by early afternoon everything was dried out and droopy, but nothing 4 gallons of water couldn't fix.

In the back things are chugging along, slowly. There's a bunch of new cucumbers starting out, and a few tiny black krims just getting started. It's a relief to see that some blossoms made it through the heat wave, though full sized tomatoes take their time back there so it'll be some time before the real celebration.

My second planting of edamame have been flowering and setting fruit too, but I'll be lucky to get much from that bed.

At least three edamame pods and more to come.

Behind the high tech bean trellis you can see the empty space where the fall broccoli and brussels sprouts will go, along with a new trellis at the other end.

On the right side there's a sweet potato vine and on the left I've wrapped a regular potato plant around the string. The bamboo holding this up is 5' tall; this is what happens when you plant potatoes in the shade.

In the back

Finally, finally, I got around to picking up some bamboo stakes for the tomatoes out back. Of course I still need more but it's, like, 110 degrees or so and kind of a hassle to bike to home depot for more. So this happened in the sunnier bed:

Sunnier bed, with staked up tomatoes at last.

Towards the back you can make out the tips of the 6' stakes and closer to the front are some 5' stakes (there was only one package of 6' ones available). In front are cucumbers, that are climbing over everything, and two eggplants that have barely grown since I transplanted them in... mid-May?

In addition to the cherry tomatoes which have been growing and ripening for a few weeks now, there are real tomatoes too.

In the center, a future black krim.

Also quite a few baby cucumbers, but that's about it. Out front the eggplant has flowered but back here it's still waiting to make its move.

The shadier bed is pretty boring by comparison, since I ripped out all of the brassicas except for two cabbages that started heading up, though I doubt they'll do much.

Shadier bed.

There are still some edamame growing, and a couple of the sweet potatoes towards the fence are getting a little viney, but the middle of the bed is cleared for fall plants.

More stakes are needed for the other bed, which has all of its tomato, and potato for that matter, plants flopped left and right. There are a few staked up in the back row, but the front is a mess.

The bonus bed.

On the left is a literal pile of tomato plant limbs and on the right there's potato plants leaning over the edge of the bed.

I wish there more detailed shots but I started taking pictures after watering which roused the mosquitoes from whatever portal to hell they had been waiting in, so the back garden tour got cut short. However I remembered to take pictures of what I harvested this time!

There's a cucumber, a few cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of unripe ground cherries that had fallen already. I actually harvested a similar size cucumber on Friday, the first this year, but forgot to document until it was halfway eaten. Someday I'll remember to take a photo when I'm bringing in a bunch of herbs and lettuce and scallions and such.

Post-vacation

Most everything did alright while we were gone, except the lettuce and spinach which bolted. So it's been replaced with sweet potatoes and a few yellow and red potatoes that had sprouted. The curlier leaves below, that aren't cabbages, are kale that's remained tiny but not bolted and one white potato I planted maybe a month ago.

I don't expect much from those guys though, because of the total lack of sunlight in that bed. From the photo above you can see the trunk of the mulberry tree that shades it out, and a tiny bit of the rose which also cuts out a fair bit of sun.

The remaining two unstaked tomatoes flopped over

One of the black krims.

so they got flimsy metal cages put on them. The first picture also shows some of the string I've woven around the row of cherry tomatoes. They shot up a bit this last week so I added a couple more lines.

And on the back "deck" area I set up a couple of drawers I picked up on trash day as planters. I drilled copious holes in the bottom and then filled them with potting soil.

Also pictured, Agway "Premium" Cow Manure picked up on the drive back to the city.

Then it rained like crazy and I realized that the gutters at the back of the house leak, like, a lot. The drawer on the left was totally flooded and all the lighter bits in the potting soil were washed over. These were planted with some more spinach and lettuce on the left, and mesclun mix and arugula on the right. I should probably do a comprehensive post about the back deck, but it's always a mess and not much grows due to the extreme shade. These drawers are kind of the whole thing.