Garden Update {July 28, 2015}

It is a sad day in the garden, friends. I've been noticing a lot of yellowing and drooping lately, which I thought was due to the lack of rain and the arrival of some really hot days. So I set to watering, thinned and pruned, and then put down a layer of compost and mulch. Then I got an email from the garden manager, stating that there may have been an inadvertent (and totally in violation of the agreement that was set up when the garden was started) application of HERBICIDE to kill weeds along the train tracks. Heartbreaking. The email included some tips as to how to revive the plants, so I'm going to do all I can. We'll see.

Here's the zucchini on July 22, right after I thinned them:



And here they are on July 25. Womp womp.



I'm not totally convinced that it was only the herbicide that caused their sad state. I didn't do any research into the best ways to thin these plants before I started yanking (when will I learn?), and it turns out that beans and cucurbits (melons, squash, cucumbers... aka everything on this side of the garden) have fragile roots and should be thinned early and very carefully. I wasn't so careful. Whoops. I hope that the mulch application will help the roots to reestablish themselves.

Cucumbers after thinning and staking (I think these cages are designed for peppers, but they're perfect for pickling cucumbers!), July 22:



Then on July 25 (post herbicide attack):



The tomatoes were doing so well!!! PLEASE DON'T ALL DIE!!!!



A new addition to keep us happy, even in the face of minor adversity.



_______________________________________________________________________

This video taught me how to prune my cucumbers and tomatoes, to the point where I felt reasonably confident, and didn't mess up more than a handful of times (I think!). I now know what "suckers" are (little extra leafy stems that just steal energy from the fruiting parts of the plant), how to identify them, and how to remove them.