Garden Fridays: The “Brown & Crispy” Edition

in Garden

Black Beauty Eggplant

Please lower your head in a moment of silence for:
2 blueberry bushes [sob]
1 San Marzano tomato
1 Juliet tomato
16 green bean bushes
20+ strawberry plants [sob]
2 pots of basil

And may your prayers or good thoughts be sent to the grapefruit tree, you know – the one with more grapefruit (12) than leaves.

I will be winning no pro-am gardening competitions this year.

What hasn’t shriveled to a crisp in this drought? The eggplant. And the red and yellow bell peppers. And the poblano. Not coincidentally, those are also the newest items on my “I don’t care if I never see another one in my entire life again” list.

How are your gardens doing? Hopefully you have fared better than I have!

9 comments… add one
  • My poor garden is toast up here in Oklahoma 🙁 There are a few sad little tomatoes, and some okra hanging on but I lost almost everything else. Darn those watering restrictions!

  • Yup, we’re yanking out our tomato plants this weekend. No rain but plenty of squirrels to steal away our almost-ripe fruits this summer. Grumble, grumble.

  • I am so sorry about your san marzanos and blueberries. My blueberry plants always die. I gave up on them forever. My San Marzanos are producing beautifully despite the giant grashoppers attempt to decimate them. However my peppers are all dismal and not a single squash on any of my squash plants.

  • Tracy

    We are swamped with rain here in NW Florida!!! 70″ already this year (22″ July 4th weekend alone) and we normally only get about 60″! On the plus size my grass looks better than it has in 10 years and my meyer lemon trees have just exploded! The should be ripe soon:) but I am ready to sample some this weekend!

  • If it’s any comfort, some of my citrus have lost 99% of their leaves before, then bounced back just fine!

    • It’s so sketchy looking. I removed all but two fruit, which made me sad. But it will be worse if it dies 🙁

  • I cheated this year since I just joined CSA. I keep saying maybe next year I’ll do a garden but the weeds scare me the most. They always win in the gardens I’ve tried. If the weeds don’t overtake the garden, then the slugs do. I think I’m feeding the local slug population. I’ve even tried the beer trick with the slugs but I think they just think its more of a party at my garden. Your eggplants look beautiful.

  • Gwyn

    My eggplant, poblano, jalapeno and okra are the gifts that never stop giving right now. My tomatoes, cucumber, peas, beans and squash all had a very BAD year and way few produce. Hoping to try out some butternut squash and broccoli soon. We will see. My peach trees had tons of fruit, but it never ripened and they eventually just fell off or the squirrels finished them off. Your eggplant look great.

    • Katy B

      One thing I read on peach trees, if they end up with a ton of fruit, they don’t have enough energy to make all those fruits big, so you end up with a bunch of little fruits you can’t eat. What you end up having to do is pinch off an amount of them in the early stages, so the resources will be put in the still attached peaches. Our tree wasn’t big enough this year to put it into practice, but I’m hoping next year we’ll have a good crop to test this on.

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