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hendi_alex
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Location: Central Sand Hills South Carolina

2014 Summer Garden Winding Down

Has been a bountiful garden this year, but as usual, some disappointments. We made a ton of great tomatoes, but most vines are now sickly, and production has slowed to a trickle since mid August. Also, the leaf footed bugs were really bad later in the season, with their piercings causing a decline in tomato quality and causing much early rot. I did find that control is fairly easy. First thing in the morning when the bugs and plants are wet with dew, the bugs will just stay in place to be picked off and squished. Only found that out recently, so don't think that leaf footed bugs will be a problem next year as will pick and squish vigorously before the population gets very large.

Succession squash vines got mildew and produced just a few squash. But we had a very long crop from May through Early July.

Succession cucumbers only made a limited crop. But this was still our best cucumber year ever from the earlier vines.

Green beans didn't perform well this year, only giving us a decent crop for about three weeks.

Egg plants only produced moderately this year, but still gave us a long harvest with adequate fruit.

Dinosaur kale turned out to be a delight as this was our first trial. It produced well into the heat, giving us greens to steam when normally we have none. Will definitely plant it again.

Tomatoes continue at a trickle, okra continues to perform great, jalapenos continue to do well.

Fall crops are in one gallon containers and are growing in morning sun until temperatures moderate down into the 80's when they will be set into the garden beds. Still, we have already had three batches of mixed greens from these young plants, having harvest Swiss chard, kale, and Georgia collards. Also have lots of broccoli plants and some larger form collards. All look very good in spite of the heat.
Last edited by hendi_alex on Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

imafan26
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Still a pretty good year.

That was a handy tip about the leaf footed bug. I used to have them and had to net everything. Once they got inside the netting they were hard to get rid of .

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lakngulf
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Location: Lake Martin, AL

Good review and recap, Alex. One thing I learned from you a couple years back was to plant, plant, plant. Especially tomatoes. As you know, the tomato vine has to be viewed as an expendable--it is on the way out, just hoping to get some production from the vine while it is in its prime. My results for the entire garden this year are very similar to what you have outlined above.

Our summer (although hot as hxxx for couple of weeks now) has been one of the coolest summer I can remember. That helped the squash, beans, and even tomato plants to hold on. Whenever a plant would die or become useless, I would pull it up and plant something new. Just today I harvested a few ears of sweet corn, tomatoes, and a couple of squash. Never had squash for so long in the season.

Happy Fall Gardening. I really enjoy hearing about the process and production of so many good gardeners.



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