Drought and the Garden

The peas have given up the ghost - and who can blame them in the heat and drought we've had this summer!  I'd almost give up on the beans as well, which seemed to be producing a few flowers, but no actual beans...until this week.  Huzzah - the rattlesnake pole beans have finally started to produce!

 But the plants are not thriving.  A) The twine I've been using for trellising keeps breaking - I never had this kind of problem back in NY, and b) something is eating the plants.  The bush beans (dry beans) have struggled and I don't think I've seen a single blossom there.  The culprit?  You tell me:

Yes...that's a hole dug under the fence.  I found that last night.  I've seen rabbits in the garden, and certainly have seen the damage they've done to the beans.  I never had rabbit problems in NY.  The worst I had was the CPBs and the year the voles (?) ate the carrots.

Now, this hole is suspect belongs to the 13-lined ground squirrel.  I've seen one in the yard, and recently found two dead in the road, but otherwise they've been pretty secretive.  I don't know if they damage crops or not, but they are definitely living in my raised beds...almost as bad as the moles.

The corn, while crowded, is actually looking pretty good.

In fact, there are quite a number of ears this year, and many of decent size!  I'm really looking forward to harvesting these...if I can get them before the raccoons.  Based on the crop at the moment, this is the best luck I've ever had with corn!

The butternut squash is going great guns!  It got off to a late start, but it seems to be making up for lost time now.

I've also got some watermelons planted in there - and look!  A melon is in the works!  I'm not the biggest melon fan, but I like the idea of growing them.

 So, the garden tools along...hopefully the beans will produce enough to freeze for the winter, and I'll beat the varmints to the corn.  I've squashed a few batches of squash bug eggs, so maybe I'll dodge that bullet, too.  The spuds are starting to releaf - maybe there's still some hope for them.  The onions, however, I fear are not going to be robust - not like the ones I had in NY.  The tops look good, but the bulbs remain small.  We'll see what happens come harvest time.