It only takes one bloody pumpkin bite before you start carrying a stick to the ghetto

The garden is doing great. Produce production has increased significantly. So far I've harvested 6 cucumbers, 3 zucchinis, a pint of cherry tomatoes, a couple pounds of turnips, a few beets, more than a gallon of green beans, and outrageous amounts of chard and kale. I've been very impressed with the garden this year. That doesn't mean that I haven't had some failures; it just means I've learned from my past failures enough to see improved results. This year my lessons have been about feeding plants,controlling bugs, selecting better seeds, and using space wisely. Lack of nutrients was killing my tomato and squash plants a few weeks ago, so I started using Miracle-Gro on them, and they perked back up. I've also figured out that using Miracle-Gro on my plants will generate usable produce sooner, which is especially important for plants that bolt in the heat (broccoli, fennel). And in the future I will prepare the soil better by adding some sort of fertilizer in the spring before I plant. For the most part I haven't had problems with bugs eating everything in sight. Some were snacking on my baby green bean plants, so I found a recipe for a homemade concoction to spray on them. It seemed to work. I also wanted to avoid corn earworms. I hate those things. It's so gross to pick a pretty ear of corn and find that a fat grub has started eating it already. I read that a few drops of vegetable or mineral oil on the silks will prevent them, so I'm trying it. We'll see in the next month whether it worked or not. My other big bug problem is squash vine borers. Last year they ate my spaghetti squash before I could and decimated my zucchini plants before they had produced much. I recognized them infesting my squash ghetto and knew I had to take action before the entire ghetto was compromised. My research suggests that wrapping the base of young squash plants with aluminum foil to prevent the borers from getting in in the first place is the best solution, but it's a bit late for that now. So I found an insecticidal soap spray that's supposed to help control them. The soap is approved for organic farming. I'm not a nut for organics, but I'd prefer the veggies I grow to not potentially poison us. It would be a shame to increase the veggies in our diets and get sick from it. I started hunting for different varieties of basil seeds when my recent attempt at pesto was nasty. Previous attempts had also been nasty, but I thought it was because the basil I was using had already turned bitter. My basil isn't bitter yet, so I was hoping for better results. I was disappointed. So I researched a bit and found that there are basil varieties that are better for pesto than others. I just ordered Profumo di Genova basil seeds from Amazon and am hoping they will make good pesto in September. The last thing I've learned is that some plants get bigger than I expect, so parts of my garden need to expand a little next year. The purple hull peas are growing riotously. I had to put up a little fence to keep them from overrunning the green beans. They could use another block-length of width, which is easy to fix for next year. I will also probably fence them again to make sure they observe some boundaries. They have no concept of personal space. I also need to make sure that veggies in blocks don't interfere with veggies in pots and vice versa. My turnips and rutabagas in blocks have prevented my kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli in containers from getting the light and water they need. And the plants in the blocks around the squash ghetto are having trouble getting light now that the squash leaves are getting huge and growing everywhere. A little space would benefit all of them. The squash ghetto itself needs to expand its width by a few blocks. Some of the vines stretch the length of the ghetto and have had to be turned back to grow towards the plant again. It's crazy. I've put up tomato fencing around the perimeter to keep them from growing into the yard and interfering with Matt's mowing. They are growing so thickly that it's hard to harvest the produce or spray the vines with insecticide or add some Miracle-Gro. This is why I ghettoized the squash. They grow everywhere and are hard to control. I've already had to barricade them, and I recently had to start arming myself. I picked up a pumpkin vine the other day to move it into a better position, and it bit me hard enough to draw blood. I decided that what I needed was a stick to move the vines aside. I found one today, and it was very helpful when I sprayed for squash bugs. I hate to feel the need to be armed in the ghetto, but I also don't want to end up bleeding every day. I'll expand the ghetto and see if that helps. I also decided today that I should try to sew simple grow bags out of lawn fabric to put inside of the blocks in the future. It will be so much easier to get the soil back out to be mixed with fertilizer if I can just pull the whole grow bag out and refill it. Grow bags are available from Amazon; but I've got a plan in mind, and I have the lawn fabric and a sewing machine. We'll see how it turns out. Now that I've got empty spots after harvesting beets and turnips, it's a good time to try something new. The explosion of produce has led to a flurry of cooking which has made the kitchen a bit messy which has displeased Matt. (I'm not thrilled with the mess either, but I at least get the joy of making the mess in the first place while creating things.) But I expect some of the cooking to slow soon. The turnips and beets are requiring more processing than other veggies--for one thing, they produce both roots and edible greens that have to be cooked separately--and now they've all been harvested. I'll replant soon for a small winter harvest. The tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, and purple hull peas should come in at more reasonable rates because they are continual producers and don't have big one-time harvests. I also got the great idea to make borscht (Russian stew) out of my beets, but I chose a recipe that requires making my own beef stock out of marrow bones slow simmered for hours with carrots, garlic, and onions. The beef stock is fantastic, and I'll have enough to make both borscht and French onion soup; but it's also been another project to mess up the kitchen.