Feast or Famine

Boy isn't that the truth around here. For the past few years we would have starved if we had to live off what I grew but not this year. I wish I could say it's because I'm such a master gardener but I know a good part of it has to be due to the weather we have had.

Example is the melon and squash patch. 

In the past few years I haven't been able to harvest not one.

So I planted a few extra figuring bugs or weather would take them

I had a piece in my patch that is 15 x 15 ft that has had black plastic over top for a couple of years now. I have been wanting to put in a couple of more beds there but haven't gotten around to it.

So I made eight openings where I planted  2 mounds of each acorn squash, cantaloupe, watermelon and pumpkins.

I left 2 or 3 plants in each spot thinking I lose most or all again.

But no not this year. While I was in California this past July we had an unusual amount of rain and cooler temps.

Which the plants just loved. 

See what I mean. It is so filled with vines I can not walk in there or even see where all the melons are. I had to take a long stick to part the vines to see what was where.

And without being able to see them I could not keep track of where they were or if the were getting ripe to pick.

I had to come up with a way to mark where they were. I thought surveyor markers and I was going to make something like that.

Took some wire coat hangers and straighten them out and looped one end.

Then I tied a strip of bright fabric. Heaven knows I have plenty of fabric to spare.

I used two colors, pink for the soon to be ripe and yellow for the smaller later to ripen. 

Then I went out with my stick and located all the melons. 

I ended up using 20 markers and some of those spots have more than one melon. Like I said it's a feast of a year.

See what I mean by you can't see the melons very well

 if not at all.

Now I didn't mark the acorn squash cause it's next to the pathway and they are visible. And the pumpkins are just now putting on fruit, besides there another tale to be told with them.

Now I know we will be loaded all at once with ripe fruit. In fact I just picked two melons today.

The one on the left weighed 7.5 pounds. 

What a doozie.

 The garden is really producing this year, in fact I have picked already this summer,

86 lbs of green beans

61 lbs of tomatoes

12 lbs of cucumbers

44.25 lbs of summer squash

10.5 lbs of peppers

7 eggplants

and 2 cantaloupes

And the garden is still going strong.

I have to admit to my being absent from writing much is due to all of this. I have so many things I want to write about, that I hope in the near future be able to have time to share.