Our Gardens - Status and Scorecard

SALINE, MICHIGAN  JULY 24, 2002

Here are some photos from in and around our backyard gardens.  The flowers are doing well (see above) and despite the lack of rain we've already had good results in the vegetable garden. the Below are the big winners this year including our tomatoes, Hungarian hot peppers and cucumbers.  

Green Tomatoes		Spicy hot peppers		Cucumber vine

Although it is still early, it looks like the squash, green pepper and pumpkins crops will be hum dingers.  Here is another winner (compliments of Jack Dooley).

A few of the big losers this year include the carrots, radishes, onions and peas.  The peas & radishes got eaten by bugs, and I hear it's a bad year all around.  For the rest, I believe its is a function of my hard soil.  I'm undecided whether to try again on these next year. 

I read a few books on how to grow the biggest vegetables, but it always takes a lot of hard work.

While we have many critters in our backyard (raccoon, fox, groundhog, rabbit, squirrel, etc.), none have posed a threat to the garden yet.  The fence has kept most of them out.  We've pretty much eliminated the groundhog threat, and I'm keeping an eye on the raccoons.