The First fruit of the Cinnamon Girl pie pumpkin

Rock Star Jack o'Lantern pumpkins are also setting fruit indicating how well those plants have done in my garden over many seasons. Initially, it was difficult for me to find a large Jack o'Lantern type that would mature to orange by October. The silly things store well in my basement - just wish that there was some flavor to them.

I have big hopes for little Cinnamon Girl! The plants are supposed to have an early-maturing crop of pie pumpkins. After the nearly complete failure of my winter squash last year, I thought it was time to do some exploring with the pumpkins.

Steve

My pepper plants and eggplant look characteristically horrible. I remain hopeful.

Reading some gardening advice online that these plants should not be set out until overnight temperatures are "consistently above 60°f." (Some advise 55 ;o)

We recently had our 3rd official low above f 60°. The other mornings like that were nearly a month ago.

Steve

Yes, that worked, Skybird!

I'll venture another photo - at the other end of the garden and away from the embarrassingly puny melon plants but where I have the Cha Cha Kabocha and Buttercup squash. Now keep in mind that last year by this time, the Cha Cha were dead and gone!

That dense pea trellis is to the right of the camera and making a difference for wind protection. ( I may have lots of winter squash. :o)

Steve

The green beans have just about the nicest plants, ever. And, are producing well.

Almost miraculously, the eggplant are growing! I'm not sure when was the last time that I had a good eggplant year. I'm not counting my eggs before ... ummm, it's not like they have much of anything on them but the plants look pretty good.

Melons are still a little questionable but there are some Passport galia melons setting fruit. A few had a few fruits last year, terrible as it was. The cantaloupe plants are vining along. (Last year, my Goddess melons died! :o( The Gris de Rennes melons have lots of flowers on little plants. The cucamelons are growing - that's about all I can say about them.

Things are kinda turning around from just sitting there.

Steve

I wish I'd planted beans but got too busy. Ah, well. This has been a banner year for cucumbers and peppers. Must be all the heat! Only thing that's really done poorly is the broccoli raab and radishes. For some reason the flea beetles DECIMATED them, yet left everything else alone. It's weird. Also a few pepper and tomato plants contracted viruses early on but thankfully didn't spread to the bulk of the other plants. As seen in my garden update video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADWMZnvVOIY ) the grasshoppers ate whole sections of things BUT! I put out extra birdseed and water at the feeding stations after I filmed the devastation -- and the house sparrows gobbled them right up! So non-native bird species aren't so bad, after all. ;)

Update on the melons. They are coming through the season okay. The first-to-ripen Goddess cantaloupe was enjoyed, yesterday.

I don't know how many years it might take me to be fully successful at gardening. Last year, the Goddess vines died in our bouncy, spring temperatures. There were a few Passport galia melons. This year, the Goddess should produce more fruit than the galia.

The galia have never failed/failed (quite a few melon varieties have). I've grown either Passport or Diplomat for over 15 years. I have some faith in them. And, having melons fresh from my garden is important to me. I guess that I'm not ready to move to another place in the world to be more secure in the idea that I can have melons but the conditions here must be far from ideal for any melon variety. It gives me reason to continue exploring and to maintain some diversity in the melon patch.

This year, there are 4 new-to-me Gris de Rennes melons. One may be close to being ripe.

Steve

The watermelons have been okay here. Sort of small but tasty. What has done really well this year is Thai purple yard beans! Better yet we really like their flavor even raw. The other pole beans are also prolific. While we didn't get all the varieties of tomatoes we'd have preferred and they seemed to come in late all the tomatoes are doing well. Also probably one the best years for eggplants. Japanese cucumbers are on our favorite list from now on. They can get large and LONG but are still tasty and not many seeds. Been a decent year for okra.

Some of the basil plants have not done well this year. Not sure but I suspect the soil in that area was too dry also competing in that area with a rapidly growing linden tree. I suppose I don't have much else on the not doing well list so far it's been a good year.

Finally got a real rain the other day about 1/2 inch which is probably more than we've received in the last two months combined. The garden looked vibrantly green the morning after.

I seem to be running behind this year.

Beans are good, but some getting tired.

Bad year for squash this year - enough yellow and wart squash to keep us busy, but nearly zero good patti pans.

Cucumbers have been prolific. The Dragon Eggs produced a lot but now have powdery milew in a big way. English cuckes going stong now.

Had very good early tomatoes (7/15-8/10) but all of those 95 degree days shut down fruit set and we are limping along now. Only Garden Gem and Thessaloniki have lots of green tomatoes now.

Peppers have been poor. Seem to be improving some.

The grapes that were not wiped out in the 3 april hard freezes are ripening nicely. Just should have 5 times as many. Vines ae very strong. I may add a Reliance vine on a new trellis in the spring.

@Jerry (Broomfield CO 5) - could you post a picture of your grapes please??

Probably can later today

OK, here are some grape pics.

The trellis below is a Modified Munson design about 11’ long with two vines – a 5-year-old Somerset on the left and a Himrod on the right planted July 2019 from a pot.I made the trellis with folding arms, but fixed would be fine for me.

Modified Munson Trellis

I kept 3 bunches of Himrod grapes so I could try them.

Some somerset grapes.

The bags to protect the fruit are organza bags and are about 90% effecitve gainst 4 and 6 legged things. An example:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LCKOCD2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This tree will come out and the new treliis will go here. There is 12’ between the (sparse) Lilac bushes. I plan to build a trellis of about 9’ for just one vine. My others are getting very crowded depite most places recommending 6’ per vine. I also plan to make the trellis entirely out of steel this time with fixed arms.

You can see how poorly this tree is doing compared to the one on the left planted the same time.

My thinking right now is that the new vine will be St Theresa aka Montreal Blues.

Awesome stuff, Jerry. thanks for posting. I built a greenhouse and plan to start growing next year