It's been a few weeks now, and I: have applied another layer of straw; have to keep pulling up the bindweed that survived the solarization; have put in some marigolds to keep the tomatoes company. Some plants have done better than others.
Tomatoes: 0 for 3
Squashes: 50/50
Beans: woo hoo!
So, the tomato leaves slowly tuned brown + shriveled. I couldn't figure out what (if any) disease they maybe had. Plants never got any bigger, never set flowers. I snapped off the brown stuff, but lately, two of them seem to be setting new leaves. Weird.
Next year we'll plant any tomatoes in the perennial bed, against a south-facing garden wall. I think it will help keep the plants warmer, radiating heat into the evenings — it still gets down in the 60s most nights. All of our friends who have successfully grown 'maters this summer seem to have done the wall thing.
Squash #1 (Delicata): Also failure to thrive, but not dying either. It's about the same size as when it was planted — just not spreading out or anything. Blooms a plenty, just all squinched up there in the middle.
Squash #2 (Acorn): Yay! Lookit it go! It's sprawling all over like a good squash plant should. (Those are the beans in the background.)
All kinds of baby squashes underneath. Biggest is about the size of a large orange.
The beans are the most heartening, seeing as how they were a package of seeds (beans) I poked into the ground the day I put all the other plants in, and they're really going — beans already! They're drying beans, though — I hope they'll have enough time to mature before it gets too cold.
[cross-posted from G2NM]
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