End of August Pictures of the Homestead

Apparently, my phone and computer kissed and made up, so I can upload pictures the way I'm supposed to again.  No clue what the problem was, but it is better now, so here are the pictures I was "supposed" to share on Wednesday.  I think my garden has definitely passed the pinnacle of beauty it reached in July!  I'm still getting complements on it from people in the neighborhood though, even though I'm getting ever more critical of it.  I think someone's coming out this weekend to take family pictures in the garden, after that, a lot of stuff is going to start coming down, like that towering corn.  I strongly suspect next week's pictures will be vastly different.

My once glorious Brandywine tomato plants have gotten insanely infected with leaf spot and started to produce fruit that is so hideous, I wonder if it is okay to eat.  It rots before it is fully ripe and frequently has chunks missing, which makes me wonder if something non-human is eating it.  I'm seriously considering removing these plants entirely from my landscape.  It breaks my heart to do that to a tomato plant before frost comes, but if it isn't growing something we can eat....

In contrast, there is lots of growth and vibrance in the back raised bed.  Unfortunately, a lot of that growth is weeds and cabbage worms, so I guess I have my work cut out here too.

The tomato plants that just looked stressed when I moved them to the front of the house now look almost dead ("but they still have tomatoes on them, so they are still beautiful" as a neighbor commented.  Um, if you say so!).  I need to find out if the contractors are done with the section of garage behind my house so maybe I can hide them from public view.  Or maybe after today's heat, I'll move them back to the patio area where they were, since it will be started to get much cooler again, so maybe the warmth there (and being in sight so I am more inclined to water them when they ask for it) will save them.  Just one more month to go, guys, then you can die with the frost--not before!  The watermelon plants are quite cheerfully taking over the front yard!

I'm calling my Three Sisters experiment a fail.  I think it has a lot to do with the variety of beans I used, but the beans have wrestled the corn to the ground in a number of places!  On the plus side, the beans are starting to produce a lot, so I'm glad about that.  However, it still looks like crap up close, so I'll be pulling the corn just as soon as I'm sure that the green dent corn has dented and giving the beans something else to play with if possible.  Next year, I'll go back to growing my beans on the vertical growing area of the raised beds.

The front raised bed looks dramatically different without the pumpkin plant dominating the view.  Hard to believe that two little evil grub-like things, now also known as two little white smears on the road,  could do so much damage!  My experience with squash vine borers this year has taught me quite a lot and I feel a lot better prepared to defend my crops from them next year.  On the plus side, the tomato plants here, now some of my best looking tomatoes, have a lot more room to spread out in the vertical growing area.

The potato condo is looking great, but with only about a month until the expected first frost, I wonder if it will have time to fill up with potatoes, even if  I do scrounge up more compost to fill it with to complete the last two layers of slats.   I definitely will want to get this started earlier next year!