Still here...and the bad

I keep walking around the garden taking pictures and then not writing blog posts. I think part of the reason is that there are so many things about the garden right now that aren't good. There's a point every summer where the garden looks like a jungle, there are weeds everywhere, and pests are taking their toll. This year all of those things, together with the weather, are having noticeable consequences.

The thing about a garden, though, is that for everything bad there seems to be something good. In the spirit of catharsis, then, here are some bad things about the garden.

One of the absolute worst things this year is the Japanese beetles. I've never seen them this bad where I live. You can see their damage all over town. A local garden center says it's because last summer was so wet that the larva, which usually die in the dry August soil, thrived. That's not good news because this summer is also wet.

I've seen them everywhere. In addition to marigolds

and salvia

I've seen them on basil, zinnias, green beans (of course), morning glories, cucumbers and last, but not least, the linden trees.

They've done so much damage to the two small lindens in my front yard that I'm concerned the trees won't survive. I have no great love for lindens, and would be happy to replace them with oak trees, but when it comes to shade, I'd rather not have to start over. These two trees are 15 feet tall. I have sprayed with pyrethrin and will be treating with milky spore before the summer is over. The one bright spot is that, although I've removed a couple from the peach tree, it shows no signs of damage.

My cucumber plant has slowly been succumbing to something. I'm guessing bugs, but I really haven't seen very many. For awhile, it was still sending out new vines, while the old ones were withering, but it's pretty much all dying now.

The tomatoes seem to be suffering from everything. I think there is some blight, but this one looks like it might have something else as well.

I have been picking tomatoes, but I'm not getting quite enough to can and some of them are rotting before we can eat them. I have yet to pick an Amish paste, but some of them have rotted on the vine. All of the plants are still pretty lush, however, and there are quite a few green tomatoes.

Something has been nibbling on the peppers, both varieties.

The bites are fairly small, though, so I just cut around them.

I dug up the potatoes today. It looks like there are quite a few potatoes, but most of them are no bigger around than a quarter.

I was actually surprised to get anything because I had only seen a couple blooms on the plants. I'm guessing the prolonged hot spell we had is the culprit.

When I spell them all out, they don't seem that bad. I can already think of quite a few good things, but I'll save those for another post.