…the vegetable garden is giving me numerous tomatoes, squash, zucchini, beans, peppers, eggplant, and cucumbers as long as I can retrieve them before the bugs devour them. Critters like the tomato hornworm hide among the leaves of the plants and munch away unnoticed until they become enormous.
The plants appreciate the afternoon thunderstorms that bring us rain several times a week, and I am thankful I have not had to irrigate the crops.
In low spots, the soil is somewhat muddy and the rain has enabled me to identify places I need to work on drainage. I do have raised beds in my garden, which has helped to keep most of the plants out of the mud. I tilled many parts of the garden for the first time since bulldozer flattened the trees, and in the photo below you can see the erosion that’s removing some of the soil on the slopes. 
Sorghum fills the left bed as a cover crop, and on the right is a bed of celosia which will bloom for cut flowers within a couple of weeks. We are working to stop the erosion. The garden lies at the bottom of the yard and the bottom of a hill, and so much of the water from the house and the yard winds up near the garden.
These ‘Amethyst’ purple beans have alarmed a couple of my customers at the Farmers Market, but I think they are beautiful. They are stringless and taste just like ordinary green beans when cooked, and they also look like normal beans when cooked.
I hope to see you at the market!
