State of the garden

I finally have a pretty decent row of carrots started, after total failure last spring.  

There's a row of beets planted mid-summer that I'm using from now, and yesterday I replanted a late row of beets that came up just fine, but then something feasted on the young seedling plants.  Might have been my chickens:  I was turning them out every afternoon until I found out they love young, barely-out-of-the-ground plants.  Or it may have been bugs or rabbits.  When these newest-planted beets emerge from the ground, I'm putting some screening over them until they get a little size on them.  

It's hard to believe it myself, but the zucchini plants have made it through many bug attacks and are apparently going to be able to die of natural causes.  I have a couple young plants coming on for later, if my timing is right.  Also a couple of cucumber plants for the fall.  Every year I plant one hill of cukes, thinking all I want is some for eating fresh.  Then I start wishing I had planted more so I could make pickles.  Next year there will be more cucumbers in my garden, and I'll be making my mom's 14-day sweet pickles.  

Next year there will be no sweet potatoes set out.  All those vines that reach from the tomatoes to the corn?  Sweet potato vines.  I could easily plant four or five regular rows of something else in that space.  Besides, I still have mashed sweet potatoes in the freezer from last year, and if these do well I'll probably have plenty to use until 2015.  I can always plant a hill or two of butternut squash, which I use in the same way as sweet potatoes.  

We had some delicious corn from the garden yesterday:  It's the Kandy Korn variety, which supposedly stays sweet and good for picking for up to two weeks... you can see it in the background.  I planted some for later harvest, but that was one of my many failures.  I always have a problem with corn not coming up.  

These cabbages are doing great, but I'm having a time keeping the bugs away.  I never buy cabbage plants.  Seeds are cheaper and give me no trouble whatsoever.  Unless I turn the chickens out when the plants are tiny.  

 There are FINALLY blooms on the okra.  I took this picture early in the day, so the flowers weren't opened up.  Just like its cousin, the hibiscus, okra folds up its blooms for the night.

 We are now getting more tomatoes than we can eat.  Oh happy day!    

The late crop of green beans is just getting started.