I must be doing something right

Aside from the early days, when I accidentally flattened my only pumpkin seedling with my clumsy fist, this has been a terrific year in the vegetable garden. Sure there have been things that haven't worked - my peppers are not fabulous - but all in all, it would seem that whatever concoction I've rigged up this year is working.

I slathered the dirt with compost, and turned over the soil with my shovel for the first time this year. Every other year, I've rented this terrible tiller and bounced along with it, mainly just mangling the dirt. This year, I dug it down about a foot and flipped it all as easy as pie. I don't know why I didn't do this before.

Also, I moved things around a bit this year for crop rotation, in an effort to fool the bugs or at least keep them guessing, slowing them down on their path of destruction. Squash vine borers, earwigs, cabbageworms and aphids seem to have forgotten about my vegetable garden this year, and concentrated their efforts instead on my potted flowers and perennial beds. Ha! Perennials will come back, but there's nothing as devastating as waking up to a dead zucchini vine.

The real successes this year are (compare to the list I made in my first entry):

- Royal burgundy beans. These never cease to amaze me.
- zucchini
- cucumbers (am I going to have to start pickling them???)
- basil. Oh. My. God. I have a forest of basil.
- sweet peas
- mystery squash
- the acorn squash that I planted late in the season, from a small flat of yellow seedlings
- stocks
- fennel
- ground cherries

The failures this year have been the root vegetables:
- radishes
- carrots

...but I don't really care about those - I hate radishes and carrots are cheap enough at the store.

The jury's still out on the peppers, but there are flowers and some plants have wee little peppers on them, as-yet-untouched by earwigs (knock on wood).

I know I have gone on and on about the crazy squash and cucumbers in my garden, but I want to show you exactly what I'm talking about. Every day they are climbing up something new - up the garden ornament alongside the sweetpeas, up the remains of my rhubarb, down the path (uncannily well-aimed, I might add), up the beans, around the thai basil (which comes up to my knees at least), and over the fence into the lawn.

I'm at home, so I'll attempt to add pictures to this post shortly.....
In the meantime, the weather's beautiful, it's going to rain soon, people are trickling in for the wedding (Eric's family are gathering, my grandmother arrived yesterday, the maid of honour comes the day-after-tomorrow) and so far, I am nerve-free. It's all good...