How does your garden grow?

And the squash has taken over...

Despite the relatively dry summer so far, the plants have done relatively well on the Campus Crops gardens. Perhaps all that organic matter in the compost we laid down early in the season as well as the new straw mulch is helping conserve moisture and keeping the soil cool. Despite that, certain plants are doing much much better compared to others.

For instance, the winter squash is spreading over the garden and throwing it tendrils over everything. The cucumbers, which were infested by some bugs, is now doing very well and putting out glossy green fruit that appears to be ready for harvest. The tomatoes are also quite fine, filling up their growing spaces with copious leaves and the first ripe fruits. Then there are the chard... which has still not recovered from the early season attack by leaf miners. The word "mangy" comes to mind.

In other words: Squash > Cucumbers > Tomatoes >> Chard.

Well, there's still several months of growing season so we'll see how everything pans out.

In the lower garden we wanted to plant some Thai basil. Something grew, but it's definitely NOT basil. It looks more like some kind of Chinese mustard that the bugs really like. Guess the seed company screwed up their packaging...

The first tomatoes!

And the smallest pinto bean plant is now climbing

For some reason the tomatoes and basil planted in the bins in the upper garden are a bit tiny. Limits to the root system? Variety?