I think this is my best garden ever even though I don’t have a lot of produce yet-but it’s all coming! It’s gotten so lush with just a couple of days of rain. I don’t mean to brag but I must-it’s really hard to grow a garden like this in the high desert. I fight the pests and have problems too just like you but diligence and hard work has really help. Hope you enjoy these photos.
This is the same angle from the corner of the garden I’ve photographed since the beginning of this year. Wow what a difference 2.5 months makes.
55 tomatoes planted May 15th!
Here is the same corner in the beginning of the season back on May 15, 2011
Here the view is looking towards the entry from inside. Zucchini, flowers, scarlet runner beans, rattlesnake beans tomatoes, corn, asparagus, sunflowers, rhubarb all stuffed in the entry!
These Emerite pole beans are hiding the teepee now.
Corn, asparagus, flowers, rhubarb and sunflower coming along.
Baby cucumbers- these are Boothsby Blonde variety. They will make great bread and butter pickles.
Caleb, my apprentice, gave me a gourd seed that someone had given him but he didn’t know what type it was, so I call it-Caleb’s mystery gourd. Notice the purslane in the left corner. I’m going to try some this year so I left it in..
Flower bed to the right of the entry-zinnias, cosmos nasturtiums, pole beans and sunflowers. I can only imagine this when they all bloom.
My one lone cosmos flower yet but what a beauty-Magenta cosmos flower
Here is Caleb’s baby mystery gourd-wonder what kind it’ll be. Kind of looks like a pear right now.
The tomatoes have really shot up-about 5 feet tall now. Now the Long Gourd tower in the background doesn’t look as tall.
Best tasting zucchini ever-Costata Romanesco
Pepperoncinis’ with eggplants behind them
The Long Gourd is stretching towards the top of that 10′ trellis tower I built! Never thought I’d see that!
Scarlet Runner bean flower-beautiful!
Here’s one of Caleb’s bees doing it’s thing with the pumpkin flower.
Finally the Shishito peppers are kicking in.
View from the inside looking out towards the gate. The Rattlesnake pole beans are producing and growing over the arbor now. Way in the background inside the corral is the pumpkin patch.
Finally a baby ‘Greenie’ pumpkin-about 5 inches in circumference right now-small but I’ll take it!
Put my cell phone on top of the giant pumpkin today to give it some perspective. It put on 11.5 lbs yesterday— went from 56.5 lbs to 70 lbs. Hope the squirrel doesn’t get it. Been hiding all the pumpkins under row cover and burlap to discourage the squirrel.
Today’s small harvest-slow but steady!
giantveggiegardener 
Ahhh … I am so in love with your garden !!!
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I’m so glad you love it too. Definitely a labor of love!
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I have serious white flies issues with my tomato plants. I’ve tried everything from spraying chemical stuff on the plants to buying lady bugs, but none of them seems to work well.
Flies seems to be lessen the next day after the first application of chemical spray, but soon after that, they all returned; and now, different brands of chemical sprays don’t even stop them a bit.
Because of this, I started to hose down the whole plants whenever I water them in hopes of hassling the flies well enough that they will leave my plants alone, but nope, they are still there. I also started to realized that mold looking kinda stuff started to spread on the tomato plants’ leaves, wonder if it’s because that I hosed them down with water and the moisture stay on the leaves which causes the mold to grow on leaves.
Do you have any ideas how can I get rid of the white flies and also, are those molds that grow on the plants? If yes, how can I prevent them from growing further? I’ve been cutting off each branch that had molds, but the mold just keep showing up on different branches
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Hi Candace-Had to do some research on this as I luckily haven’t had this problem. Whiteflies produce honeydew (like aphids) that drips onto the plant encouraging the growth of sooty mold and they can spread plant viruses-that’s the black mold you are seeing. Spraying water on plants is supposedly one solution but obviously didn’t work for you. Here are some other suggestions I read about although I haven’t tried them. Good luck.
1.Whiteflies cam be an indicator of phosphorous and magnesium deficiencies. Correct magnesium deficiencies by mixing 4 ounces of Epsom salts (like the kind you take a bath in) with 1 gallon of water. Use as a soil soak for infested plants. It may help.
2. Spray with seaweed fertilitzer on the foliage. This makes the leaves undesirable to lay their eggs on.
3.Try Insecticidal soap or light horticultural oil sprayed on leaves-both sides.
4.Next year grow repellant plants: French marigolds (Tagetes), Calendula and nasturtiums
5. Last resort: Pyrethrum Spray a botanical poison, paralyzes them on contact. The key to using this product is to directly spray the target pest. This would be the under and upper surfaces of the leaves where they congregate. Making 2 applications 3 to 5 days apart should give control. Do not spray when the bees are out as it will kill them as well. Spray in early morning or late when bees are not present.
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Thank you !!! Thank you !!!
Thank you so much for taking the trouble of researching the solutions for me !!! I have some seaweed concentrate on hands, so I am gonna go out there to spray it on those plants right after I finish typing this message; besides, I am also gonna go get some magnesium and add them to the soil.
I will let you know how things turn out. Thank you again for helping me out !!!
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