Land of the ...Mosquito

Happy 4th of July!!

I did not post about my straw bale garden in the month of June, although things have been going (growing) very well. This year we had the wettest June in Illinois EVER. Well at least since 1895, which is how far back the records go. We had 9.37 inches of rain this year, with the second wettest year happening in 1902 with 8.27 inches.

This July we are breaking the record for the most mosquitoes in Illinois EVER (probably).

https://climateillinois.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/wettest-june-and-now-second-month-on-record-for-illinois/

 I have been meaning to post an update, but one thing that has been keeping me out of the garden are the mosquitoes. I am not kidding, they are extreme. I decided to take the plunge today, so I loaded up on bug spray and ventured in. I still ended getting about 10 or so bites anyway, 4 of them on my face. As I was trying to take pictures of the plants the bugs were flying in my face and ears, they were everywhere, it was horrible. I am surprised that they are not visible in the pictures because they were pretty much all I could see.

Kale and tomatoes

Beans, peas, kale

Tomatoes, summer squash, nasturtium and basil.

My first (and still only tomato fruit)

tomato, parsley, nasturtium, cucumber (there are some tiny cucumbers growing on the vines!)

Pepper and eggplants (and nasturtium)
The peppers and eggplant are still small, due to the cooler
temperatures we've been having

more cucumbers

pepper, tomato and eggplant

You can see from the bales that the spiders are thriving as well as a result of the rainfall.

I have to say I am pleased with how this garden experiment is going so far and can't wait to enjoy the fruits of my (non) labor. Seriously, I have hardly done any work since fertilizing and planting. Today is the first day in probably a month that I turned on the drip hose. But mostly I have just peeked in every once in a while to see how things are going. Today I pruned the tomato plants, they all have buds. I should probably add another wire to trellis the tomatoes, beans, and maybe the cucumbers.

Gardeners usually spend a lot of time in the garden weeding, but guess what! There are hardly any weeds in my straw bale garden! (We won't talk about my other two gardens). The few weeds that do come up are very easy to remove.