Early August Garden Update (plus ducks)

Well, my red Kuri is nearing ripeness.

Gonna be ankle deep in squash, man.

(and those are just the visible ones)

Meanwhile, the crookneck and zucchini are nearing four feet in height.

And cantaloupe...!

The bad thing about the cantaloupe, is that ants keep setting up a nest in the barrel. Watering sends up hundreds of ants, pissed that I hosed em.

The okra is nearing four foot tall. All the plants have multiple flowering sites... So oodles of okra!

The wall of lemon cucumbers is weighing the trellis down, but it's still holding.

The cukes keep sending out suckers, so I've been pinching them off and putting them (the tender sucker ends) into the duck's water, along with purslane and chopped up Swiss chard and okra leaves. Ducks go crazy for the greens! As a bonus, I'll pick the male flowers on the cukes and give them to the duckies as treats.

Plus, it leaves plenty of cukes!

To my mom's delight, we're getting a handful of green beans a day.

All the garden beds were made with landscaping fabric and straw, to serve as mulch and soil cooler. It's the first time I prepared beds like that, and I gotta say it works great, especially with the zucchini and crookneck squash. Both plants have split into multiple plants, increasing production, significantly.

Plus duck poop water helps as fertilizer. Yay for nitrogen!