THEY WEREN'T KIDDING

Tomato Island

Wow, when they said this area flooded I really had no idea just HOW MUCH water they were talking about. Holy crap does it ever flood! But not to worry - the pathways might now be rivers but the planting beds are raised, intact, and growing wonderfully! (And so are the weeds, unfortunately...)

The tomatoes are looking AWESOME. I'm not sure whether it was just time, the rain, or my excessive amount of blood meal and fertilizer (or maybe a combination of all three!) but these guys could't be more perfect right now.

Now that's a good lookin' tomato plant!

The kale is doing better since I put down some eggshells - or maybe the rain has kept the bunnies away, not sure:

Kale with only minor nibbles

The tumbling toms are doing great as well.

The rhubarb has its ups and downs, but this one seems to be taking off pretty well with little to no damage.

The beans and lettuce are growing... soon enough they will start climbing the string poles!

Gnomie is camera shy

The nasturtiums have exploded in growth over the last few days. They loved the rain!

Slowly but surely, the peas are doing their thing up the tepees, I need to add more string, some of them are getting a little bent and crooked and tangling up around each other. I'll do that this evening.

I am so so so happy that the peppers seem to be on the mend! The black is fading, although some of the lower leaves are still sort of yellow. The new growth looks great though and they are slowly getting bigger. Phew! I thought for a while there I might lose them all...

The jalapeno plant is putting out its first peppers, I should be able to pick these guys in another week or so! I gave this plant and the sweet pickle pepper plant a good spray with epsom salts dissolved in water the other day, which gives the plant a boost of magnesium in order to set more flowers/fruit.

And last but not least, the squash! I covered up my squash plants to protect them from the squash bugs and cucumber beetles, because this is what happens if you don't:

Oops

That's actually the cucumber that I just planted out on Saturday. Sigh. I guess I should have covered it up too. Oh well. Here's what the squash look like with their bug nets.

Hopefully this will do the trick! Next year I'll set up some actual row covers, but for now this is fine. The fabric will stay on until they start to flower, at which time I'll either have to hand pollinate them and put the cover back on, or take it off entirely and let the bees and butterflies do their thing. I haven't decided yet, I guess I'll wait and see how bad the bugs are later on.

Despite the flooding, I am super happy with the way the plants are growing now. Maybe they just needed some time to get established (or maybe it was the entire container of blood meal I sprinkled around). But I AM glad that I built the beds as high as I did or else this whole garden would be swimming and I'd be crying over my months of plant growing gone down the drain.

It's also a good thing that I have a great pair of rubber boots!