The State of the Yard; the (almost) Death of the Garden

Two days in a row. I'm on a roll here. Unfortunately, as I intimated yesterday, the yard and garden are not doing as well.

But perhaps I need to back up to July for just a moment. When last we checked on the greenery, in late June, things were growing nicely. By the middle of July, some serious problems were manifesting. Like sick squash plants:

And even dying squash plants:

A young friend pointed out the problem, one she could identify because her mother was having the same problem at their house. Squash bugs!

Not only were this pernicious little beasts all over our squash in all stages of development from eggs to hatchlings to immature models to adults as seen above, but we also found more eggs on our cucumber leaves:

We treated everything with organic bug killers and things seemed to be doing okay for a while. At least, the plants that hadn't died were still green and leafy. Like the cucumbers and tomatoes:

And the squash that the bugs hadn't yet found:

And even the pumpkins:

Tomatoes were starting to ripen:

The only anomaly was that one of our apple trees was suddenly producing pears:

Huh. On reflection, we realized that this "apple" tree had never actually produced mature fruit before in all the years we have lived here. And the leaves did look more like those of the two pear seedlings we put in this year than they did the leaves on the apple tree. So when the previous owner told us that the fruit trees at the bottom of the slope were apple trees, he was either mistaken or lying. Take your pick.

The slave labor and I had been working diligently in the yard, pulling weeds and cutting back some of the more obnoxious plants. The back yard, where we were going to be hosting a Bat Mitzvah, was looking pretty good.

We even put some flowering annuals along the back wall of the house to give the place a little color:

We also hired some guys to come and haul away the trash and yard waste that had been piling up. Things like the carpet from the Wizard's office, which the offspring had tossed out the window, and the pieces of the playhouse that they deconstructed. And bags and bags of weeds that just didn't fit into our trash barrel each week. It was a mighty load:

It was so impressive, in fact, that I took another picture just to feel the full impact of how much had been accumulating in that corner of the yard:

Look at that pretty blue sky! And look at all the empty space that magically appeared behind the wall where we had been hiding the trash:

There is still some lumber there from the playhouse, but some friends are interested in using it to build their own playhouse. If not, I'm sure we can freecycle the boards and things.

Getting rid of the trash was good, but as I mentioned yesterday, we had three solid days of rain somewhere in there and the yard -- the yard we had pulled so many weeds out of -- was becoming green:

It was also green down the slope where we had nearly eliminated unwanted plants:

Really, there was nothing around these new pear trees just a month or so ago:

And the squash bugs, which we had treated to within a nanometer of their lives (or so we thought) were back. Or they had never gone completely away.

Which meant that the squash plots were totally gone. Not worth saving at all.

(But look at all those weeds surrounding them! Why don't the squash bugs go after the weeds, I wonder?)

And, having decimated all of the yellow squash and zucchini plants, the bugs are now after the pumpkins:

We are on the point of calling the entire garden thing quits for the year. The squash and zucchini are gone, the pumpkins are on their way out, and the cucumbers are still under attack. On the other hand, there are plenty of green tomatoes on the vines and this morning, I found cantelope!

I'm just hoping those brown leaves aren't an indication that the squash bugs also like melons.

The pears (the ones that weren't really apples) are about ready to pick:

And the apples that really are apples are getting there as well:

And even better, the peach tree has come through with flying colors. This picture was taken after two other families came and picked peaches for their own purposes:

We also brought in a first batch of peaches to eat and freeze for ourselves:

I guess this is a year of fruit rather than vegetables.

In the aftermath of the Bat Mitzvah, our back yard has almost returned to normal. This was the scene of the event:

The canopy we put up to shade the Torah is still there, but all the chairs that were between the platform and the swing have been put away. All that remains is the weeds that need to be pulled. Again.

Especially the puncture  vine.

Guess what the slave labor and I are going to be doing for the rest of the week.