Potato flowers on a summer afternoon

This year the garden moved up the hill in hope of more sandy loam and less clay.  The early vegetables spinach and broccoli were mediocre but snap peas and bush beans grew well, as did onions, green peppers and tomatoes.

Neighbors Bob and George invested their sweat and coin in several rows of potatoes.  They have flourished, with an abundance of blossoms and only one attach of the dread Colorado potato beetle.  The bright “alarm” orange of the beetle’s larvae made them easy to spot and fortunately no one had an opportunity to see any of the full-grown beetles – at least not this year.  The speck of white insecticide on the bug’s back was very effective.

Attack mode, potato beetle larva

A surprise came from the “Summer jackpot hybrid zucchini ” seeds  from Gurney’s Seed and Nursery.  Besides the dark green, pale green and deep gold varieties of zucchini that grew on well-behaved bushy plants, an unusual vining squash threatened to take over a corner of the garden.  It produced dozens of 4-6″ pale yellow fruits striped in gold.  The inside was  pale green and buttery-sweet when steamed.   It will take until next year to find if we can regularly grow these attractive squash, but it would be hard to pass them off as zucchini!

The vining “Bluecircle hybrid” squash