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| The north side of the first raised bed seems to be doing well. |
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| For some reason, the south side of the raised bed has done rather poorly, except for the squash in the NE corner (top of picture). The SE corner seems exceptionally bad. I've lost an okra plant and it looks like I'm about to lose a squash plant. |
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| You can see the squash sprout that hasn't done mush growing at all. I dug down to the soil which the straw slowly covered up and planted watermelon seeds. Hopefully they take. |
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| The blackberry bush may have finally hit its stride. |
For some reason, the plants in the northern half of the raised bed have taken off. The corn stalks are sending up green leaves from the tops of their stems. The runner beans put out big green leaves and should be putting out their runners soon. The squash seems to be doing the best. most of the plants have big green leaves, and I'm hoping I've started them late enough to avoid squash borer attacks.
I was talking to one of the men who operate the community garden around the corner about their efforts to grow squash. He said the only organic way to combat them involves planting squash later in the growing season to disrupt their life cycle. According to Joe, the squash borer is actually a wasp that lays its larvae in squash blossoms. The larvae then eat the blossom from the inside out and fly off. Nature can be gruesome. After the squash borer has done its damage, the gardener is left with a superficially healthy plant that never produces a gourd.
Back at the raised bed, I've found that all the plants on the south side of the raised bed seem to be, at best, sickly looking, and at worst, dying. I'm perplexed because I didn't vary anything about the planting between different parts of the raised bed.