This growing season....................

I share a small community garden plot with a friend and it's been a disappointing season for us, too. Our tomatoes all dropped their blossoms in the heat of July. They're flowering again now, so maybe we'll have lots of fall tomatoes but right now there are only one or two tomatoes on each plant. The leaves are curling and the plants don't look that great. We have exactly one eggplant and one pepper on each plant and our beans have done nothing. We've harvested a few rather stunted cucumbers, quite a bit of basil and a little bit of chard. The marigolds we planted to deter pests are doing well, but that's the best that can be said.

Aside from the weather, don't even get me started on the pests this year. The entire community garden has suffered an onslaught of squash vine borers and corn borers. Perhaps the worst thing that has happened at the garden didn't happen to us. Several people who had melons nearly ready to harvest had their melons raided by some kind of mammal with very sharp teeth, which gouged out all of the flesh and left cleanly stripped rinds. I've lived with skunks, groundhogs, rabbits, etc. and never seen anything like it. We're in the city. The consensus is that it is probably rats.

My watermelon plants didn't do much all summer, and then all of a sudden started growing fast about a month ago. Now I have two baby watermelons but I am afraid they'll run out of time to mature before cold weather sets in.

The worst enemies of my garden are chipmunks, birds, and deer.

My growing space is unfortunately just a 1,5 by 2,5 meter balcony - still managed to squeeze in two tomato plants, a small bell pepper plant, an artichoke, two kinds of chilis, sage, basil, thai basil, cilantro, vietnamese cilantro, lavender, parsley, chives, garlic chives, marjoram, lemon balm, bay, winter savory, oregano, thyme and lemon thyme, rosmary and quite a lot of rocket salad in there.

Hey, who needs a place to sit - that space is for GROWING! This actually was my first growing season ever, and I don't think it worked out badly.

This is the place in midsummer:

Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse 4 weeks ago, so not all of the tomatoes ripened. Since I am expecting frost at night any day now, today I took in the last harvest:

Guess I will be making a green tomato relish with the unripe ones this weekend. Still happy with the harvest!

Our corn developed corn smut. All 6 plants. 

My gardening partner turned that sow's ear into a silk purse and considered it to be huitlacoche--a favorite food in Mexico, where the smut is cultivated on purpose. 

He took it home, chopped it up and used it for taco filling. I was not present but according to him and his partner (who was skeptical and a bit put off by the idea at first) it was delicious.