Another harvest

The group work night was highly successful. According to Judy S.-K., who dropped off the harvest at the Friends Who Share food pantry, we picked:

• 60 large tomatoes
• 5 qt bags filled with cherry tomatoes (mostly the yellow variety)
• 10 large zucchinis and summer squash
  
• 2 cucumbers
• 34 pounds of beans
• 1 head cauliflower

We picked so much that we are planning for another group work night next week (Tuesday, Aug. 18 at 6:30pm). This harvest will be shared with the youth group at Church of the Saviour who will help to distribute it to residents of Westerville Estates.

Two new problems have cropped up: powdery mildew and squash vine borers. The powdery mildew can weaken plants but rarely kills them. We'll be applying a diluted milk solution to the affected leaves. This has been shown to be as effective as synthetic fungicides. Hopefully, we'll see results soon.

The vine borers are more problematic. It appears that they have affected pretty much all of our pumpkin vines. There are ways to physically remove them, but I did not have much luck in digging them out. Next year, we'll plan ahead to prevent them from laying eggs in the first place.