Speaking of bugs, my peppers are collapsing :( Some sort of disease. Could be early blight. I've never seen that on peppers before so I'm not sure, but they are supposed to be susceptible. They were just starting to look lush and set flowers, and *bam*, 2 days ago they started
dropping leaves. Can you see the Praying Mantis in that photo?
On the plus side, the garlic is almost ready! I planted a few of a variety called "Tzan" this year. The plants were smaller than all the others, and they fell over at the neck in mid-June so I thought they were bad, but it turns out that was normal for the variety. I pulled them all yesterday and they are
just lovely! Will be re-planting lots of these in the fall. Early maturing with small plants, but produced some of the largest bulbs I've ever managed. When they fell over in June I tied them back up straight for a few more weeks. The empty lines of string are
here.
The rest are still in the ground - mostly of the "Music" variety, but it won't be much longer. Maybe a week. I've pulled 10 of those that browned early and they all had varying degrees of basal rot. Still useable, but the layers around the bulbs are gone so they won't store well. This is about the same number I had with this problem last year. 5-10%. They were in 2 or 3 small groups along the rows in the order they were planted, so its possible each inherited the fungus from a parent bulb. I dunno.
Have you pulled yours yet? The onions are looking great too.
More pics.