From the depths of despair....a cucumber rises

Well, it has been a while since my last garden post and I am sure you are all just on the edge of your seats waiting to see what has transpired at black thumb central.

The cucumber plant has lost it's luster and is now in the death throws from who knows what. I was out checking on him this afternoon and lamenting to the dogs about how we won't be pickling or having fresh cucumber salads when low and behold....!

What do I spy??? A full fledged cucumber!

 

 

 

 

 

I believe this is one of cucumbers from project pollination. I didn't post about this but here's the short version.

All of my cucumbers were going from the cute little cucumber buds to, uh... dead so I did a little googling to see what could be causing this problem and gardeners around the valley suggested that they are not getting pollinated because I don't have very many bees. The suggestions ranged from hand pollinating and planting some bee attracting flowers. I did both. I planted these pretty flowers in hanging pots on the patio

And then I crossed my fingers and hoped that some bees would get interested and come my way. Ha ha just kidding.

Of course, we all know that would not be the end of project pollination. I couldn't just sit by and do nothing so I read up on how to tell the difference between a male cucumber flower and a female cucumber flower and then I read about how you can hand pollinate them. I tried it on a few of the flowers. I believe the giant cucumber pictured above is the product of my intervention and there's one more that refuses to succumb to whatever else is eating the cucumber plant. See the sad pictures below.

Come on buddy, LIVE!

What is eating you my friend?

 I tried to get a shot of the one little cucumber that is trying to grow but it is pretty windy today and I couldn't get a clear shot. Plus he may be camera shy because he knows what happened to the other cucumbers buds that I took pictures of.

The tomato plant, on the other hand,  has been very prolific! Here is a shot of the whole plant exploding out of it's cage.

Yowzers!

 

And here are a few pictures of the future pear tomatoes. There are lots and lots of them.

Now, the desert red tomato was looking like he wasn't going to do much producing so I tied back the pear because he was totally being a cage hog and now we've got a few reds coming in. Most notably there's one that I have spotted that I will give you the last two weeks of pictures so you can see how he is growing.

May 22nd

May 29th

So, I am holding out hope that the cucumber will make a comeback but if not the tomato will more than compensate!