Last September Week 2019

ARGH! Did I mention I hate slugs. So, they wiped out two well sized cilantro plants in the past two weeks. Totally annoyed with that.  Earlier this summer I picked up some hearty copper wire strands that won't pop apart if touched like the copper foil does. We wrapped it around the square garden bed, on the outside, twice, hoping that if they get past one, they won't get past the second one. Finger Crossed.  Also sprinkled more slug bait around the outside of the garden, but, unfortunately that vanishes quickly with rain, and we have been getting lots of rain late this summer.  Well, now it is fall, and waiting to see what October brings. 

Hoping the new cilantro seeds take root now, and it is obvious that the only thing saving the spinach plants was my cage of tulle!!!!  I see a new fifth sprout of spinach coming up, so we should have some nice plants this fall. Peas are coming up.  I think slugs did wipe out a couple of them, as well, but we still have enough if we can save them.  Blood Meal whole nitrogen around all of them.  Also, I saw a few sprigs of the carrots coming up that I planted a couple weeks ago. So I think we are on track for the fall. 

Bell Peppers are coloring now.  The one green bell pepper is actually some weird looking red peppers that look more like mini red pumpins than peppers. The yellow pepper is actually an orange pepper and the red, well that's actually red. The Marjaram and the Parsley is coming up nicely. 

We had enough thyme, after we dried it, to put half of it away into a plastic bag for next year's spices.  We have two bags of fresh dried oregano that, in time, we can break down and mash up too. The herbs did well this year.  For now, that's where we are at with the garden. 

Orange Bell Peppers	Red Bell Peppers
Weird Green but really red peppers	Five Little Spinach Plants in a Cage
Green Peas in the Fall

Phenomenal Growth for a Cool July

We had some amazing growth this week, which I would never have imagined! Let me take you around the garden to look at some of it. First, I noticed right away that the beans had doubled in size in a matter of days. I had pruned/trimmed the basil and dill, right next to the beans, just a day or two ago, and the beans were not this thick/tall as they are today. 

Beans twice as tall as a few days ago.

Baby Beans are Forming

The thyme is starting to pick up, as well. Nothing that spectacular, but it's growing and making an impression with it's dark green color. 

Thyme it filling in.

The corn, I kid you not, grew 10 to 12 inches in less than a week! The tallest corn is now 60" tall when it was about 50" just a few days ago. The "ear" sprouts are showing up too, but I didn't think to get photos of that. 

4-5ft Corn

Nice full tassels

Not that they are "my" crop or anything that I did, but the blackberries are thick as can be this year. We've had, actually, perfect conditions for wild blackberries, with temps in the 70s, humid days and cool nights. We are going to have a bumper crop of berries. And they are not even done flowering yet. So that harvest may last well into August.

Thick crop of wild blackberries	More berries
Some are still flowering

The potatoes took a huge wilt today with the warmer sunshine. Harvest is still planned for the last weekend of July - August 1. 

Wilting Potatoes

Tomato blossoms are finally taking hold and creating some nice tomatoes.  The Purple Cherokee are a bit ugly in shape, but I think they will be a nice size when ripe. The Sungold have a lot of cherry tomatoes on it. The Chocolate Cherry plant is, so, so with tomatoes.  Not a lot, but there's still time. The German finally has its first fruit.  I think I see a few more potential ones, but they could be fakes because of the way the blossoms are on this plant. Sorry for the blur. The wind out of the west was a bit blustery today.

First German Tomato	Some Purple Cherokee Tomatoes
Another Purple Cherokee tomato	Tomato plants lined up in the warm sunshine

I never realized how pretty the Walla Walla Sweet Onion blossoms could be. Enjoying the beauty while waiting for it to die so that I can harvest the seeds for next year.

Walla Walla Sweet Onion Blossom

Our temps finally hit 85 today. That's a decent warm temp for the garden.  I pulled the lettuce out of the sun, into the shade to protect it from burning.

More Blossoms in July

The temps have been cool, and the humidity has been higher with unseasonably muggy weather. Yesterday, we did finally hit 80F, but we had a quick night-time cool down and today we are back in the 60s for the day. That's fine for the potatoes which are in "cure" state as the leaves are all dying. July 31 will be our dig out date. 

The Square Garden is filling in nicely.  The blossoms on the bush beans are turning white and preparing to open. The Dill is filling in nicely, and the basil smells so wonderful. The radishes that I replanted are sprouting, and the carrots that I replanted are filling in the rows. The thyme is growing, so we will see how that turns out.  I've never grown thyme before.  

Bean Blossoms, Dill and Basil

Beans, Dill, Basil, Thyme & Carrots

Basil, Two carrot rows and Radishes

The various stages of the cucumbers. One has started to bloom which you can see through the leaves in the blue bucket on the right. All together, there are six plants. Also, the oregano is ready to harvest for the second time.  If I don't cut it this week, it will bolt, so now or forget about it. 

Six Cucumber Plants in a row

Cucumber Blossoms Forming

Time for 2nd Harvest of Oregano

The poor damaged bell peppers are finally showing signs of survival. The lettuce is also thriving. This has actually been perfect weather for lettuce.  I don't even have to keep it in the shade.

Bell Peppers have Improved

Grand Rapid & Red Sails Leaf Lettuce

Red Sails and Buttercrunch Lettuce

The first of the Sun golds are about ready to pick. Sorry for the blurry - the wind kept moving them. Plus, we have a lot of green fruit on the Sun gold. The Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes are just starting to form. 

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes looking golden

Green Sun Gold cherry tomatoes

Finally, some Chocolate Cherries

Mid June Garden Updates 2019

This top photo is of one lonely basil sprout.  I am hoping it survives and that others pop up soon. I tried to get a photo of the dill, but those are so tiny, and my lens is not strong enough to show them yet. I don't know if the thyme are sprouting. I don't know their sprouts from weeds, yet.  Carrots are also sprouting, but, like the dill, are too small to photograph. 

Tiny Basil Sprout 6-14-19

This is the one lettuce pot, of the three, with the most seeds that germinated.  I have since thinned it out to two sprouts per location (5), so that they don't crowd each other. Each pot has a different type of leaf lettuce. 

Leaf Lettuce in Pot 6-14-19

 This is a group of potato blossoms.  This barrel has the most blossoms and most foliage. 

White Potato Blossoms  6-14-19

Radish.  While I did not plant a lot of these seeds, only half have popped up.  I will replant this weekend to fill in the empty space.  

One of a few Radishes  6-14-19

Now that we have the ants under control, I get to pick five to seven fresh strawberries every morning. YUM!

Strawberries Galore  6-14-19

My beans are looking good.  Like  the Basil and Radishes, the beans are also in my square garden bed.  The past few years, I have planted the beans on the East side of the garden, but last year's crop was slim.  I only ended up with two bean plants that survived.  This year, I planted them on the south side of the garden.  Eight popped up this week. Two were mowed down by slugs. I have put slug bait around the outside of the garden and  then, over the weekend, two more beans popped up.  I have thinned it down to five solid starts.  

Bush Bean sprouts  6-14-19

These are some of the largest of the strawberries that are almost ready for picking.  You can see that I layered the soil with leaves to keep the berries out of the wet dirt.  I like to use leaves because they don't contain any weed seeds, like straw/grass contains, and there are no splinters like bark shavings have. 

Large Strawberries  6-17-19

I think I mentioned that I had four cucumbers starts.  Then suddenly poof, over the weekend, one vanished into thin air.  No roots, no stem, no nothing! I have never had that happen before. I have replanted in an attempt to get one or two more seeds to pop back up. In the meantime, these three are getting larger and seem very happy. 

Three Cukes  6-17-19

I added blood meal to the tomatoes again.  This will be the last time for adding blood meal, and from here on out I will use a "fruit" fertilizer every other week to help with the actual tomatoes which should be starting soon.  I have lots of blossoms on the SunGold cherry tomato plant, and we may actually have some cherry tomatoes to eat by July. (Fingers Crossed.) 

The Four Tomato Plants  6-17-19

The potatoes are continuing to look healthy.  No more fertilizer.  Just a good watering once or twice a week and pull them under the shade of the maple tree on the really hot days to protect them from burning. 

Close Up on Potatoe Blossoms

That's my garden update for the middle of June. 

Day 19 - Corn Damage Diary

I'm posting this the day after I took the photo. I did not get the fertilizer on the corn over the weekend, like I had hoped.  I did, however, get it sprinkled around the corn on Day 20 (June 18) so I'm not falling too far behind. Today is probably a better day for fertilizing, anyway, because it was a much cooler morning, and won't be too hot today. 

While sprinkling the blood meal around the stalks, I noted that several branches were broken (not from wind) and one tall stalk was laying on the ground.  Although I did not see any prints (man or animal) in the dirt, I am assuming that an animal took a shortcut through and damaged several plants. I set the one back up and am hoping that the roots were not damaged since the soil was still pretty moist and they did not look broken off. In the mean time, I put the PVC cross back up over the area damaged, and placed a side barrier of PVC on the south side of the garden as a (hopeful) deterrent. I guess we will see if that works, or if I need to get my bird netting out for the next month. Big Sigh.  The photo below is "yesterday" when there was no damage yet. 

The large stalks are growing quickly. The smaller ones are working on it.  The two replants from last week are about one inch tall. 

Day 19 6-17-19