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.

A Few More Mid July Photos

I swear that the corn popped up a couple more inches with today's heat, although we are having some humidity issues that make it muggy. There's a good layer of clouds that seem to be holding the humidity in the air.

I measured corn again, and it is 32" so either the foliage perked up with the sun, or they grew more.  I did a more thorough search of the corn, and about half do, now, have the tiny tassels forming inside, so this weekend will be the last of the nitrogen, and we will add a dash of bone meal around each stalk along with a couple granules of potash. Sorry that so many photos are fuzzy - the light was not as intense tonight, and I was a bit shaky with the camera. I should have pulled out the tripod.

Corn height up to 32"

50% have baby tassels

Bigger tassel start

Some of the wind blown badly bent over onions are starting to die back. the tops of all these onions were totally dried out and it was obvious that it was time to pull them now.  About three are the Yellow Onions and the rest are the Walla Walla's.  Not very big, but enough for curing and storing. I have started using this old freezer basket for curing in the garage. Of course, I don't leave them on the floor. I place the basket over the edges of a bucket to allow air to help dry out the outer skins. With the higher humidity, I can't leave them outside in the shade because of the moisture in the air. 

Some Walla Wallas & Yellows

I took a closer look at the beans and poof, the bean blossoms are forming (see arrow). Also, the Dill is picking up steam, as are the thyme plants. Took long enough! 

Green Bean Buds

A few thymes are surviving.

Dills are finally picking up growth.

Purple Cherokee has three fruits. The top photo is the best close up I could accomplish and the next photo has arrows that point to the two tomatoes that were hiding behind the leaves. In the bottom two photos, the SunGold tomato is the only non-heirloom that I have this year, and, as usual, it is ripening sooner than the heirlooms. The Sungold has a lot of tomatoes on it.  I'm guessing close to 50 at this point.  

Two of the Purple Cherokee

Arrows to the Hidden Purple Cherokee

Sungold Ripening

More Sungolds

Other Garden News for Mid July 2019

Heading into the second week of July, and we keep getting yo yo cool hot temps from one day to the next. 

Today was my push to weed the square garden again as the plants continue to grow.  I circled the area around each basil plants (only three this year survived), and the thyme is starting to pick up.  I circled them to make it easier to fertilize them with the manure tea this evening when I water.  I just take a bucket of water, put in a few scoops of manure in an old pillow case or tee-shirt, tie it up and let it soak in the bucket over night. Voila, instant water-based fertilizer that won't burn the plants. May sure to use it quickly or the mosquitoes are attracted it in the bucket and will lay eggs. UGH! Thinned carrots, replanted more radishes, pulled one more dill plant since it was situated too close to the beans.  Sprinkled another round of slug bait around the outside base of the garden and, Bam.... The garden is back on track, to the best of my ability.  Too much rain.  Having to use too much slug bait, which I hate doing.  I really need to pick up a roll of heavy copper wire to wrap around the garden bed. 

Square Garden Progress at about 5.5 weeks

SunGold Cherry tomatoes are coming on strong with lots of fruit.  Purple Cherokee Heirloom has two tomatoes but German and Black Chocolate cherry plants have yet to set any fruit. I keep trying to "finger" pollinate since we don't have a lot of bees this year. I did see a little version of a bee today on my Onion Flower.... I took a couple of photos and finally caught it in one of the shots. 

Walla Walla Sweet Onion Flowering next to Tomato Blossoms

Onion Flower Closer

Close up with little bee bug.

The potatoes all of a sudden are in the final stages.  I had checked on them two days ago, and only one of the three was showing signs of die back. Today, suddenly, the other two caught up. I need to keep these out of the rains now so that they can finish up without rotting the potatoes in the soil. 

Potato Barrel 2

Potato Barrel 3

Lettuce is all ready to use in salads and on sandwiches.  The guys used some on hamburgers last night. There are some new starts popping up for the next phase in a few weeks. This helps to keep a cycle going for the rest of the summer months.  

L-R Buttercrunch, Red Sails & Grand Rapids Leaf

The Bell Peppers, albeit somewhat scraggly, have started flowering.  The Yellow Bell has the most flowers on it. The Red and Green bells each have a couple of flowers. 

Green Bell Pepper Plant with Blossom

And last, but not least, the three buckets of Cucumber plants, preparing to spread and produce pickling cucumbers. 

Six Cucumber Plants Older and Newer

End of June 2019 Garden Update

We had some good old fashioned thunderstorms the past couple of days that passed directly over us. I had left an empty cup outside on the table, not really intending to use it as a rain gauge, but that's what happened.  We accumulated over two inches of rain in the cup.  While I don't know how "accurate" that is, that amount is quite a bit more than the weather station's 0.3" measurement that is just up the road from us. Nonetheless, everything is well watered for the start of July and in anticipation of July 4th Fireworks.  The past few days, I could not really get any good photos of the gardens and plants. Today is a catchup for that with an addendum to the square garden post of a few days ago.

Starting with the square garden area.  The beans need a good dose of fertilizer.

A couple of the Bush Bean Plants

I attempted to take photos of the basil and thyme, but they are still just too small for a clear shot.  I can only find three basil in the garden!  There are about twenty of the thyme, so that will definitely be thinned out.  I planted three more basil in hopes that they come up. But it is a bit late in the season for planting basil outside. We will see.

Tiny Basil from Overhead

Tiny Basil from Side

Even Tinier Thyme

And with the forest of carrots, I'm still trying to get carrot sprouts pulled out from everything else.

Yep - Carrots scattered Every Where!

Carrots or Dill? Hard to Tell!

As you can tell that I'm still thinning out the over scatter of carrots between the rows, but a few more days and we should be on track.

Two Distinct Carrot Rows, finally.

A close up of the carrot rows shows the gaps that need to be filled back in with new seeds.

Sparse Carrot Rows

But, hey, the first of the radishes are really to be pulled and pickled.

Some Radishes are Ready

I was reading about Square Foot Gardening, and how they plant everything within a square foot section of the garden, depending on what the plant was. Like planting 16 radishes in one square foot space, and one tomato plant in a 1 square foot spot.... and then they used vermiculite in the soil to keep it more moist, and I thought what?  Why use vermiculite when so much of it has asbestos in it.  How are they going to guarantee that the vermiculite doesn't have asbestos in it when 75% of all vermiculite in the US has asbestos in it, naturally? Um... No Way!  Plus the raised beds were only about six inches deep so how would one grow the plants that need deep soil like onions and potatoes, or those plants that spread out all over like squash and cucumbers?  I think my bucket garden is akin to the Square Foot Garden, plus it is portable when necessary, fits easily into the green house when needed, etc. That's just me thinking out loud there. Sorry about that.

Moving to the Potato Barrels - they have sprouted up for the last time and now that the blossoms have fallen off, the foliage will start to die back in prep of getting our much anticipated potato crop. With the cooler weather, on and off again, it has actually been helpful for extending the season to allow the potatoes to get a bit larger.  I am hopeful that we get a lot of nice-sized potatoes this year.

The last Spurt of Growth.

Blossoms are all gone.

Now the Corn Patch which has more foliage, but not much more height as we head into July. The PVC is strateglically placed to ward off the animals that like to barge through the stalks.  Once they are tall enough, I won't need the PVC distractions. 

Corn Patch with Animal Deterrent.

As for the bucket garden, the bell peppers are picking back up after that hail storm of early July. 

Sweet Bell Pepper

The three types of lettuce are progressing: Grand Rapids, Butter Crunch, and Red Sails (left to right, in that order, I think).  I did not plant spinach this spring.  I will plant it later in the summer. I should probably try to plant a few more Red Sails and Grand Rapids seeds to fill in the empty areas.  

Grand Rapids & Butter Crunch

Butter Crunch & Red Sails

The earlier planted cucumbers are truly growing quicker than I anticipated. The recent "replants" of the cukes are still pretty small but do seem to be working on survival, as long as the animals stay away.  I have the baby cukes closer to the house.

Baby Cuke Plants

English Cucumber

Better Photo of the Onion Flowering

Oregano getting ready for 2nd harvest.

Here's an angle shot of the tomatoes, more bell peppers, cucumbers, the start of the green house addition and the square garden in the back, protected with fencing from the blasted deer, dogs/coyotes, and bunnies. 

Angle Shot of plants, green house, addition and garden.

First Wall of Green house Extension. 

And that, for the most part, sums up our crazy micro garden journal thus far in 2019.

Square Garden June 30 - update photos.  

Now that I have it all weeded AND all the scattered carrots pulled, we can actually see some of the plants :)  So the first two are facing south, with the bush beans at the top and the carrots at the bottom of the photo (top photo is listed and circled).  The last photo is facing north with the radishes at the top, then the two rows of sparse carrots.  Either direction, it is difficult to see the still very tiny thyme, but there are lot of them which will be thinned out in a few weeks. 

Most of the crop - facing south Listed/ and/orCircled

 Same - beans, dill, basil, thyme, carrots

North - radishes, carrotsx2, thyme, basil