Mid August 2019 Garden Update

While August has been cooler than the past few years, it is certainly not the coolest August ever. On the other hand, it is already the wettest.  Thunder clouds and lightning moved in just before the the weekend, then a downpour of rain. Lightning struck near our place on Friday night, August 10, and when the wireless router started smoking, I knew we were in trouble. Even though we use a local Internet provider (based on our region) there are no stores nearby. The two closest stores are both over a four hour drive away... one to the southwest on the coast, and the other to the east, each over 230 miles away; just to pick up a replacement would have meant an 9 hour drive round trip. So, the replacement was sent out Monday afternoon and arrived this afternoon. Thank you, UPS! Then, the tech support needed to reset the FiOS box (I don't know what they called it). While on the phone, I had to find the FiOS box, unplug it from the power, they did something to cause a "reset" and then I plugged it back in. So, let's just say that even when electronics are plugged into surge protectors, that's not always a guarantee that a huge bolt of electricity won't end up frying the electronics.

On the plant front, the cooler temps and rain over the weekend switched over to 80+ temps on Monday with lots of sunshine, which resulted in a lot of plants ripening up right quick.  The corn is on the edge of ripe. Most of the carrots are done, and I planted spinach seeds in that area of the garden. I replanted lettuce for the next round. I harvested the thyme before the rains hit. I picked six nice sized cucumbers and forgot to take a pix before they were all gone. Radishes are mostly done. Beans are still producing like crazy so we are eating fresh green beans every other night. Real sized Tomatoes are finally starting to ripen.  The Sungold cherry tomato plant is so heavy with fruit, it keeps falling over.  We cut a lot of the tops off to help it from being to top heavy.  Threw away about 25 green cherry tomatoes because, in truth, there are just way too many.

Trying to stay ahead of the garden so that we don't end up having to throw away too much.

Purple Cherokee almost ripe	Nice Sized Purple Cherokee
Blurry Purple Cherokee Tomato	Huge German Tomato
Almost the last of the radishes	Almost the last of the carrots and the start of the corn

UPDATE - August 15

The bumble bee in the dill was an nice thing to see this morning.  Also, took some updates on the cucumbers. There is one bee that seems to have adopted the task of pollinating for me on the cucumbers, so that's a nice bee to be thankful for.

Remember the corn tillers (suckers) that I left on. Well, it turns out there are a bit hermaphrodite-ish on the tassels.  Although many of the tillers have tassels now, and several have ears of corn on them, a few of the tassels on the tillers also have two or more kernels on them. None of the main stalks' tassels have kernels of corn (and silk). Just a few of the ones that are are tillers are that way.

A little more reading from corn experts, this is known as Tassel Ears and sometimes a whole ear of corn forms on the tassel which typically occur on the tillers.  They nothing more than "bird food" so to speak and if they occur on the main stalk, it is because of damage to the stalks, or field.

11 weeks after planting, we have ripe corn and we pulled three tonight for dinner. Sweet corn on the cob!

Square garden beans did much better this year, than last.  So I will need to freeze beans to keep from wasting them. Carrots also did much better this year.  Despite the crazy summer weather, the plants seem to be working through it. In about a month, mid September, I should have cilantro and spinach. My favorite fall plants.

BumbleBee in the Dill	BumbleBee different angle
Baby Cuke	Pickle sized Cuke
Salad Cuke	And All Three Sizes Together
Square Garden Growing	Green - String Beans
A handful of ripe Sungolds	Corn Mostly Ready
A few Kernels on Tassels	Tassels, kernels with silk

Final Spurt before August 2019

Some of these sections will be linked back to earlier posts. For example, I planted the broccoli on July 24 and they have sprouted.  I needed to move them around, because watering had moved the seeds to all the weirdest locations possible. But I had 13 come up and hopefully, now that I have moved them back to where I wanted them, they will grow.

Tiny Broccoli Sprout #1 of 13

Tiny Broccoli Sprout #2 of 13

Remember when I talked about the best way to pollinate a cucumber plant when there are not a lot of bees around? On July 20, I took pix of two female cucumber blossoms. These are the two from that post.

One of Two Cukes Pollinated on July 20	Other cuke pollinated that day
Cucumber Sprawl off deck and over grass

Square raised garden bed continues to thrive. The basil are doing well. The thyme is becoming more like bushes but not very tall. The dill continues to get taller. The carrots and radishes are getting ready to pull. I pulled four mature carrots today (no photos of them). The beans are quite long, and I tied them back against the wire fence to keep them up out of the dirt. July 20 I took photos of the beans when they were about 1 inch long

Row of 4 Basil	Row of Radishes
B-F Beans, Dill, Basil, (Thyme is hidden) and Carrots
Green Beans Growing	More Green Beans

Bell Peppers are now growing fast.  On July 11, I took photos of the scraggly looking peppers that had started to bloom. Now look at them!

Nice Sized Pepper in Orange bucket plant

Two Peppers on another plant.

No link backs on this one. The German plant has eight tomatoes as of today. Slow to grow and ripen. This plant was topped at about four feet because it will try to grow to eight feet tall.  To help encourage fruit growth a bit faster, we topped it and pruned it.  The Sungold is full of cherry tomatoes.  No way to truly count. The photos, while out of focus, allow you to see up through the plant at dozens of little tomatoes. The photos were actually taken in two different locations even though they look similar. The Chocolate Cherry tomatoes are more spread out and not as many on the vines. Then the Purple Cherokee also has a lot of full sized tomatoes. It was so heavy that we pruned it back as previously mentioned and tied up a lot of the lower heavy branches.

Heirloom German + 8
Sungold Thick	More Sungold
Chocolate Cherry
Find the Purple Cherokee Tomatoes Yellow Arrows	Purple Cherokee Tied Up

Now that the Rain has Passed - Last Weekend of July 2019

We dug out/dumped out the potatoes.  Only the very top of the soil got wet with this morning's rains. Despite the extra attention we paid to them this year and planting more, the yield was only marginally better between the three barrels, we received about 13 pounds of potatoes.  The white were better in size and we should be able to have a few days of baked potatoes with them. The Red Pontiacs, unfortunately, were not as big as last year's crop.  We had Red Chieftans last year, so perhaps we should return to that version. 

Next year we plan to rely more on using a sandy loam blend with compost and peat moss to see if that helps with production.  If not, I'm going to give up on the barrels, and revert back to planting in the ground. One more year to try the barrels with a different soil type to see if that improves the production. I was very disappointed with the Red Pontiacs as they didn't even seem to start growing in the first layer of soil, and a least a foot of the bottom on both barrels were devoid of red potatoes!  On the California Whites, this year, we had a slightly better crop, and the potatoes were on the vine clear to the bottom of the barrel. Nonetheless, the soil will be added to the other two gardens and/or buckets for other plants to grow in.  We are never lacking for uses for the soil we have in the Potato Barrels.  Comparing potatoes with last year. They look similar to last year's crop. The reds are a little smaller but the whites are a little larger. I just piled them all on top of dry straw in a small box in the pantry for use over the next few months.

2019 Pontiac and California

2018 Potatoes

Harvested a lot of basil today, a few cherry tomatoes and three radishes.  The radishes look much better than the first few. But we had better temps in July for radishes. 

The Purple Cherokee was blown over yesterday in the wind.  It is so top heavy with tomatoes (close to 50) that we ultimately staked the cage to secure it better, then started tying branches to the cage. I cut off about three long branches and with those went about five small tomatoes.  I don't think the guys will miss them since it looks like we are going to have plenty of those tomatoes.  We have about five tomato fruits set on the German plant.  Not sure why there is such a difference, but I just hope that the Purple Cherokee are as tasty as the German. One of the Chocolate Cherry (CC) tomatoes is just about ripe.  There are about 40 - 50 little cherry tomatoes on the CC, while there are about 100 cherry tomatoes on the Sungold plant.

The bell pepper plants are starting to look much better.

Bell Peppers on the Mend

Cucumbers seem to be producing a better yield this year, as well.

Blurry Cucumber Blossom

Raindrops on Cucumbers - is that a Song?

The Carrots are thinned out and should finish up this next month. I put the baby carrots in a glass storage container filled with cold water to see if they last any better that way. I never seem to be able to get the Nantes to store very well. But I like the Nantes' carrot flavor better than other versions that store well.

Carrots and Radishes

Dill are starting to flower. Thyme is becoming bushy (like oregano). Basil are close to bolting.  I keep cutting back the larger basil leaves to try to stave off the bolt.

Dill is Flowering	Thyme is Bushing
Beans, Dill and Basil keep growing

Corn is anywhere from three feet to eight feet tall.  Most of the three foot version are just starting to send out their tassels, so they will probably bolt up over the next week or two. We have a LOT of ears forming.  I counted almost 50 ears with silk formed on about 35 stalks.  I just hope that they are super sweet ears this year. The corn silk is always fascinating to watch form and grow. I was able to get an almost clear close up of the rain drops on the silk from the yellow and green stripped corn plant.

Ears, ears and more	Rain Drops not close up
Raindrops close up

Last but not least, Let Us talk about Lettuce. So, ants are bombarding my lettuce plants.  I sprayed a little oil around the base of the containers to keep them out, and it was working until I was silly enough to put another (non treated) pot close to the lettuce.  The leaves were resting on the other pot, and the ants took advantage of the opportunity.  We thinned out the lettuce again today and tried to pull off as many rascal ants as we could find. Oy Vey!

Grand Rapid, Red Sails, Buttercrunch

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