Transitioning to Summer

Summer is just about officially here. We've finally been having some good summer showers. But it looks like we are still over a foot below normal in rainfall here this year.

My peas are all wilted off and the onions should have been dug a couple weeks ago. I've harvested 3 peppers and 3 cucumbers, and there are another couple of cukes just about ready. My roma tomatoes are /finally/ starting to turn red, and the other tomatoes are flowering.

The three sisters plot is really starting to look like something also. The corn is waist high, the beans are slower, but steady. And the squash I planted two weeks ago is starting to put out true leaves. I'm having issues with someone eating the plants, so I only have one butternut plant and three or four zucchini. I'm pondering transplanting one zucchini to even out the hills.

My main problem is that the current flowers on my tomatoes, pepper, and eggplant are not seeming to set fruit. I'm sure I need to fertilize them. I've been reading that plants in containers get the nutrients washed out from all the extra watering they need. After much research, I think I need a high K fertilizer. The best suggestion from my books seems to be liquid seaweed. So, I'll see what I can find this next week.

I've been fighting sickness, so everything is so behind. I hope it's not too late to plant okra. I think I'm going to get some plants this year instead of starting from seed. This week I want to:

1. Weed & pull up old peas & broccoli for compost.
2. Dig up onions.
3. Plant okra and broccoli plants.
4. Plant spinich, lettuce, mustard, & collards in containers.
5. While I'm shopping I might buy some herb plants to pot in containers also. I'd like to start with mint, basil, & rosemary. We'll see what there is.

Third Sister

We had a wonderful downpour of rain Friday evening. Yay! Unfortunately, it seems to have cut down a few of my corn stalks (or maybe something else did?) Otherwise the rest of the corn & beans loved it.

I planted the third sister, squash, today. Three sections of straightneck yellow on the left. Two of Black Beauty zuccini in the middle. Three sections of Burpee's Bush butternut on the right.

On a side note: I also finally started my compost pile behind the shed.

June's Visual Report

Second Sister

The pole beans are up today! Yay! The three sister's plot is starting to look really cool! I've been fighting sickness, but I will be planting the third sister as soon as I can.

I also fed my bell pepper, Mr. Stripey tomatoes, and eggplant with some bone & blood meal. Some of the lower leaves on one of the tomatoes and the eggplant are turning yellow, so I hope that they just need a little boost. I had forgot to note it, but I had already fertilized my cucumbers in May. They seem to be growing nicely now. Lots of flowers and baby cukes. Although, they seem to not be growing much bigger too fast...

And... I received my books from Amazon today! I used a birthday gift certificate and got my own copy of the Rodale's Illustrated Organic Gardening and Lasagna Gardening. Yippie!

Now if I can only feel good enough to get some work done both in my garden and otherwise. I'm really falling behind.

Companion Planting

Tuesday I planted the second sister, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, in my lasagna garden. The corn is really taking off for the most part. It's about 6 in. high. (Although a couple mounds have tiny 2-3 in. plants. You can tell where most of the nutrients ended up.)

In the excitement of wanting to discover more on companion planting, I checked out Carrots Love Tomatoes from the library. Although kind of a hard book to follow at first because it's in alphabetical order by topic/plant/pest/etc., it had a lot in interesting info plus a suggested garden plan. The nice thing was that the author is from Southern Oklahoma, so it's one of the few books I've discovered that actually discusses okra, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and even cotton.

I took a lot of notes, copied a few pages, and recharted a possible long term plan for my garden. Here are some basics that I will definitely try either this year or next:

1. Tomatoes and garlic can be planted practically on top of each other. Not only does the garlic help ward off pests for the tomato, they both can be planted with roses to help with aphids, black spot and other nasties.

2. The brassica group (cabbage, broccoli, etc.) gets a lot of help from the aromatic herbs such as dill, mint, sage, thyme, basil, and rosemary.

3. Onions should be rotated with the other root crops such as carrots & beets, not with the legumes as my other chart had showed. Carrots & onions together confuse their separate pests. (Score one for me. I actually did that this year for no good reason.)

4. The three sisters plan was mentioned several times. It's a good plan, and I'm sticking to it for now.

5. Strawberries should be interplanted with spinach.

6. Sunflowers can be happily underplanted with melons. I will attempt canteloupe next year maybe.