Broccoli

Why is it yellow?

I must start by saying I've been harvesting broccoli for a few weeks now. We've eaten it with at least 3 meals. I know that's not a lot, and I'm realizing I should definitely plant more next time. However, we would have a little more except a few heads from the side shoots are yellow. Is it from the heat or maybe it needs more nitrogen? I just don't know. To make things more interesting, I did harvest some nice heads today. Why are some fine and some weird?

I got the rest of the cucumber plants mulched with grass clippings and added some more around the peppers too. I didn't quite get finished harvesting the grass, but it is all raked. I should have enough to put more around the eggplant and all of my tomatoes. When I went to get the wheelbarrow, I noticed the compost pile was a little smelly, so I turned and fluffed it a bit. It was really cool to see how some of the grass actually is starting to look like dirt just a bit. I also did another section of sawdust path. So, now I can put some herbs next to that bed as companions. I need to ponder which ones though. I'm just about ready to prep the fence with layers to plant berry bushes this fall.

Plants as Insect Controls

From Carrots Love Tomatoes:

Basil: Against flies and mosquitoes.
Borage: Against tomato worms
Catnip: Against flea beetles
Garlic: Against Japanese beetles, aphids, weevils, fruit tree borers, spider mites
Lavender: Against clothes moths
Marigolds: Against Mexican bean beetles, nematodes, and many more
Mint: Against white cabbage moths and (when dried) against clothes moths
Nasturtium: Against aphids, squash bugs, striped pumpkin beetles, woolly aphids
Pennyroyal: Against ants and plant lice
Peppermint: Against white cabbage moths and ants
Petunia: Against beetles
Pot Marigold (Calendula): Against asparagus beetles, tomato worms, many others
Rose Geranium: Crushed leaves as insect repellant
Rosemary: Against cabbage moths, bean beetles, carrot flies, malaria mosquitoes
Rue: Against Japanese beetles
Sage: Against cabbage moths, carrot flies, ticks
Sassafras: Against plant lice
Spearmint: Against ants and aphids
Stinging Nettle: Against aphids and black flies
Summer Savory: Against bean beetles
Tansy: Against flying insects, Japanese beetles, striped cucumber beetles, squash bugs, ants
Thyme: Against cabbage worms
White Geranium: Against Japanese beetles

Starting Over And Not Needing To

My tomatoes have been in the ground for almost a week now, and they're not dead...yet. I disinfected the cages with a diluted bleach solution and rinsed them off well with lots of water before putting them back.

I've decided that my cow manure corn mounds were a bad idea, but it was a fun experiment. The corn seems to have reached a stopping point in its growth and some of the bean plants have yellow leaves with green veins (a sign of iron deficiency). Two yellow squash, one zucchini, and one butternut have sprouted, but none of the others are coming up. I didn't have anything with iron here, and I didn't really want to go to the store today. However, I discovered that I still had some evil Miracle Grow Shake & Feed in the utility closet. I decided I might as well use it up, so I sprinkled some on the two mounds with the weird looking beans. Hopefully it will do something. The good thing is that I planted extra corn in my new bed and it's doing great! My mom's garden has happy squash and beans, so maybe we'll at least get a taste from her if nothing else.

I can't figure out why I have one great row of okra and one sad one. They're right next to each other. I just don't get it. I decided to do some fill in planting with the okra as well as with leeks, carrots, and swiss chard. We'll see if anything decides to come up. I sprayed the eggplant again with Safer soap. The ants are farming aphids like crazy on it, but I can tell I'm winning. The fertilizer helped too, I'm sure. I think it's about ready to flower. I also pulled up the last of my bolting mustard to repot my spearmint and pulled up the bug eaten collards and replanted more.

Now to the good news, I harvested my first cucumber today! I also thinned out some green onions for my dad, and we got a zucchini from the lady that carpools with DH. My hot peppers are ready to harvest if I wanted them green, but I will wait for red since I have no need for them at present. I noticed today that both sweet peppers, the roma, and cherry are also becoming loaded. And I noticed the first tiny baby watermelons and cantaloupe. I have also been enjoying sniping herbs for whatever I'm cooking. I don't know why I didn't do herbs sooner. They're easy!

Reattempting Tomatoes

I've finally decided to give up on the tomatoes in the rose bed. Whether they have spider mites, cucumber mosaic virus, or burn from fresh mushroom compost...or all three...I don't know, but I give up on them.

I looked all over and finally found these four plants that looked relatively decent, if not overpriced, at WalMart. There is a Roma, a Goliath, a Big Boy, and a Mr. Stripey. I know nothing about Goliath, Big Boy is what my mom remembers as a kid, and I liked Mr. Stripey but didn't have a lot of success last year. I couldn't be too picky this time of year, but they were decent options.

So, my first goal on Sunday is to pull up the old and replace the new. I'll add a bit of lime and stir up the dirt/compost a bit before replanting too. Hopefully I won't kill the second round.

Cantaloupe Leaf Problems & Fall Planning

My cantaloupes are starting to have a little burned look on the leaves. I thought they might need something, but I wasn't sure what. After a posting on Gardenweb, it seems they might need a bit of potassium. (Gardenweb ROCKS!) I searched all over for the fish emulsion I had been using, but to no avail. Nor could I really find an organic fertilizer high on the potassium side. Almost everything was high on the nitrogen side, which is not helpful for my tomatoes and peppers either. Grr... I finally gave up today and got a tomato fertilizer which isn't Miracle Grow, but isn't exactly organic either. It's 4 - 12 - 6. I fertilized the cantaloupe, peppers, eggplant and Roma tomato in the raised bed. I noted that my Roma is starting to have some purple veining, so I'm hoping that the fertilizer will give it the boost that it needs. I also noted that I need to add more grass clippings to that row as well as the rest of my cucumbers.

Friday I planted squash, 2 hills of butternut, 1 of yellow, and 1 zucchini. My last two hills of beans are up now as well as a few of the sunflowers. I saw a ton of ants on my eggplant and realized that it had an aphid problem, so I sprayed it with Safer soap. It still has some ants on it today, but I think the aphids are pretty much gone. I also deadheaded the daisies today. They are seriously taking over. I will definitely need to divide them this fall or spring.

Being the planner that I am, I did a basic plan of next year's garden and calculated out my fall planting. Our first frost is about October 21, and our first freeze about November 1. So, I did some counting back and estimating as well as looking at seed packet suggestions when available. It looks like I can go ahead and plant collards and kale. In July, I will start broccoli, mustard, and romaine. In August: radishes, beets, turnips, and peas. And I will try planting spinach in the raised bed again in September. Of course, I plan to plant garlic in the rose bed in October, and I might plant new roses as well. I read in Organic Gardening magazine last night that planting a cover crop of vetch or crimson clover in the tomato bed helps the tomatoes fight fungi and produce longer. So, sometime in October I will also be planting cover crops in the square bed, the newest bed, and the rose bed.

More to the present, here's what I need to do this week:

1. Deadhead roses
2. Rake grass clippings & mulch rest of cucumbers, more mulch to Roma, eggplant & peppers
3. Spray eggplant with insect soap again
4. Transfer spearmint to bigger pot
5. Plant collards & kale
   

Pondering Companions

I'm a little disappointed because I planted my tomatoes with my roses to help with black spot, but instead the roses gave my tomatoes spider mites. I will spray everything again with safer soap tomorrow, but I just don't know if anything will be saved at this point. As I deadheaded my roses this afternoon, leaves just kept falling off. A couple bushes have practically no leaves at all. At this point, I'm seriously considering digging up the roses with the tomatoes this fall and starting completely over. Those roses have been diseased since I inherited them.

Since I realized I had spider mites, I have continued to research organic methods. I realized what I need is to attract beneficial insects. I have downplayed the importance of flowers in my garden. I found a good companion plant site: Garden Toad's Companion Plant Guide. Not only does it have a chart of companion plants like I have in several other places, it includes what the plants do, and it has a separate chart of plants that attract beneficial insects and what they attract. Among the most interesting is cosmos which attract praying mantises and morning glories which attract ladybugs and syrphid flies. So next year I will definitely be including, cosmos, marigold, morning glory, pot marigold, and nasturtiums in my garden plan. They are all pretty, and hopefully they will help restore some balance to my little ecosystem.

On the good side, I noticed I have tiny peppers forming on my Carmen plant and a few cherry tomatoes forming. My leeks are starting to come up as well. I planted corn in the raised bed and started some more dill and zinnias in containers. I also fertilized my broccoli and brussels sprouts with bone/blood meal and mulched them with grass clippings. I raked all the clippings into piles from when David mowed Thursday. I will probably put the rest directly on the compost pile at this point. It got too hot to do that earlier, but I will finish that this evening.

June's Visual Report

Finally posted! Some pictures are from June 2 and some are from yesterday, June 6.

Spider Mites

After posting this and a closer pic on Gardenweb, it seems that my problem is spider mites. And now all 4 plants in the rose bed are showing symptoms. It hit them so fast! I thoroughly sprayed all of the roses and the tomatoes with Safer soap. From the different things I've read, I'm getting mixed reports of if I can save everything or not. I sure hope so. I'm pretty sure my Brandywine and Big Rainbow will come out okay, not so sure about the Early Girl (pictured above) and Roma.

I did accomplish my To Do list from early this week. I also sprayed my daisies with the Safer soap to hopefully get rid of the thrips. (This is seriously a year for bugs!) I planted beans in my remaining two corn mounds, more spinach in both the raised bed and container, and sunflowers amongst the cantaloupe. I fertilized my cucumbers and sweet potatoes with fish emulsion, and mulched around the cucumbers and spinach with grass clippings. I'm going to wait until I see which tomatoes survive the mites before I take the time to mulch them. It was too hot to rake the rest of the grass, but I will try to work on that Sunday. I had planned to start zinnia seeds inside, but the heat got to me and I napped the rest of the afternoon.

The other real good news is that my Roma tomato in my raised bed has several tomatoes on it and my Carmen pepper has flowers. Yay! At least I have tomatoes in several locations, so I should get something. I will try to put up pictures tomorrow, I promise!

It's So Hot!

All of the sudden Mother Nature figured out it was summer this week, and it's coming with a vengence! I was only outside for a half hour, and I had to come in. I've been mindful to be much more faithful about watering now that the heat is upon us. For the most part everything is looking great. My new bed is actually doing well this time. The okra, corn, and swiss chard are all up. I took pictures on Monday, but have yet to post them, either today or tomorrow. I will probably take a few new pics today so, it will be more updated with my happy new seedlings.

I've been having problems with cabbage worms in my greens though. We had mustard greens Monday, and I had to pick a worm off every leaf. At least they left me some. I'm not sure that my collards are going to fair as well. I've got to figure out better methods of row cover, and maybe something I can do now.

I've also been a bit concerned about my tomatoes. They've been needing caging for some time. I was so afraid of pinching the wrong sucker after my Brandywine experience that I just let them go. But now they've sprawled with tons of suckers, so I started pruning them to one main stalk, and putting them in cages. I just have my Brandywine to go. A few of the plants have curled up leaves at the top. I can't decide if that's a problem or not. I read though that a sudden stress like the heat of summer suddenly coming can do that, and then they'll be fine in a week or two. Hopefully that's all it is. I also read on the same FAQ that pruning might not be necessarily a good thing. So, I don't know if I should have or not, but we'll see how they do. My Big Rainbow also has what looks like some black spot on the lower leaves. Can they catch that from roses? I thought planting them with the roses was a good thing. Now I'm all confused. Hopefully I'll figure that out very soon.

To Do

Yesterday, I used the second cuttings of spinach in quesadillas with red pepper, garlic, and onions. Hopefully soon, all of that will be garden fresh, but it's a start. I noted that my beans and cucumbers are starting to pop up as well.

Today I was hoping to get a few much needed things done, but it really rained most of the day. I'm not unhappy, we still are in a deficit, and when God waters my garden, I don't have to pay for it. So, here's what I hope to get done tomorrow:

1. Make tomato cages and set up.
2. Plant sunflowers.
3. Fertilize cucumbers and sweet potatoes with fish emulsion.
4. Start zinnias inside for transplanting.
5. Mulch tomatoes & cucumbers with grass clippings.
6. Take pictures for beginning of month progress.
7. Spray daisies & roses with insecticide soap.
8. Dump compost bucket & top pile with leaves.