Summer Time Summary

Note:  Although his wasn't finished, but it does have some good information, so I will publish what is here.  It was written in September of 2012.

What a busy, fun, interesting summer it has been.  While not much has been going on in this blog, I have fortunately done better in the garden.  I did keep up with basic records on Sprout Robot, and while it is a good basic record keeper/indicator of when thing should be done, that's all it is.  Nothing is in order, and if a certain crop doesn't work out for whatever reason, there is no way to indicate that.  So, for my own mind, I will do a basic summary here.

April: Put in broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprout, and cabbage plants during the first week.  In the middle of the month, I also planted dill and started picking radishes.

May:  At the beginning of this month, I was able to start picking peas & lettuce.  For some reason, the peas did not do well this year.  They looked like they developed some type of disease and literally shriveled and wasted away.  The lettuce however did awesome, and I had a very hard time keeping up with it. (except the green leaf lettuce which never came up)

By the end of the month, the swiss chard was also ready.  It was really the only green that did well this year. The mustard, kale, collards and spinach hardly came up, and what did never grew very well.  I think some of this is due to old seed.  The spinach was also not in that great of soil.  Now that school was out, I was able to plant cucumbers, summer & winter squash, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.

June: By the beginning of this month, the broccoli was ready to harvest followed closely by the cauliflower.  The broccoli did well.  I had plenty for a while and was able to freeze a little, although not nearly as much as last year.  The cauliflower would have done well also, but I was unsure about knowing when it was ready.  I let it go too long and it got blackish yellow on the top.  I just had to compost it.  I also put in cantaloupe plants.

In a couple of weeks, the cabbage was also ready.  I was able to make sauerkraut successfully from my own garden!  Again however, I don't think the cabbage did quite as well as it did the year before.

2012 Summary and 2013 Beginning

A lot of things happened in the garden last year.  Unfortunately, not a lot of it got recorded in the blog.  I would definitely say, though, that it was the best year yet.  We got tons of strawberries, leeks, onions, and tomatoes.  We even froze a bit of broccoli and peas.  There were lots of other things harvested as well, but no extra to save.  Unfortunately, the raspberries were taken over by weeds and didn't do more than leaf out.
I also managed to have a small fall garden last year.  The peas and greens didn't do that well, but we did have a lot of lettuce, which was nice.  I ended the year by planting  a half bed of garlic (Spanish Roja).

The garlic has been doing fabulous, and I am well on my way to a great crop in the summer.  I planted peas in late February, and the snow peas are about an inch tall now.  However, the regular sweet peas didn't really come up.  This packet of peas has had some problems even when I bought them last spring, and I have decided (for a few reasons) that I am going to switch buying from Pinetree and now order seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  This company is managed by a homeschool family in Missouri.  The seeds are closer to me (in the same basic zone), and they are all open pollinated (not Monsanto).  I am very late in ordering this year, but I hopefully will get to that this weekend.

I did order onions and leeks from Dixondale Farms in midFebruary.  The onions and leeks I ordered last year did amazingly well, and I was very excited to order the exact same thing this year.  Unfortunately, I got so busy that I was unable to put them in the ground until yesterday.  Hopefully they were not too dried out and will still grow okay.

I also prepped the bed that the brassicas will be in and bought plants at Ace yesterday.  I really need to work on mulching better, so the weeds don't take over in the winter.  (Although I did manage to cover my allium bed with fall leaves after the garlic was planted, and I covered this year's curcubit bed with black plastic to kill the grass that took over last year.)  My goal for this weekend is to get the brassica bed planted, weed the strawberry bed, and see if there is any hope for my rasberries.

Raspberries and Strawberries, Take 2

It has been so nice outside these last couple of weeks. It feels like June, even though it's only the middle of March. (I hope that doesn't mean bad things for August.) Yesterday, I worked hard weeding the strawberry bed again (the dandelions took over) and planted in the bare spots. It seems that the current plants are still producing runners, so I really shouldn't have ordered new ones. I really ended up planting only 5 of the Sparkle strawberry plants. I hope that my mom can find a place to plant the rest of them. The established plants are full of blooms and some have some very tiny berries. Yay!

In the meantime, my sweet husband moved the fence and retilled so that the raspberry canes are now protected from the dog. Once again, I planted 5, and I am really looking forward to raspberries this August. On a side note, as of today, the mustard, collards, chard, turnips, radishes, and romaine have sprouted. The garden is really starting to look alive once again.

March Pictures

Most of this bed is onion and leek plants. There is some spinach and beets that have sprouted, and today I planted carrots and scallions.

Last Thursday, we filled this bed with new mushroom soil. Today I planted the greens (kale, collards, mustard, turnips, chard), lettuce, and radishes. I need to stop by Ace this week and pick up broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and brussel sprout plants.

The peas are about a couple inches tall as of today.

Onions & Leeks

Not too much to say today. It's been an interesting weekend that was almost a repeat of last April with storms that included tornadoes. Once again we were blessed. We did lose a shed, so a new shed including some nice garden storage/work area is in order soon.

My onion and leek order came in last Tuesday, so I made it my first priority this morning to get them into the ground. It took up almost a whole entire bed! I already have spinach and beets there, and there is enough room for a couple of rows of carrots, but that is it. I guess I will have to put the swiss chard in either with the other greens or with the legumes. We'll see how things work out. I will probably put the scallions in with my herb bed.

The peas have sprouted. Yay! I thought the spinach would have sprouted by now, but it hasn't. Oh well. I am using a new calendar/planning system called Sprout Robot. You enter what you want to grow and your zip code and it calculates when you should be planting what and takes you all the way through harvest. As you plant or whatever, you check it off and it recalculates. It's totally free and pretty cool so far. I didn't get to take pictures today, but I will try to do that this week.

Spring Karma

Every year I plan to properly prepare the garden beds for winter. In my mind, I am chopping fall leaves, broadcasting crimson clover for cover crops, pulling up stakes, and doing other general cleanup, etc. It all gets done . . . in my mind. And every year I pay for not following through with tons of weeds (mostly nasty henbit) that I have to pull and hoe before I can do any planting. This year is no exception. I did get one bed completely ready. It will need a new load of mushroom soil before I can plant the brassicas and lettuce, for that is what the greens love.

The root bed should be finished shortly. My sweet husband traded off with me to finish that bed. I started this one by planting a half row of spinach and beets. This week my onion order should come in, so I am hoping to make time this week to get those planted in there as well.

And so it begins...

Today I planted the peas and snow peas. I had so much to do this weekend that I was glad the bed they were rotating to was pretty much ready. I spent a little while doing a bit of weeding, pulling out the tomato cages, and resetting up the trellis for the little climbers. It's been so warm. Today was in the 60's, and it certainly wasn't the first time this year. It feel so good to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine.

2012 Seed & Plant Order

Pinetree Garden Seeds

• English Peas - Lincoln
• Snow Peas - Carouby de Maussane
• Carrots - Little Finger (early variety)
• Green Onions (Scallions) - Crimson Forest
• Spinach - Giant Noble
• Looseleaf Lettuce - Beleah Rose
• Pumpkin - Small Sugar
• Cilantro - Large Leaf

I ordered before relooking at last year's records, and I should have ordered mustard seeds too. Oh well...

Dixondale Farms

• Candy Onions (Intermediate Day)
• Lancelot Leeks

And as stated before I did get Sparkle strawberries and Heritage raspberries from Nourse Farms.

Time to refresh!

So another year has begun. I'm so happy for 2011 to be over. Although it was my best garden to date, I really struggled with parasite issues and other sickness. I'm definitely hoping for 2012 to be an amazing year!

I was so sick in the fall that unfortunately, I didn't get my beds prepped for winter as I would have liked. So today I went out and assessed the damage. I was surprised and elated that I still have leeks, scallions, and parsley that can still be harvested. The swiss chard may be okay, but it does look wilty from the freezes we've had the last couple of days. My biggest happiness is that the strawberries look just fine also, except for being very weedy. I am very fortunate that this has been a mild winter so far.

I tried to delicately pull the worst of the weeds from the strawberry bed and covered it with straw. I also added a bunch of straw to the compost as it has too much greens. This afternoon I am going to go over my seed inventory and make some orders. I already know that I'm going to order Heritage raspberries again (and put them inside the fence this time) and some Sparkle strawberries to extend my strawberry season from Nourse Farms. I'm also going to order onions and leeks from Dixondale Farms this year. I'm definitely not going to attempt to start seeds anymore until I have a more proper setup for it. It just wasn't working out, and the animals finished off the ones that were trying.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch!

If there is one mantra that I have not followed this summer and regret, it is to mulch everything. Leave no garden ground naked! I spent a little time weeding crab grass from around the cantaloupe plants this evening, and there is so much more to be done.

On the upside, the roma tomatoes are coming in massive numbers now. I picked up some jalapeno peppers at the farmer's market today, and hopefully this week I will try my hand at making and canning some salsa. Tasty!

Cucumber Beetle Attack Plans

Here are some ideas I've gleaned:

• Plant tansy as a companion.
• Use straw mulch.
• Put up the bat house.
• Put a trench of moistened wood ashes.
• Spread onion skins around plants.
• Use row cover until the plants are too big.
• To fool cuke beetles: flatten a square of aluminum foil around the base of plants to bounce light on the undersides of leaves. This also helps the plants in giving them more light.
• Cultivate in the fall to expose the eggs.
• Benificial nematodes.

Tomatoes & Potatoes

Look what I found today! It's very cracked, but it is the first brandywine of summer! The romas are really starting to come in now as well. Also, in harvesting news, we have dug up all the potatoes, and I think we have about 20 lbs. (including the ones we've already eaten). The potatoes are being stored in the same way as we stored the sweet potatoes last year, a cat litter box with holes drilled all around for circulation. Hopefully, they will last this way.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid the squash may be a losing battle. The carnival squash that had three fruits on it and was huge, is all but dead now. I must research efforts against the cucumber beetle for next year.

However, one can't be too sad when the sunflower sunshine has come to the garden. Enjoy!

July Pictures

It is hotter than Hades out there. I believe the heat index got to 118 degrees this afternoon, so needless to say the only thing accomplished was to deeply water late this evening. I apologize for the pictures. It was too hot to take them before it got dark.

Here we have my herbs in buckets. The sage and thyme didn't make it, but the rest are doing well. In the front are cucumbers and to the right are watermelon (not in pic). In the middle are the squashes. The zucchini which started terrible, is doing fabulous now as is my carnival squash. The butternut is catching up, but the yellow has some issues. The leaves are turning yellow and the stems are pretty chewed. I'm pretty sure it's a cucumber beetle problem, but it could be squash vine borer too. I may try to replant some yellow squash this week or next. Behind that are the eggplant and peppers which are doing quite well and a basil plant that is struggling after being planted too late. At the very back are the tomatoes. The romas and sungold cherry are producing nicely. The brandywine seems to be doing good with several green tomatoes, but the Moskivich is a goner, I believe. I may not get that type again as I think I've had a problem with it before.

Here you can see that the potatoes are pretty much died back and ready to dig up. Behind that is corn that is very close to being ready as well.

In the front are little okra seedlings next to a ton of swiss chard ready to eat. In the middle are sweet potato seedlings, then leeks and carrots. There are also a few onions left, but most have been harvested and are curing on the kitchen table (away from dog who would like to play with them). This bed needs a lot of weeding as you can see.

The brassica bed is just about done for the year. In the middle are the biggest sunflowers I've ever grown, much less seen. The dill is flowering and smells lovely. There are two survivor cantelope plants among the weeds and secondary cabbage leaves in front. I fertilized them today, and maybe they will start to grow better. In the back is kale and collards that are close to bolting and lettuce that is way past bolting. This bed will need a lot of clean up once I can catch up with the current crops.

On the other side of the potato bed is the great pole bean takeover. We have harvested a bunch already, and there is more picking to be done. In the front are lima beans that are wondering where there trellis went.

Recovery

This summer has been a terrible relapse as far as my health is concerned. I have spent at least two weeks in the hospital, and am hopeful that we are finally on the right track as to what is going on. I am fearful that the parasite, cryptosporidium, that was discovered in May might be due to the very fresh mushroom soil that we put in this year. Anyway, I am making my best effort at recovery before school starts, and I am trying to make a recovery of the garden at the same time. I will do my best to have detailed pictures tomorrow, but for today it was all I could do to harvest a bit (cabbage, corn, sungold tomatoes, and a zucchini) and deeply water.

For now I will post a rough to do list in my effort to catch up:

1. Weed, weed, weed! Especially in the root bed and the strawberry bed.
2. Fertilize tomatoes, eggplant, squash, and cantaloupe.
3. Mount an attack on the squash bugs!
4. Harvest potatoes.
5. Pull up bolted lettuce and replant.
6. Water every day while heat index is over 100 degrees.
7. Find good storage for the onions that are pretty much harvested.

Tomato Issues

I am very troubled by the state of my tomatoes. The top half is curled, flowers are few and hardly any are producing fruit. One plant has some yellowing on the older leaves. It started a few weeks ago when the temperatures shot up and there was much less rain, but it's not getting better now that things have stabilized a bit. As I investigated, it seems that there are a lot of aphids. So, is this aphid damage, or have they transmitted a disease (possibly cucumber mosaic virus or tobacco mosaic virus)?

My zucchini are struggling with the cucumber bugs also. I sprayed pyrethrin on everything, but I just don't know if it's too late.

June Pictures...Finally

These pictures were taken last week, but they are just now making it to the blog.

I've already been digging up a few potatoes as I've needed them, but I think they are just about ready for general harvest now. This week they appear to be dieing off. The early corn has started to tassle, and the pole beans have started to flower. The lima beans are now about 4 inches high.

The lettuce is starting to bolt, and I may have to harvest most all of it soon. I'm so excited that my lettuce did well this year. I also have tons of turnip greens, dill, and a few sunflowers. The broccoli and half my cabbages have been harvested, and the other half of the cabbages appear to be about ready now. I planted four canteloupes where the broccoli was this last week. It remains to be seen if they will do okay or not.

After a few hail storms, the onions are about ready for harvest. I've already gotten a few carrots, and I am pleased that they are doing well this year also. I can't say the same for the scallions. I have a few leeks that I think are still fighting among the weeds in the middle as well as a ton of swiss chard. I am still having trouble getting my beets to bulb though.

The remaining strawberries have done super well, producing a ton of runners. Unfortunately, I have let the weeds take over. That needs to be taken care of this week.

My herbs have done well for the most part. Here we have Italian parsley, chamomile, sage, chives, oregano, a salad mix, rosemary and spearmint. I also have thyme and cilantro that isn't pictured here. Unfortunately, the cilantro didn't germinate that well. I may need new seed for next year.

Here are the cucumbers, watermelon, squash, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes. I'm having some trouble with the tomatoes and squash. Some I think from cucumber beetles, and some I'm not sure about. (I will post more on that later.) The peppers and eggplant seem to be doing super well though.

Freezing in the Heat

This year is the first year that I have actually had enough vegies to be able to freeze some extra for later. Yesterday I was able to process about a quart of peas, and today I processed almost a gallon of broccoli. Of course, I might have been able to process more if I had stayed on top of the garden these last few weeks, but I'm still pretty pleased.

Freezing produce is super easy. And for vegetables, it's easier than canning because most vegies require pressure canning to be safe for preservation. (Tomatoes being the exception.) Although, I have been known to just through peppers, onions, and tomatoes in the freezer, there is a technical process called blanching. This requires minimal cooking in boiling water to stop the growing enzymes and then an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Other than being sure that your vegetables are washed well with no bugs, that's it. Process time varies, although it's generally the same time for boiling as ice bathing. Pick Your Own is my go to resource for food preservation, both canning and freezing.

Other accomplishments for today: I also picked four cabbages and weeded/pulled up bolting plants from the brassica bed. The broccoli is basically finished, so I'm pondering planting cantaloupe in its place. I replanted some butternut squash, although a couple just sprouted today. I also resprayed the eggplant. I think it's going to make it this year, but I need to figure out why the flowers are falling off. Is this the same as calcium deficiency in tomatoes and peppers?

Pictures tomorrow...

The Legumes that Went Out of Control

The Great Bean Takeover

May is always a busy time in the garden, but as always it is a crazy time at school as well. Crazy stress of finishing up = Crazy sickness as well... I am finally in the full recovery...err...relaxation of June. Huzzah! In that time, I have managed to finish planting peppers, squash, cucumbers and watermelon, although I still need to put in some basil plants and a yellow pepper. I have also picked a ton of broccoli and peas.

Unfortunately though, the garden has had to mostly fend for itself. That has led to some bolting of cooler plants such as lettuce and broccoli, but the worst problem as been with my green beans. I got them planted about three weeks ago, but did not get around to creating a trellis for them to climb. Those beans took fending for themselves literally! They just cozied up with the peas, and you could hardly tell which kind of plant was on the pea trellis. Today, I set about to fix the problem, and it was no small task. I untangled and pulled and unwove until I finally got the beans back in their row and the peas all pulled up. (In the process I picked and froze about a quart of shelled peas.) After the great untangle and fixing everyone's place nicely, I tried to set the beans up on their own trellis and planted lima beans in the peas' place. Overall, my new trellis method is rather nice; I just have to never underestimate the speed of pole bean growth.

It has become super hot, so that it is impossible to just set aside a day for gardening. I have to work for a few hours in the morning each day. So, tomorrow's goal is to take care of the brassica bed. Several cabbages are ready to be picked, as well as lots of broccoli. Some broccoli is flowering as is some other greens and stuff, so that's all ready to be pulled up. I will also try to add some grass clippings as mulch in that bed, and I may freeze some broccoli. It really depends on how I assess things tomorrow. I also need to replant some butternut squash, as that didn't really come up for some reason.

Until tomorrow....hopefully...

Tomatoes

First off, we had an epic storm this last week! Praise God the worst damage to our property was some minor hail damage to our cars and to the garden (a couple of broken plants). Many people in our area lost their homes and some lost their loved ones as well. I don't think this area has experienced tornadoes in such a capacity.

Because of the storm, I really didn't get to plant the tomatoes as soon as I would like. I did weed and plant some fill in seeds of various things on Friday, but we finally made a trip to the nursery and got mushroom soil to fill in the curcubit bed on Sunday. Today I planted a brandywine, moskivich (that was broken by the hail), sungold cherry, 2 san marzano romas, and a viva Italia roma. I didn't have myself together, so out of the list of things I would usually plant with them, I only used eggshells, aspirin, and a handful of Miracle Grow slow release. (I'm trying to use up what I have.) I wanted to plant more today, but that's really all that got done.

I have harvested the broccoli crowns, and it appears that the leaf lettuce and the peas are about ready to go. Also, the corn and beans are starting to come up. Now we have gotten to where I will attempt to eat out of the garden more often than not. Yay!

April Summary

What a crazy month! I guess I will just summarize the garden's progress bed by bed. To start with though, Brigitta pulled up all the raspberry plants, so unfortunately that is something we'll have to try again next year /behind/ the electric fence.

To start with, the strawberries have done fairly well. Several of them have wilted off, but most are flowering now. The dying ones are mostly around the edges, so I think they just aren't getting enough water and the soil may not have been as tilled, etc. I also have something eating some of the leaves. I will probably add some straw around them in the next day or two to preserve some moisture.

The root bed is doing okay. The onions look fabulous, and I have seedlings up for carrots, scallions, leeks, chard, a couple beets, spinach, and maybe a celery plant. I'm not sure why I'm never successful with beets and celery. Otherwise, there are lots of weeds, and some space for sweet potatoes later.

The brassica bed is doing fabulous. I've already harvested radishes and mustard greens. The turnips need to be thined, so we are gung ho into greens season. I bought new romaine lettuce seed, and it is up as well as the other lettuce and dill. I only have a few parsnip seedlings, so I'm pretty sure I need to buy new seeds for next year. The broccoli and cabbage plants I bought are now so big that the row cover doesn't fit over them completely. I'm still leaving it for now since it mostly covers and should hopefully prevent haphazard moths. I also planted some sunflowers in this bed, but they aren't up yet. I spent a while weeding in this bed today, and need to get more grass clippings on as mulch.

In the legume bed, the peas are growing like crazy and now have tons of blooms on them. I planted green beans and corn today, and put a layer of straw on the potatoes, which are now also up.

I weeded the fourth bed today, and we finally got the truck out of the mud. (It's been raining and raining all spring.) So, tomorrow I plan to go to the nursery to get mushroom soil to fill it up. I got tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant at Crabtree Farms spring plant sale, and the tomatoes are so tall they need to get in the ground ASAP.

I also have a ton of herbs in containers: chives, rosemary, thyme, oregano, chammomile, cilantro, parsley, and mint, as well as a salad mix. They are mostly doing pretty well. I need to find some sage and plant basil very soon.