Monday June 24

Other than the late beginning of spring which got everything off to a slow start the vegetable plants are looking really good this year.  Last year had a very early spring but production from the beds at this point is about the same as last year - 37 lbs so far.  Much of that has come from the cole crops which are producing much better than last year.  Kohlrabi has now taken the lead with 9.6 lbs so far, edging out cabbage with 9.2 lbs and lettuce with 8.6 lbs.  Lettuce is done with the recent hot weather.  I pulled up the last bolted plants this morning. 

I'm convinced that the Earthbox was made for celery.  It may keep the potting mix too damp for many plants, but for a swamp plant like celery that needs consistent moisture it's perfect.  I never liked to buy celery by the bunch because much of it went to waste.  I like celery but don't eat that much.  This way I can cut a few of the outer stems for a snack and leave the plant intact.

I'm also growing Millionaire okra in two self-watering containers that I made.  Millionaire is supposed to be a small okra.  I've always noticed ants on okra but never knew what they were doing.  Then I noticed a little leaf damage and noticed some aphids on the underside of the leaves.  The ants were farming the aphids, the same thing they had done on the two apple trees this spring. 

The aphids did a lot of damage to the apple trees and sprays of Neem had no effect since the leaves curl around the aphids, which feed on the underside.  I sprayed with pyrethrins for several consecutive days on the theory that killing the ants left the aphids vulnerable (Neem won't kill the ants).  I'm not sure if the spraying did the trick but the infestation stopped.  On the okra the aphids are more of a minor nuisance.  I sprayed once with Neem but won't use anything stronger since the okra is in bloom and I don't like killing bees.

It's been another productive week for brassicas.  First I got this harvest that included a few Picolino cucumbers.

Later in the week I harvested several Gonzales cabbages and more kohlrabi. 

For the week:  Kohlrabi 3 lbs 1 oz, cabbage 3 lbs 15 oz, cucumber 1 lb.  Soon I expect to pick the first peppers, okra and green beans - maybe next week.  It'll be nice to get some alternatives to cole crops.  And tomatoes?  I'm hoping the first ripe tomato will be ready by the 4th of July.  This is a Cherokee Purple plant and it's loaded, although the Supersonic will produce the first tomatoes.

To see what other people in other places are growing go to http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/

Work continues

It feels like a milestone, or a really great Christmas present.  Yesterday the pole barn went live, with electricity that is.  After nearly two weeks of intermittent digging the trench was completed, the wire run through conduit, the conduit set in the trench. 

The trench is two feet deep.  The spring rain had soaked the clay enough to make shoveling not total misery, except for the perimeter drain.  The perimeter drain is a vein of large stones, about 2 inches, that is about a foot below the surface and goes to god knows how deep.  The trench crossed the drain for about 10 feet.  Shoveling through the stones was pure hell, and stones kept falling in from the side of the trench to make things worse.  And there were tree roots that had to be axed.

Yesterday I hooked up the wire to the load panel in the house and the panel in the pole barn.  Now there are lights and electricity in the barn.  It sure is nice to be able to plug in a tool or compressor without running a heavy 100 ft extension cord from the house to the barn.  Lights that work!

The trench still has to be filled back in and I'm not in a real big hurry to do that.  At least it's a lot easier than digging it out.

I built a little platform so the water pump can set level on the banks of the pond.  It's now set up so the pump can be hooked up quickly via a 50 ft hose to the hose reel, which holds 130 feet of hose.  Combined with the 20 feet of PEX tubing from pond to pump there's 200 feet of hose. That's enough hose to get water to any vegetable or flower bed on the property.  I gave the beds a good soaking a few days ago as there hadn't been any rain in a week.  I like to first water the vegetable beds, then the flower beds, then return to the vegetable beds for another soaking. 

 

Today there was a downpour but it's only a matter of time before the summer draughts begin.  I'm ready.

 

 

Monday June 17

Lots of cole crops coming in right now, including a cauliflower.  I got 3 heads of Gonzalez cabbage, gave two of them away, 3 heads of broccoli and a gigantic 1 lb 9 oz kohlrabi.  Hope it's not woody. The broccoli heads have been small this year, but all the other produce more than makes up for it.  Not everything is shown in the pics:

 

Yep that's a cucumber in the last photo.  In fact I got two.  It's a Picolino F1 hybrid, a small British type cuke that is parthenocarpic, meaning it doesn't need pollen to set the fruit.  It's also very good, even better than Diva, which is the other cuke that I'm growing.  I think the Picolino will make terrific bread and butter pickles and it looks like there will be plenty by July.

Last year I grew the same two cukes.  The Diva, a beit alpha cuke of middle eastern origin, thrived in the scorching heat last summer, while the Picolino produced a few cukes then succumbed to the 100 degree temps.  

This year the tables are turned.  The weather has been moderate, temperatures mild and the Picolino has thrived, growing much faster than the Diva.  Growing the two varieties with different temperature tolerances is a good way to cover the bases, especially in the Midwest with it's unpredictable seasons. 

As for what's coming, the tomatoes/peppers/eggplant are not likely to ripen until sometime in July.  That leaves green beans and squash.  The first patch of green beans are Provider beans, one of my favorite varieties.  It should begin setting flowers any day.  The Kentucky Wonder beans are climbing up the strings.  They shoot a vine several feet up a support then open their leaves.

As for the squash I said in an earlier post that I was going to pull all of them up since they got off to a slow start in the cool weather in late May.  Well I pulled the worst looking winter squash up and reseeded.  I'll compare how they do with the ones that were spared.  

I left the yellow zucchini in the ground but seeded some backup plants nearby.  Good thing because the two zucchini plants literally fell over about ten days ago.  They were pulled up with hardly any effort to reveal a puny root system.  This plant had the larger root structure.  I wish I knew what was causing this.  I found the same problem with the summer squash last year.

For the week:

Kohlrabi 1 lb 9 oz, cabbage 3 lb 14 oz, broccoli 1 lb 5 oz, cauliflower 11 oz, lettuce 3 oz, cucumber 11 oz.  Totals 8.3 lbs.  Not quite 30 pounds so far.  A spreadsheet summary is on the 2013 Results page.     

Second Wave

Might as well go for a grandiose post title.  But it’s true, it’s time for a second wave of planting in the beds.  It’s mid-June and a lot of plants have come out of the beds – lettuce, spinach, and cole crops.  I can leave a broccoli plant after picking the head and it will make some more florets, but if I need the space for something else then out it comes (or goes).

Today a second planting went into the brassica bed.  This morning I harvested kohlrabi, cabbage, broccoli and a cauliflower from one end of the bed.  Then I pulled all of them out, as well as two more broccoli plants that had been picked (decapitated?) earlier.  That left about 4 feet of open bed.  Can’t have that, especially in a small garden like this where I'm trying to get the maximum from the space.  The soil was broken up with a hoe, weeds were removed and a handful of fertilizer worked in.  Then I made three grooves with my hands, spread some legume inoculum and seeded the three rows with Tendergreen bush beans. 

Let me say right here that I never plan what goes in when the first planting comes out.  I just go with the flow.  In the last week I’ve also seeded two rows of carrots, a row of beets, and a patch of scallions in the spaces that have opened up.    

Suckering tomatoes:  This year I pruned to leave one sucker about 6-12 inches above soil level.  This makes a forked stem that I hope fills out the cage, which is about 2 feet in diameter.  I leave a few more suckers higher on the main stem if I think they will help fill the cage, otherwise most suckers are removed.  I also try to remove most of the foliage near the bottom to help air flow.  Here’s a picture of the Supersonic tomato plant at ground level.  The branch on the right is the main stem.  

 

This is the San Marzano plant, a sauce tomato.  I need to remove some more of the low foliage on these plants, it’s a jungle down there.  

And here’s the three tomato plants in their adjoined cages.  I'm just showing off now.  Nice looking tomato plants aren't they?

I put the last siding pieces on the potato box today.  First I cut holes in the middle of each piece and directed one more shoot from each plant through the holes (I had precut the holes at the ends but it turns out they were useless).  Then I added more shredded leaf mold and put a handful of fertilizer in the center.  I don’t plan to do any more with the box, just let the potatoes grow and see what happens.  

The potatoes in the beds have grown at an amazing rate lately.  It seems like a week ago I was putting in the last of the straw around the plants.  Now the foliage is so thick that the ground can’t be seen.   I’ll have to get some good string to tie between the posts before the plants become top heavy.     

The month of June has been sunny and temperate, in fact excellent weather and the plants have responded well, meaning they are growing like crazy.  This was the garden on May 30:

And here it is today: