First Freeze 2015

Tonight we have our first freeze forecasted, and so I had to go out and pick many of the warm weather crops, including the rest of the green beans, and the peppers.

Peppers

The peppers have done awesome this year.  The plants are just huge, and still loaded with peppers.  Here is what I picked this morning, and there are a lot more that I need to pick before the day is over.  I need to figure out what to do with all these!

hot peppers of 4 different varieties, picked before the freeze tonight.

I am planning to let the red peppers dry out, and maybe freeze the green one. I may try and pickle the jalapenos too.    When I planted these, they grew so slowly at first I thought they were not going to make it.  It was only until mid-June that they started taking off, and have grown like crazy.  Next time I will thin to fewer plants, since I think it was way too much.  I think I will also focus more on sweet peppers, and do much fewer hot peppers.

Pumpkins/Winter Squash

2 Sugar Pie Pumpkins, 1 hubbard squash, and 2 spaghetti squash

The winter squash and pumpkins yielded much less than I was hoping this year, but at least I got something!  Lets discuss what happened and what I learned:

Spaghetti squash -  I had planted 2 hills, right close to 2 hills of sugar pie pumpkins, right at the back corner of the garden.  I think the big issue was lack of space.  The plants were too cramped together, so I was not able to get in there and take care of the vines, and bury them as I usually do to promote more rooting.  So the Squash Vine borers damaged much of the vines.  Much of the original vines were exposed, and since they are much thinner vines than pumpkin vines (reminds me of Acorn squash), they were less resistant to SVB damage.   Next time if I plant in the fall, I will maybe plant them about 2 weeks later, and give them much more space.  Planning on letting them run underneath the peppers didn't work very good either since the pepper plants were very dense.  I just need much more space planned for these.
Pumpkins - My 2 hills ended up producing just 2 pumpkins.  I think it was the same issue as the spaghetti squash, not enough space! The vines were way to cramped, and I didn't have a chance to bury them and take care of them as I usually do, so they got attacked by SVB and caterpillars, and later powdery mildew.  But thankfully I did end up getting 2 very nice pumpkins.
Hubbard Squash - I got one very nice one.  I really hoped to get more, and many of them had nice fruit set, to only stop growing a few days later, and then eventually die off.  Same thing happened a couple years ago.
I'm not sure that its normal to have low yields on this, or maybe the Texas weather is not really well suited for these.  But these are such cool looking squash, that I still want to keep trying in the future, and will definitely be saving seed from the squash in the picture above.  I think as is always the case, these also could have benefited from more space, because it seems only after the vines had gotten to 20 feet long did they start making female flowers.

Beans

I think I timed my pole beans perfectly this year!  Last year I was too late and the frost got them before I had significant production, so I planted a few weeks earlier this year (seeded around 8/19).  The plants came up and grew well despite the heat, and then started producing well in the early fall.  We've had  about three or 4 weeks of very good production, but this freeze will most likely do them in.

Pole beans growing up fence, next to basil bushes

Cool Weather Plants

In the previous post I had mentioned the cabbage, spinach and turnips we had just planted. They are doing very well, except for some holes in the turnip leaves.  Hopefully the frost will get rid of the bugs doing that,which I suspect are flea beetles, which are a big pest for turnips for me.  The cabbage are beautiful, and I can see the leaves are just starting to form heads.  The spinach is doing well, but growing much slower than the cabbage.  I have a newer patch of cabbage too ( bottom right of picture.)

These can all take frost and freezes fairly well, except if it gets down to the mid-20s, then I'll need to cover them.

Early October 2015 Update

Its early October (Oct 3rd today) , and today the weather is pretty much perfect... Sunny skies, 80 degree high, and low humidity.   The past few weeks the temperature has hovered around 90 degrees, and its been pretty dry, so I've had to keep on watering manually.

Cool Weather Plants

Right in between the Okra plants and the cymlings/yellow squash plants, I expanded yet another area, and put in some cabbage (Ferry's Round Dutch) and some spinach (from saved seeds in the spring) seedlings.  I had to pull out a few of the okra plants to make more room.  We had started the plants from seed a few weeks before, and put them in.  I seem to have a lot of problem with "dropping off" with seedlings in pots.  I am not sure why, but I lost many of the spinach.  I also sowed some spinach seed directly in that same area too, and those are starting to come up.

cabbage and spinach seedlings

I have noticed some tiny holes in my cabbage plants, and found some tiny caterpillars starting to feed on them, so I sprayed them with BT the other day.  As the pumpkins keep growing, I am going to have to keep them from growing over this area and taking over.   In the meantime I started another batch of spinach, cabbage, and turnips in small pots.  I may plant these in areas where the pumpkin and hubbard squash vines have died back.

Beans

kentucky wonder pole beans have reached the top of the fence.

Earlier in the summer I had done some bush beans, and I did those because they grow faster, and I wanted some beans before the really hot weather came.  They did ok, but we didn't really get a chance to get a lot of bean from those plants.  I usually prefer pole beans, because they grow vertically, take less space, and they produce a lot.  But they are even less tolerant of very hot weather.  Last year in the early fall I planted some but it was too late.  Just when they started producing well, we had a hard freeze.  This year I started quite a bit earlier.  They are doing very well now.  I can see they are starting to produce flowers now.   I have two areas in the garden with pole beans.  I am using twine to train them up towards the trellis I made for the birdhouse gourds, and on the other are, towards the trellis I made for the cucumbers which are all dead now.

Okra

We have had so much okra, we're kind of tired of it now.  I had frozen some and we've eaten them in many ways.  I have not picked much recently, so many of the pods are now mature. I collected a few for seeds for next year. 

Okra plants with mature pods

I thinned out a few plants a few weeks ago to make space for fall plantings.  Next year I need to grow less of these, because the 7 or so plants we had were too much, and they took over a lot of space, and tend to shade out other plants. They became like trees, and it was hard to keep up with them.  The plants did amazing though. They had no pest problems (Aphids had been a problem in the past years).  Next year I should only do 4 plants, I think.  

Birdhouse Gourds

The birdhouse gourd plants are still hanging on.  They have produces a lot of gourds.  I think there are probably about 20 of them out there of varying shapes and sizes.  Its cool that their shapes vary so much. 

My plan is to let most of these dry on the vines.   

birdhouse gourds maturing

 The plants have been hit throughout the late summer with a huge infestation of aphids (more below) and also powdery mildew.  These plants are very susceptible to powdery mildew.  Also cucumber beetles like them a lot too.  But the plants grow so quickly, they just keep going despite it. Much of the earlier growth has died due to the mildew and pests, but there are plenty of areas that are still growing.

much of the vines are dying but there is new growth too

gourd leaves heavily infested with powdery mildew

I have not done much about the powdery mildew on these plants, because there is just so much of it, its out of control.  But since I have so many gourds now, I'm not that concerned about it anymore.

Aphid Wars

This year I had a major aphid explosion in my garden.  The war started on the birdhouse gourds.  I noticed some of the leaves were getting heavily infested in mid-summer, but I didnt do much about it because I started to notice a few ladybug larva on them. 

birdhouse gourds, with lots of aphids, and ladybug larva feeding on them

Over time the aphids starting expanding their area, being helped by lots of ants that protect and move them around.    But the ladybug population started growing too.   The aphids then started moving onto the squash.  I mentioned last post that my yellow squash and cymlings that were covered in netting were starting to get attacked.  Well it got very bad.  Many of the leaves were becoming severely stunted and curled.  I took off the covers,and starting moving a lot of the ladybug larvae from the gourd plants over to the squash.  Also I stared spraying the aphids off of leaves with water.  

Other help started to arrive.  I've been noticing many hover-flies around, and their larva. (info here) They look like tiny caterpillars but are actually maggots that feed on aphids.  I've seen lots of them on my squash.  Also lacewings and their aphid-lion larvae showed up too (info here), I see lots of their eggs.  And the the parasitic wasps that attack aphids and make them "zombies" started showing up too.  I know because I see some zombie (or mummy) aphids around, which are infested with larval wasps, and become brown and bloated, and then shortly die. (info here) So on the squash plants the aphids are finally under control.  The birdhouse gourds still have them but in much less numbers, and I see plenty of their predators around.  

Squash/Pumpkins

The hubbard squash plants keep growing pretty quickly and expanding towards the other side or the garden.  The original hill area is pretty much all cleared now as all the older leaves have died, accelerated  probably by the powdery mildew and aphids too.

 But there is plenty of new growth going on, and much of it is behind the area where the okra is, around the old cucumber trellis.

 Last week I finally had a good female flower open and set fruit.  Here is a Hubbard squash, about 5 days old.  I put a metal sheet underneath it so it doesn't sit on the ground and rot, as it grows bigger.  These things get huge!  I'm really hoping this becomes a nice one.  But I have had no other good female flowers yet.  I grew these a couple years ago, and only got 1 real good squash too.

I have really not seen any squash vine borer eggs in at least a week.  They seemed to have slowed down a lot by mid-september. I did kill a moth about two weeks ago.    I have quit burying new vines, because I think the threat of them is pretty much over.   

Summer Squash

Since my last update, I completely removed the covers from the "cymlings" (Patty pan squash) and the yellow crookneck.  As I mentioned above they were severely infested with aphids, but are now under control.  Also powdery mildew has gotten on them, and I started spraying with baking soda, and I ordered Potassium bicarbonate to spray on them too, to keep it at bay.  I have not seen any Squash borer damage on these plants yet, and with their recent decline, dont anticipate that will be a problem anymore this year.  I mentioned last post about buying Tricogramma wasps to help control them. I did release some of them, but its really hard to tell if they had any effect.  Hopefully they helped.    

Benning's Green Tint variety of Patty Pan (called Cymlings in the old days)

some leaves have powdery mildew, some are curled due to aphid damage

very cool "flying saucer" shape of these squash

yellow crookneck squash almost ready

I've picked some squash already, both cymlings and yellow squash, and there is much more on the way, despite the aphids and PM (powdery mildew).

Spaghetti Squash and Sugar Pie Pumpkins

I planted these really too crowded together, and was not able to adequately tend them.  The original hills are looking pretty bad right now, but some of the vines have expanded pretty far, past the peppers, and now meeting up with the Hubbard vines in the middle.  I can see a lot of SVB damage in the are, but its so crowded in there I cant really step in there.  I think there were many eggs laid there, (probably before I release the tricogramma wasps). 

pumpkins and spaghetti squash vines have grown through the pepper plants.

  My first spaghetti squash that was growing up the fence died, due to SVB damage on the vine. But the growing tip of the vine has reached the cucumber area, and that seems to be doing well (having rooted along the ground in various places). Here is a spaghetti squash fruit that set a few days ago, and seems to be doing well.  But that is the only one so far.

The sugar pie pumpkins have fared a bit better.  They have much thicker vines, and can resist SVB damage better it seems. The spaghetti squash vines are much thinner, similar to acorn squash vines.  So far I have two pumpkins growing.  The one below is one that recently set.  Its under the old cucumber trellis.

 Much closer to the original hill, I have one pumpkin that set about 3 or so weeks ago, and seems to be starting to turn orange now.  As you can see many of the leaves in that area are dying now.

Peppers

The peppers have been doing great.  Tons of pepper on them.  I have recently seen a number of leaf-footed bugs on them, and have tried to hand-pick them off.  I am not sure what damage they have caused, except maybe a few wilted peppers, but with so many, I have really not cared too much.

September 12 Update

Late Summer in the Cabal Garden

Today is a beautiful day here in N. Texas.  Low 80's and dry weather makes being outside wonderful, and I am writing this sitting outside, on my chromebook.

After a very wet early summer, and very dry mid-summer,  we've had a days of rain recently, and lowering temperatures means the garden is kicking it into high gear again.   Even through the heat of the summer, the garden has remained very productive.   The main things this summer have been the cucumbers, yellow squash, okra, and the peppers, along with the maturing birdhouse gourds.

typical harvest, from late August

From early Sept 5th  including the variety of peppers.

I have been really surprised how well the cucumbers have done.  They have been incredible producers, and we've picked, eaten, and given away tons of them...  all from 4 plants!  The plants are pretty much done now, and I have started cutting them back to make space for the incoming pumpkin vines.

The okra plants are really now okra trees!  They are probably  about 7 ft tall now.

our okra trees

These also produce like crazy, and I've had to give away lots of okra too, in addition to eating it, and freezing some of it.  Our favorite is fried okra, although sometimes we will sautee it, although some of the kids don't really like the sliminess.  The frozen stuff will be good for soups like gumbo, in the winter.

Below is a picture of the pepper plants, mixed in there are 5 kinds of peppers, but the poblano-looking pepper is tallest variety, towering over the other ones.  

pepper plants

The yellow crookneck squash plants are looking pretty raggedy now, but I am hoping they might be able to push out a few more fruit.  The squash vine borers have affected them, but with some additional rooting along the ground, it has helped them.  They have done really well. I estimate around 25 squash from 3 plants.  There are 3 remaining growing tips, with some looking like they might start producing some more.

remnant of the yellow crookneck squash.

I've pulled up some wilted portions of the plant, and they have had some SVB grubs, which have become chicken snacks.  I'm not surprised cause I haven't been doing much to stop them the last month.

But their successors are almost ready to go now.  I planted some "cymlings" (patty-pan type squash).  I read about "cymlings" in an old book about gardening (that's what they called them back in the early 1900s) , and now for fun, I call them cymlings too.  Well I planted 3 hills of cymlings, and one hill of yellow crookneck.  I made a large frame for netting, out of PVC, to protect them from SVB and squash bugs.  Aphids have shown up, but I stuck some lady bug larva and adult lady bugs in there with them  (more on them later..)

more summer squash on the way

On the picture above you can see the cucumber plants They are just about dead.

I haven't mentioned these much, but I've had three big basil plants pretty much all summer.  They are great because they are constantly blooming and draw in lots of bees and other good bugs.  These seeded themselves from last year.

Basil plants, with Hubbard squash growing underneath.

The birdhouse gourds are doing great.  The plants have been severely infested with aphids, but there have been lady bugs among them, and they also have reproduced, so now I have lots of them too.  I've even put some of them under my netting to help with the aphids in my summer squash.  They have also been hit with powdery mildew pretty badly.  But they have produced lots of gourds.  Here are a few:

at the bottom of the picture you can see a leaf infested with powdery mildew.

Portions of the vines are starting to die off too, but other portions are now spreading along the ground.  

For the fall...

My main winter squash now growing is the Hubbard Squash, the sugar pie pumpkins, and spaghetti squash.  Below is the Hubbard squash.  It started close to the birdhouse gourds, and is spreading back towards the main part of the garden, now reaching the basil plants.  I've been burying the vines are they grow,but in the cramped space that becomes tricky.  The SVB moths are still flying around (just killed one today with a badminton racket.) but the egg laying has slowed down.  I do see some eggs here and there but nowhere as bad as it was earlier in the summer.   Next to the vines, growing up on tomato cages, are pole beans, Kentucky wonder.  I hope these get producing well before the cold weather comes.  Last year I started these too late, and they didnt get to produce much before the cold killed them.  This year I seeded them a few weeks earlier.

pole beans.

The plan is to let the Hubbard squash grow all underneath the beans, which are growing up the cages, and onto the fence.  

I think once again I got too ambitious with the sugar pie and spaghetti squash.  They have already taken over the whole area, and are almost impossible to reach for burying vines are removing SVB eggs, so I have really not done much there.   Hopefully the vines are established enough that any damage they cause will just have the effect of "pruning" the vines.

I also enlisted the help of "trichogramma wasps".  I had read that they are effective at parasitizing the eggs of Squash Vine borers.  So I bought some wasp eggs, for about $8 online.  I released them a few weeks ago, and am hopeful they are out there working.  They are very tiny, so it would be impossible for me to see them in action.  My hope is that they get established in my garden as natural pest control.

The vines have reached the pepper plants, and I am trying to train them to grow underneath, so they done cover the plants.

August 1st Update

Its August 1st, and it been really hot but today we are getting a break, and its going to be in the upper 90's instead of 100 like its been the past few days.  (yesterday it officially hit 104).

Despite the heat all the plants are doing well, probably because I keep them well watered.  Its hasn't rained a drop in about 4 weeks, but with all the rain we got this late spring/early summer, the lakes are still full and there aren't any watering restrictions.

Cucumbers ,Okra, Beans

The cucumbers are doing great.  These are actually called "Eureka Hybrid Cucumbers", and I read that they are very disease resistant.  I believe it, because by this time usually my cucumbers collapse and die, but these are still going strong.  The kids wanted to help in the garden, so I assigned Andrew to be in charge of picking the okra every day, and Michelle to be in charge of picking the cucumbers.

A day's harvest. Andrew picked about 12 okra pods, and Michelle picked 10 cucumbers.

The vines are now starting to sprawl along the ground too.

Here are the okra plants.  The are getting very big, taller than me now, and they are starting to produce a lot now.  These are the same "emerald" okra I've been growing the past few years.  I am out of seed so hopefully I'll remember to let a few pods mature and save the seeds for next year.

In the picture below between the okra and cucumbers are some bush bean plants.   After initially fighting spider mites, they are gone now, and the plants are pretty pest free.  I think the neem oil and soap applications helped.  But now their greatest enemy is the heat.  They have not been producing much, except a few very small pods every day.  Occasionally I'll get a few good pods.  I might pull them up soon and start planting pole beans there for a fall harvest.    

Birdhouse Gourd and Milo

Here is the gourd arbor I made with the birdhouse gourds, and the milo plants below.  I had scattered some seed around the area in the late spring, and now they are close to being ready for picking.  I have grown these mainly for the chickens to eat.  

A closeup of the milo seed heads.

The birdhouse gourds are still doing well.  Last time I mentioned their wilting, and that I was concerned it was bacterial wilt because of the cucumber beetles, and how they can transmit disease.  Thankfully, I don't think it is.  I think it was just the heat and dryness.  Since I have been watering more, the wilting has not been as pronounced, but it still happens.  I think these plants just don't like the dry heat, and are just surviving until the heat lets up.  By the end of the afternoon, they look pretty droopy, but they recover pretty well.

The birdhouse gourds.  These have not really grown in a while. This might be as big as they get.
(probably due to the heat)

Pumpkins and Squash

The lone pumpkin plant which was a volunteer has now become huge,and has now reached past the yellow squash, to where the bush beans are.  At first I was not sure if I was going to pull it out because I had this spot reserved for Hubbard squash to be planted later, but I've grown fond of it, and have taken care of it by removing squash vine borer (SVB) and squash bug eggs.  The squash bugs have arrived, and I have found some egg clusters and have crushed them.  I have crushed about 6 squash bugs too.  If I keep checking for them every few days I can keep them under control. But as the plant gets bigger, it gets harder.  The SVB have actually slowed down a lot recently.  I think we are now between the generations of them (there are supposed to be 2 generations in the summer) and I expect them to show up strong again later in mid-August. I have only seen a few eggs this past week.   I have also been burying some of the newer vines to let them take root.  So this plant is now pretty well established, and now  just waiting for the female flowers to start appearing. So far only males.

Pumpkin vine has gotten huge. Amazing this is just 1 plant.

The yellow squash outgrew their tulle covers, so I removed them earlier this week.  So far I have gotten about 8 squash from them.  When I removed the covers, I piled new dirt and mulch over the base of the plant and parts of the vine laying on the ground, to protect from SVB, and to encourage more rooting.  I will begin monitoring the vine, and injecting with BT when I see they are showing signs of SVB damage... but that shouldn't be happening for at least 3 more week, so I should have plenty of time to get lots of squash from these.  When I planted them I was worried about the timing,and the heat of July and August affecting their fruit setting.  But they have done fine.  Despite the 100 degree weather, I have more squash on the way!

Yellow Crookneck Squash

Small squashes developing

I still want to pursue growing Hubbard squash again this fall.  So I went ahead and started them, and here are the seedlings now.  I have them covered to protect from bugs.  I am hoping by the time these get bigger and start sprawling around, the pumpkin vine will begin dying off around the base, and these can just grow over and take over that area.  If not, its going to be hard to find space to train these vines. These plants are enormous.   I need a bigger yard!!

Blue Hubbard Squash seedlings.

I am also trying spaghetti squash for the first time this year. I got the seeds from a squash my wife bought from the store last year.  There are 4 hills here, two spaghetti squash and 2 sugar pie pumpkin hills.  This is at the opposite end of the garden area, where the tomatoes were growing earlier this year.  I also have these covered with tulle to protect from bugs (SVB, squash bugs, cucumber beetles, the big Three...Boo! ).  The seeds just came out a couple days ago.  

spaghetti squash and sugar pie pumpkin seedlings

Peppers

My peppers, which had such a slow start, are doing real well.  I can definitely see a difference in the plants, not just in the fruit, but in the size of them and their leaf size.  Some have gotten top-heavy and I have had to stake up. But otherwise no problems, no bugs bothering them.  Pretty easy!

They all now have fruit developing on them, at various stages.

The Costa Rican Sweet Pepper

small skinny pepper, maybe a Cayenne?

Looks like a jalapeno or similar hot pepper

Basil

Growing among my pumpkin plant is basil. I have three big plants. These become like woody bushes when they are big, and are pretty tall enough to stand out among the pumpkin leaves.  They produce tons of flowers, which the bees love!  Also every time I go into the patch and rub against the leaves, they produce a wonderful smell.  I see some black carpenter bees, and some real small other type of bees buzzing like crazy every morning.   These were all volunteers.  Last year the plants dropped seeds like crazy, and when I saw them come up this year, I let them grow.