Mid April Update

April's a roller-coaster month in terms of weather.  Last week it was in the 50s and 60s for highs, and now its warmed up pretty good again.  The past few days, its been in the mid 80s and pretty muggy.
So at this point, my garden is in a transition state from cool weather plants to warm weather plants.  I still have many cabbages growing at various stages, and we've eaten lots of them so far.  Here is a picture of some of the remaining ones, with the snow peas in the background.

The snow peas are huge. They are just about as tall as I am now.  We picked a few yesterday and ate them with a salad... all from my garden, including lettuce, spinach, radishes, and even a carrot.  I have a few carrots growing, but the funny thing was that when I pulled it, it was very fat but short.  I think maybe since I transplanted it, it didn't grow well afterwards, and grew fat instead of long.  

My older spinach is starting to bolt unfortunately.  Hopefully some of the younger batches I planted of the spinach will still have a few more weeks before they bolt too.   I also have a few bolted collards and cabbage plants that I might keep until I can get some seeds from them to save.

The squash is loving the warmer weather.  The Hubbard squash are really starting to take off now.

The vines are starting to run now, and there are tiny flowers starting to form.  I was really suprised to even see a couple of tiny female flowers forming already! I marked them in the picture below.  

Their vines are really thick too, and the leaves are starting to shade the small lettuce plants underneath them pretty good.  I have been mulching them really well.  I have also begun looking for squash vine borer (SVB) eggs, since I am expecting them to arrive any time now.  I am still trying to decide if I will cover these soon, wait, or just spray the neem on them and see what happens first.  So far I have not seen any eggs or moths.  

The Table Queen Acorn  squash next to them is also starting to vine now.  They look small next to the Hubbards. I also see tiny male flowers on the vine forming.  I will need to start encouraging them to grow the other direction, so they don't grow the same direction as the Hubbards

Besides my main bed, I have couple other areas in the yard with things growing.  I have some ball zucchini seedlings growing in 2 hills.  Here is one of the mounds.

And along the back of the yard, here are some sunflowers that seeded themselves from last year.  Next to them are the Sugar Pie pumpkins that I mentioned last post.  This are growing pretty well too.
I expect a battle with the squirrels with the sunflowers. Last year, a squirrel chopped all my sunflower plants down when they were beginning to flower. I found that spraying hot pepper on the plants repels them, so I will probably have to do that to these plants as soon as I see the flower heads forming.

April 6th, Beautiful Day

Very nice day today, with highs in the upper 70s, and sunny skies.  Spent the most of the day at church,    (Watermark Community Church) attending a Training Day event.  We had a great afternoon session listening to Frank Turek, from CrossExamined.org , presenting his lesson titled I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. 

Got home in the late afternoon, and worked on planting some more seedlings that I had started in pots. Planted some more spinach seedlings and mustard.  We'll see how the spinach does, it being rather late, and not long until we start getting pretty warm around here.  

That's probably the last of the cool weather plants I put in, until late summer.  I planted some beans, both pole and bush beans, and the seedlings are starting to come out ( in the back behind the small fence section.)   The Cinderella pumpkins (below) are growing a bit more.  

Here is the Table Queen Acorn.  Its doing nicely,   I have mulched it pretty well with glass clippings.

 The  2 following pictures are of the Hubbard Squash.  They are getting pretty big, as as you can see in the pics, they are even developing side-shoots.  I even saw a tiny flower starting to develop on once of them.

I intend to cover most of my squash, but am waiting until probably the end of the month, as I heard the SVB should not come out until maybe early May.  I have checked for SVB eggs, but have not seen any yet.  So as of yet, the battle has not begun.


The peas are doing awesome. The plants  have gotten huge, and have beautiful white blossoms.  They are about to outgrow their tomato cages I am using as a trellis.  Here is a picture of them, along with some of the cabbage and collards.  The cabbage has been a huge success, especially for being the first time planting them this winter. We've harvested at least 10 heads, and have enjoyed making cole slaw, boiled cabbage, stuffed cabbage, and even egg rolls. Will definitely plant them again this fall.  

I also planted some Sugar Pie Pumpkin seedlings at various places around the yard.  My daughters were playing with a bunch of seeds from last year's crop, and put a bunch of seeds in a bowl with some mud (I think they were play-cooking).  Well the seeds sprouted, and I felt bad for the seedlings. so I planted a bunch of them.  So that side of my back yard may be totally overrun with squash vines if these make it.  We'll see!  :)

My Plants Survived!!

I was worried about my Hubbard squash, acorn squash, and Cinderella pumpkin seedlings, but they survived the cold snap we had the past two nights. I covered them up at night with big glass bowls, and a blanket.  It was in the 50s during the day, and low 30's at night.  

Here is a picture of the Hubbard squash:

 As you can see, its developing its secondary leaves now.  Its  a pretty big seedling, as you can see compared to the gallon plastic jug next to it.  There is another plant on the other side of the jug, and its doing well too.

 The Rouge Vif D'Etampes  pumpkins seedlings survived too.  Here is one of them

Our pea plants are getting big too. They didn't mind the cold at all, and I didn't bother covering them either.

Here is a picture of the Table Queen Acorn Squash.  I also had this one covered well the past 2 night.  Its also developing its secondary leaves.

I had mentioned before that my son Joshua is working towards his gardening merit badge.  Last week we pulled out all his remaining turnips.  They were really nice size.  Here is his bumper crop!!

With it almost being April, I am pretty sure we had the last freeze.  Now things will be growing like gangbusters.  My garden will begin transitioning to more warm weather plants, such as green beans, squash, okra... and whatever else I have space for!

March 16 - Spring is here for good (so I hope!)

Its a beautiful day, with temperatures warming into the 80's today,  after a nice week of 60s and 70s.  Next week should be in the 60s and lower 70s all week, with lows around 50. Just awesome weather!  Maybe we've had our last freeze?!?  We'll see...

First Squash and Pumpkins go in

A couple weeks ago, I planted a few Blue Hubbard squash, Cinderella pumpkin (rouge vif d'etampes) and some Table Queen acorn squash seeds (all hierloom varieties I got from Sustainable Seed Co.) in some pots, to see if I could get a real early start on some of them.  Well 2 Hubbards came out, and 1 acorn squash, but the Cindarella pumpkins didn't germinate.  I started bringing the pots outside last week during the day once the seeds sprouted.

With the great weather and no freezes in the forecast, I decided to go ahead and plant them in, and have a tarp ready in case we do get real cold.  But being that April is a few weeks away, I think they will be fine.

Here is a pic of the freshly transplanted Blue Hubbard seedlings

I read about putting an old milk jug with holes, so I can deeply water the plants without getting the leaves wet. (to help prevent the dreaded powdery mildew), so I am giving it a try with these plants.   I put a lot of compost in the mound I made for them, so I hope they take off and have a good start.
In a few weeks, I will probably start putting some tulle netting over these plants, to keep out the Squash vine borers.  I'm not sure when they will arrive, but am expecting them to start showing up mid-April, especially if it stays warm.  Once the plants get real big, we'll see...  I'm still drawing up a battle plan, which I will detail later, but will involve a combination of tulle netting early, neem oil, and heavily mulching and covering the vines as they spread out.

Here is the Table Queen Acorn squash.

   Since only one plant has come out, I soaked a few more seeds overnight, and planted a couple more.  One in this same hill, and the rest in another hill.  
The reason I choose Table Queen this year for Acorn squash is because I really liked how my Sugar Pie Pumpkin last year were so good at putting down roots. That helped a lot in getting the plants more resistant to bug damage.  The hybrid acorn squash plants I grew last year were semi-vining, and were not very good at putting down secondary roots, so when the main vines got some borer damage, they would not recover very well.  Table Queen is a full vining variety, so I hope it produces good strong plants.


I also soaked some Rouge Vif D'Etampes (Cindarella) seeds overnight, so I could plant them today.
I made a couple mounds towards the other side of the plot, and put them in, among the cabbage,collards, and spinach I have growing.

You can see the 2 small mounds I created there at the bottom of the picture.  My plan is that they both grow up towards the top of the pic, and spill out onto the back of the yard. By that time, the peas, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and everything else back there would already be done, and the pumpkin vines would have free reign.   I have read how big C. Maxima vines get (both the Hubbard and Cindarella are C. Maxima) so I am anticipating this, and will have to steer the plants as they grow.  I will have the Hubbard spill out towards the other end. (bottom of this picture)

Cool Weather Crops Still Going Strong

My cool weather crops are still doing very well.  This past fall/winter was really good for cabbage.  We've picked many heads already, and have eaten quite a bit of home grown cabbage.  

About a month ago, I started the last batch of cabbage and collards.  I put them in, and they have been growing pretty well.  You can see some of them below, along with the peas that we planted about a month ago too. Those are taking off pretty good too.

Interestingly, much of the collards we planted in the fall have bolted.  I'm not sure if that means I should pull them out, or just cut off the flower heads, and keep them going... That's what I am doing currently. I guess when we cook them we can see if they still taste good.   The brocolli has all bolted, and I've cut down much of it, except one plant that has a lot of seed pods. I intend to save some of the seeds.


Flowers too

Joshua, my son, is in Boy Scouts,and is trying to earn his Gardening Merit Badge. He's met many of his requirements, including vegetable ( he planted spinach, lettuce, radish, turnips from seed, and cabbage transplants) but still has to get flowers.  So I helped him make a plot, and he planted some German Chamomile,  and California Poppy seeds that I had.  They have also come up, and are doing real well too.  (upper right part of the picture.)

Its early February, but it sure has felt more like early April the last week or so.  Its been very nice, in the 70's this week, but today it was only in the low 50s.  The long term forecast doesn't look to bad either, but that can change in a hurry.... who knows?  Maybe we'll have a snow or ice storm in the end of the month... very possible.

The big thing I did today was to further expand my garden area again. Since we knocked down the tree, now I have a much bigger area to expand into.

The picture above shows where I have expanded the garden since early January.  Today I added about another 5 x 6 area.    The lettuce I had in pots I decided to plant in that area, since they were getting too big for the pot, and since we are leaving next week for Haiti with a group from our church, Watermark Community Church, I didn't want to burden my parents with having to water them when they came over to take care of our dog, Maggie.   I also planted some more lettuce seed, carrots seeds, and radish in that area.
The celery plants I had in pots, I also planted, for the same reason.  So I am hoping we don't have a strong cold spell while we are gone, otherwise I'll probably lose a number of plants.  We'll only be gone for a week.

A few weeks ago, we sowed some peas, in the newer plot, and as you can see in the back, they have come up already.  I also planted a few collard and cabbage plants I had started in small pots.  On the left of the picture you can see a headless cabbage. (meaning, I harvested it)  I've been leaving the plants in the ground after we pick them because I read you can get smaller heads from the side-shoots.

Here's a picture of some of our cabbage plants.  The one on the lower left is pretty much ready to eat.  You can see on the upper right, if you look closely you can see a headless cabbage, whose side shoots have started growing pretty well.

And below is  a picture of the garden looking at it from the end.  The yellow flowers in the middle are broccoli that has bolted. I have kept it around because the bees really like it, and I want to keep the bees happy.  Plus I might get some seeds from it.

Its 2013. My garden is still alive, but not a whole lot of growth going on due to the cold.  My cabbage, broccoli, collards, and spinach  plants have all survived well, but have grown very little the past month.
I've been able to harvest and eat 2 cabbages, some collards and some turnips too.  The lettuce in the garden is barely hanging on, and looks pretty beat up by the cold,  I've been supplementing with some lettuce  from a large planter box that I bring into our sun-room when it gets really cold outside. (below 30)

I have 2 celery plants in small pots that I grew from the base of used store-bought vegetables.

I still have them in pots, since I am not sure how much cold they can handle, so when it gets real cold, I will bring them in at night. 
 
 I also planted  some base sections from store-bought leeks.  I  planted 2 of those in the garden, and am curious to see what they look like when they come up. 


The other big news is that we cut down the tree next to the garden area, a cypress tree. That will allow me to greatly expand my garden space next spring, and be better equipped to have a better fall garden next year with more sunny areas.   I felt a little bad because it was a very nice tree, but we already have lots of other trees in the yard, and as it kept growing, it kept encroaching into my garden space, and its roots were quite invasive,  coming up into the raised beds.

Since my son is a monkey, and much better at climbing than I, he was more than happy to climb up the tree and tie a rope, so we could pull on it after the tree was cut at the mid-way point,so it didn't fall on my boat, or on the garden.  This is a picture after it was cut.  All that new space!!!

 I have already began the expansion.  I added about a 4ft by 5ft raised bed area.  The 2 older cabbages are where the old bed ended.  The smaller one to the right is one I had in a pot, and planted there afterwards.

Already December !!

Wow, its already December, and my garden is doing real well, especially since we've only had a  couple of light frosts, but no bad freezes yet.

A couple of pumpkin plants are still hanging on for dear life, still plagued by powdery mildew. I've picked all the pumpkins except one that still remains on the vine.

As you can see, the tomatoes are also hanging on for dear life too.  In total we got 11 pumpkins from the patch... not bad for the first time ever growing them.   Remarkably, my pole beans are still alive. Today I picked this monster green bean.  its the biggest green bean I've ever seen.

The cool weather crops are doing awesome.  My cabbage plants are so pretty.  They've been pretty easy to grow, and haven't had any problems with pests so far.  Here is the biggest one, which we'll probably pick next week to eat:

There are a bunch of smaller plants next to it. Hopefully once I pick the big one, the others will have more space to mature, and grow more.

Below are more pics of the garden. As you can see there is a bit of the pumpkin vine still alive there on the bottom.  We've harvested a lot of turnips greens and turnip roots already, and still have a lot left.  Behind them are the collards, and to their right are the broccoli plants  There is some spinach in there too, above the turnips.  They are looking pretty good, but getting shaded a lot by the turnips and collards around them that are getting pretty big.

Today was very warm for December.  It hit 80 !   Hope it doesn't cause my spinach to bolt!
Its supposed to stay warm next week to, in the mid 70's.  Perfect weather but still extremely dry, as it has not rained for over a month.