July 24th Update

Its almost the end of July, and its starting to get pretty hot.  Officially I don't think we hit 100 yet, we've been at 99 the last few days, but we might the next few days.  After a very wet early summer, we have dried up pretty good. It hasn't rained in about three or more weeks, and I've having to water pretty often now.

Cucumbers

The cucumber have done amazing this year.  These are the dual-purpose slicer/pickling cukes I got last year from Gurney's. I've had tons of cucumbers and have had to give many way to friends and family, plus have pickled some.  I've had to water these quite a bit to keep them producing.  The A-shaped trellis I made has worked really good.  Its been real easy to see and pick the cucumbers.

Unfortunately the cucumber beetles are showing up in good numbers, both striped and spotted. These are very hard to deal with organically.  I try and catch and kill them whenever I get a chance but there are so many.

typical day's harvest of cucumbers

Squash/Pumpkins

My previous post I talked about the yellow crookneck squash started under the tulle netting to keep out squash vine borers (SVB) and squash bugs.  They are doing very well now. I had to put a bigger piece of tulle on them, and they are about to outgrow that.  Fortunately the aphids have not been a problem yet, so they are pretty much pest free.

yellow crookneck squash under tulle netting

The female flower are coming in good now.  Since I have them under covers, I need to hand-pollinate them. The past few days every morning when I get up I go out and pollinate them by lifting the cover, and then tucking in the cover when I am done.  Despite the heat, they are producing now! Here is  the first one, a siamese twin one...one side grew more than the other, so its looks kinda funny.  I have another siamese twin one growing that should be ready to pick soon, and there are more on the way.

my first crookneck squash of the year.

I had also mentioned before a volunteer pumpkin plant.  That plant has grown like crazy.  Its definitely a C. Pepo variety, but not sure if its a sugar pie pumpkin.  The SVB are definitely around now. They have been laying eggs like crazy on this lone plant.  Every other day I will check for eggs, and pick them off, and I have also been burying the vines.  The plant has forked into about 5 growing tips, and just started blooming male flowers.  I also just started preventative BT injections into the older leaf stalks, just in case I missed an egg.

Peppers

Last post I discussed the peppers I had planted.  The plants are doing very well now and starting to produce.  Like I said, since the hot peppers were a mixture I am not sure what I have exactly. But the plants do look different.  The CostaRican sweet pepper plants have bigger leaves.   Here are some of the hot peppers that are now producing.

this looks like a cayenne pepper

not sure what this is, looks like a small jalapeno.

I did see one pepper on the CostaRican sweet pepper.  They do have a lot of flowers otherwise. Looking forward to see how these do.

Birdhouse Gourd

The birdhouse gourd plants have grown quite a bit now and have started covering the top of the trellis I made.  They have also been producing fruit.  I have about 3 good size gourds, and about 4 smaller ones now.

I've noticed as they have started producing fruit, they have really slower down their growth.  They have beautiful flowers that open at night, and in the late morning are pretty much gone.  Since its been so dry and hot lately I have had no problems with powdery mildew yet on them.  One problem is the cucumber beetles. I have quite a bit on them.  Today I noticed the leaves were very wilted on part of it.  I am really hoping its not bacterial wilt.  I checked the soil underneath and it was very dry so I watered the plant a lot this evening. I pray its just that the plant needed more water.

Summer 2015

Been a long time since I blogged on my garden!   Better late than never I guess.

After one of wettest Mays in history for us, and a fairly wet early June, we are now officially in Summer.  Its been nice so far, with us being mostly in the low to mid 90's the past few weeks.

Cool Weather Crops

Here is a quick summary of how my earlier spring garden did, and lessons learned. 

• spinach - Planted lots of transplants from pots which I had started from seed over the winter, but they never did really as well as I had hoped. Some died off, and some bolted too soon.  My garden soil was just full of huge grubs this spring, so I suspect these damaged many of their roots.  I  think next year I will direct seed more, and do some direct seeding  this fall too, so they grow through the winter.  Not sure what do do about the grubs, except maybe turn over the soils and get the chickens to help me take them out.  Despite the difficulties,  we did have a harvest, and enjoyed a few weeks of fresh spinach.   
• brocolli - Started late winter from seedlings... it was a bust. Plants produced very little, and died off. Had to fight off lots of aphids too.   I think a late snow and ice really set them back, but not completely sure what happened, so I pulled them out. 
• peas -  started from transplants I grew from seed.  Didn't do very well from transplant, as it set them back a lot.  When the finally started growing again, it had started getting pretty warm, and red spider mites started getting them.  I had a small harvest... Didn't plant enough plants.  Lesson:  plant more, protect early from cold, and direct seed instead of transplant.  Try fall too.  
• cabbage: (Golden Acres) Planted a bunch from transplants I started from seed in late winter. As soon as I planted them, got some bad ice and snow, then got hit by aphids.  So they got  a very slow start, and I was worried they wouldn't yield anything. But they did pretty well eventually.  I've been harvesting a couple of heads weekly for the past month and a half.  They are fairly small, so it takes about 2 heads for a meal.  BT and the wasps have kept the cabbage worms at bay.  As of today, I still have them out there, despite the hot weather, but they are almost done. I probably have 4 or 6 more heads to pick.   Below you can see them right behind the large catnip plant that  I also planted earlier in the spring. 
• turnips, mustard - did pretty good, although got hit by aphids again.  I left my mustard to go to seed and its still hanging around.  Its served as a good trap crop for harlequin bugs which seem to prefer the mustard to the cabbage fortunately, and are easier  to pick off and kill on their long flower stalks.  So my cabbage plants have been spared from them.

large catnip plant, and cabbages right behind

• leaf lettuce - direct seeded a few, and like most of the time, they did very well.  Obviously since its June, they are done, and bolted now (you can see them above the cabbage in the picture above)

Okra, Beans

I'm growing Emerald Okra again.  Seeded these late May, and they are really growing fast now, despite the usual aphid infestation I always get with these.  Emerald is an excellent variety because the pods can grow fairly large before they get woody, so I don't have to keep them picked as often as other varieties such as Clemson spineless, which get woody very quickly.

Emerald Okra

Right next to the Okra, I had sown some Bush beans.  Here they are, doing OK despite dealing with spider mites, which are the bane of my existence! Seems that every time I plant beans, either pole or bush, they come down with spider mites.  I have been spraying them with water and occasionally with neem oil, and I think I have them slightly under control.  But I think due to the hot weather they are just not producing a lot.  We've just had one meal from them so far.

Bird House Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria)

Decided to try something completely new this year, Birdhouse Gourd.  I planted a hill with 4 seeds back in the beginning of June. Three plants came up,  and almost a month later its incredible how much these plant have grown.   I made this trellis structure that is attached to my fence, and my plan is to train the vines to grow over it like an arbor.
 I first started with a large tomato cage to protect them. Here is what they looked like just 10 days ago:

Then I  used two of my previously made trellis' to help train them up, and now one of the vines has reached the top.  Looking forward to be able to get under that canopy soon!  Here are pictures I took this morning. 

Peppers

Something I have not planted in a  few years is peppers. The previous time I had planted pepper was Anaheim a few years back, and I had gotten tons of pepper, many of which I froze and lasted me a long time.  But this year I decided to try and grow some more.  I started them from seed directly sown into the ground back in late April, but its taken them a very long time to start growing well, maybe due to the incredibly wet spring we've been having.  I also had something chew off some of the early leaves off, so that set some of these back, but they have recovered. 

 

mixture of costa rican sweet pepper and hot peppers.

Here are the two seed packets I got these seeds from:

Funny thing is that I forgot which is which.  I believe 1/3 of these are from the Costa Rican, and the rest from the hot pepper mix, so it will be interesting to see what I get from these.  Now that its getting hotter and not as wet, I think these will start doing a lot better.  

Cucumbers  

I had some cucumber seed from last year's Gurney's order, the dual purpose pickling/slicing cucumbers.  I planted these back in late May, and they are doing great... they seem more healthy and vigorous than last year's and I see many small cukes starting to form.  I think we're going to have tons of cucumbers soon!

Here they are, growing on a makeshift trellis, and next to the bolted mustard plants I am keeping around for seed.  

Squash 

I wanted to try and upset the life cycle of the Squash vine borer and squash bugs this year a little by not planting any sort of squash until the late summer, so that any spring SVB moths would fly away to different places in search of food. I do have plans to grow various squash this fall.     But I sure miss growing them, so couldn't wait any longer, and a couple weeks ago decided to plant 3 yellow squash seeds, all which came up:  

Hill of 3 young yellow crook-neck squash

Its pretty late in the season to start growing these, especially due to the coming extreme heat of July and August, but we'll see if I can get any fruit from these.  I have them covered with tulle to protect them from any SVB or squash bugs that may wander in my garden (haven't seen any yet!).
I do have a small volunteer pumpkin seedling closeby that I have not pulled out, to serve as an indicator if they start laying eggs on it.  So far have not seen any.  My plan is to hand pollinate this and keep it covered as long as I can.

Later this summer I have plans to start a hill of Benning's Green tint patty-pan squash, Hubbard Squash, and  sugar pie pumpkins. But those I am timing so they will produce in early fall, when the SVBs are mostly done with. 

Coming Fall '15 !

Wow! Early Winter :(

Winter has made a very early arrival this year.   Last week on Monday it was nice and warm but extremely windy.  I knew a strong cold front was coming, with temperatures going down to 31 that next morning, and then upper 20s the next few days.  So we had to pick all the pumpkins... fortunately they were all pretty much ready.  Here is my daughter with 3 of them.  The big one she is holding is the biggest one we got.  Interestingly, it never did get the deep orange color.  Its more of a "rainbow" of green, yellow, and pale orange, even though it sat on the vine  just like that for at least 3 weeks.

Here are all the Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkins we got, except one, that was picked and made into pie a few weeks ago, because I discovered a small hole in it, and didn't want it to rot.

We got 9 Rouge if d'Etampes pumkins of various shapes and sized. One got eaten earlier and is not shown.

So overall, it was very successful, compared to last year, where I only got 2 of these.  If I try again with C. Maxima varieties, I think I will try maybe a week earlier, and completely avoid that part of the garden that gets shaded in the fall.  

The sad thing is that my poor pole beans had just started producing very well.  I had been picking nice sized bean pods the past week, and there were tons of flowers and tiny pods forming.

before the freeze, the pumpkin vines, okra, and pole beans

  I tried covering the bean vines with a large plastic cover, but could not get the whole plant covered easily, plus it was just too cold.  Today here is how they looked, all dead :(

dead pole beans killed by freeze

Lesson for next year... start pole beans earlier!  I should have started them at least 2 week earlier than I did, maybe in mid August.   You can see the broccoli, peas, lettuce, and spinach too.  These were pretty much unaffected.  

dead okra and pumpkin vines, but brussell sprouts unaffected.

So fall growing season has pretty much come to an early close.  Its been in the 30's and 40's for highs this week, and pretty much freezing every night, for the last few days.   The cool weather plants will keep growing, and I have some spinach and lettuce in pots I might transplant as soon as this particular cold snap is over.  Hopefully we'll get some milder weather the next few weeks, and those can grow well.

Were is what remains in the garden:

• cabbage - should take cold down to lower 20s
• broccoli - should take cold down to lower 20s
• lettuce - as long as we don't get too much below freezing they'll do OK, otherwise I need to cover them.
• snap peas - just hoping we don't get lower 20s anytime soon. If its in the upper 20s and above these do fine.
• spinach - going good, they can take a lot of cold, so I expect these do to well 
• brussels sprouts - from early spring... survived the summer but not sure if it will ever give us any sprouts?

 But much of the rest of the garden I started clearing out,and bringing in the chickens to work the area.

Area where I had cherry tomatoes, basil, and pumpkin vines growing... being cleared out.  

Oct18 update

October 18th update 

It's mid October already, and we're having awesome weather,  upper 70's and lower 80's, and some nice rain last week.   Everything is grown well except still battling some pest issues, especially with the spinach and somewhat with the cabbage.  

This weekend we picked out first Rouge vif d'Etampes pumpkin.   This is one from the hill that Andrew planted back in August.   Most of those plants have been in the shade for a while, due to the lowering sun and shorter days now.   So I think that is why this pumpkin didn't grow very big.  But it's very pretty. 

Andrew and his first pumpkin this year from. 

Close-up of the pumpkin.  Love it's shape

Here's another one in development.  This one has quite a different shape. 

One thing I like about pumpkins is that even within the same variety, the shapes and sized of the fruit vary so much.   Each pumpkin is unique.


Early in the spring I had planted a few Brussels sprouts seeds, and they had been growing all year, surviving the Texas heat, and the harlequin bugs too.   Here they are below.  Not sure what to expect...   I'm thinking that when we have real cool weather I might top these off and see if the sprouts start forming.

Surviving Brussels Sprouts plant. 

Okra is still producing 

Here is a picture of the spinach plants. They have been hit by pests, and some of them have been chopped off at the base mysteriously...  But a few are all alive.   I do have a bunch of other ones in pots that I plan on planting in the garden as soon space is available.  (when the pumpkin vines die probably).

Spinach next to mustard, lettuce, and some radish plants..

Mustard plants.   We've eaten lots of mustard greens this fall! 

Cabbage plants. 

A wall of Kentucky wonder pole beans.   No beans yet, but should be soon 

Young pea plants.  Sugar snap peas.   

In the peas above,  I'm  using the chicken wire cage as both a trellis, and for protection from either rabbits or rats that seem to love young pea plants. I lost some this spring so I've been real careful.

Lady bug eating aphids on the pumpkin plant. 

This is the latest pumpkin to set.   The plant is looking rather ragged, but I'm surprised it still set this fruit.  

Early October Quick Update

Been about a month since I last posted.  The garden's doing well, as we enter early fall.  Only problem has been the ongoing battle with controlling the rats.  I've killed a few more with traps, and lately I haven't seen many issues from them, but I continue to keep my pumpkins covered with netting to protect them, and especially the new female flowers, which they seem to love.

Pumpkins

The Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkins are huge plants.  I have 2 hills, one of them is on a side of the garden that doesn't get good sunlight anymore.  The plants don't look as healthy. But there are about 5 pumpkins growing on them, including the two below. 

This one is done growing.  Its color is deepening.  Unfortunately it didn't get very big. probably due to the lack of good sunlight.

Another one on the same vine.  This one probably won't get much bigger either.  

The other hill gets much more sun, and they plants look a lot healthier.  The healthiest section of the vine is now growing among the okra plants.   It makes it hard to harvest the okra.

pumpkin vines among okra plants.

There are some nice pumpkins developing there, including this one, which looks to be the biggest one.  Might end up as big as last years 25lb one.  The yellow color on these means they are still growing, as that picture below is about 5 day old, so its gotten bigger since.  Pretty excited about this one. I wish I could turn it over so it doesn't sit on its side, but its too late now.  Its too big now to move without breaking the stem.

the big one.

Okra

I mentioned the okra above. They are doing great.  Still have lots of aphids on them but doesn't seem to slow them down much.   I really like their flowers too. Every day I harvest a handful of okra.  I've frozen some, and we've cooked them in a number of different ways.  

Other Plants

The other stuff I planted late summer is doing pretty good.  The mustard plants are super productive.  We have cooked greens about twice a week.  The turnip greens are getting in the mix too.  I see some nice turnips forming too.  

Mustard, with turnips behind them

The cabbage is doing well too, except for some caterpillars attacks which I've dealt with by spraying some BT.  Some of the plants look like they are starting to form tiny heads.

Cabbage plants

I also have some snap peas growing.  Notice the rat traps in the picture.  Rats (or rabbits?) seem to like young pea plants too, unfortunately

And my pole beans are doing very well too. No signs of spider mites, and they look nice and healthy. No flowers yet though, but there's plenty of time.

Kentucky Wonder pole beans.

My spinach plants are still pretty small.  They have fallen victim to rats or rabbits, so I covered them with tulle for a while.

Sept 6th Garden Update

Its been a fairly mild summer, but nevertheless summer is still hanging strong.  Its been the upper 90s for the past two weeks but we are forecast to get into the 70's and 80's by the end of this week as we get our first decent cool front... first sign of the coming fall season.  Fall here in Texas is the second big growing season.

Pumpkins

The big thing, and I mean big, that I am focusing on this fall is the Rouge vif D'Etampes pumpkins. Its been a while since my last post in early August, but back then I had mentioned these plants, and how they were just a few weeks old, and how they were being covered with tulle fabric to protect them from SVB and Squash bugs.   About two weeks ago, I could not contain the plants with tulle anymore... they had gotten way too big, and some of the leaves were starting to break, and the netting was being pulled up.    In the meantime I had been working on exterminating the squash bugs. I had crushed hundreds of them wherever  I found them, and I think that got them under control by the time I removed the tulle.

As soon as I uncovered the vines,  I started covering the exposed vines and base with dirt and compost, and also leaf mulch, and I've been doing that the past two weeks, because SVB are out and about big time.  I have killed some of the moths with a fly swatter, and every time I go out there I find eggs to pick off, plus as I bury the vines, I check for and remove eggs that are attached.

The two big hills are growing like crazy.  Here is one of the hills, composed of two plants (the other two plants were runts and I thinned them out.)  Its starting to creep into the Brussels sprouts plants that are still alive, and waiting for cooler weather to hopefully start producing.  They are also getting pretty close to the okra, so I might thin out the lower leaves of the okra and let the pumpkin vines grow underneath.

One hill composed of two plants.

 The other hill I believe is still composed  of 4 plants, also I can't tell since the base is completely covered in mulch and compost, which I have piled on it.  Its also growing like crazy, and overtaking the area.  Its growing among some of the volunteer tomatoes which I recently staked up to allow the pumpkins to grow underneath.  My basil plant is still going strong, and is pretty much a bush now, as you can see in the picture.

So far a few male flowers have opened, and I see some small female flowers forming,but none have opened yet.  That's OK since its been too hot for pollination anyway.   Hopeful to get some nice pumpkins this fall, but with all the pests it will be a challenge.

Recent Plantings

I am giving pole beans another chance.  A few years ago I remember getting a very good fall harvest of beans, so hopefully I can duplicate that.  Here are the seedlings, Kentucky wonder pole beans. 

I've planted a bunch of them, and covered them to prevent critters from munching on them.  I recently  sowed another batch of them next to this one, and they just started sprouting too.    I also planted some snap peas, which I started indoors in pots, and just transplanted, but am concerned because of the heat that is still lingering, that they might not make it.

Around mid-August I sowed some mustard, turnips, and broccoli seeds.  The mustard did well. But the others did not unfortunately.   Only some of the turnip seeds sprouted, and many that did were promptly eaten by some mysterious pest.  The broccoli also suffered from being eaten by some mystery pest, but some did survive, until a couple of  my chickens found their way inside the garden, and ate the remaining plants.  They have acquired a taste for cabbage and related plants, so I have to watch them carefully now to make sure they don't get into the garden and cause havoc.

my small mustard patch

So I just recently sowed more cabbage, broccoli, and turnip seeds.  Many sprouted but I am still battling something that eat them when they are tiny. So I dusted with insecticide today.  Arg!!  Fall planting is tough due to all the pests!!

Tomatoes, Okra

Heirloom tomato plants propagated from cuttings from the original plants, next to my basil bush.

I've begun pulling up most of the old tomato plants to make space for the sprawling pumpkins.  But the past month I had been taking cuttings, and rooting them in water, and then planting them in pots.  Only a few have survived, but they are doing well.  I have 4 good plants which I planted in the ground on the other side of the garden, and am hoping they start producing a nice fall crop.  

The okra is doing amazing.  Its "emerald" okra.  Its been producing tons of pods for us this second half of the summer. Every day I go out and pick a handful from the seven plants.  I may need to start freezing some.  Interestingly the plants are not as big as they were last year.  They seemed thicker and taller last year. I think its because they were spaced apart more.  This year I have them growing in a single row, and they are closer together.

Revenge on SVB

Revenge on SVB

For the past week weeks I have begun pulling out parts of old pumpkin and acorn squash vines, and some round zucchini plants, because they are getting pretty infested with squash bugs and squash vine borers, and I want to clean out the garden to reduce these pests for the fall plantings of Cinderella (Rouge vif d'Etampes) pumpkins. I planted those seed about couple weeks ago, and  the seedling are growing quickly,  currently under the protection of some tulle covering to prevent them from  getting attacked by these pests.

As I clear out the old vines, I have brought my chickens over to eat the SVB I find, and they have quickly learned that me breaking open vines means yummy treats.  Unfortunately the chickens do not like squash bugs.  I bet they taste terrible, because since are also called stink bugs, and when I crush them they smell like nasty cherry coke.  

I took a video yesterday morning, but it didn't come out very clear.  I think my camera was set to low resolution.  Bummer.  I will try to shoot a better video later this week, but for now I will post what I have.