2020 Garden Update

Summer 2020 Update

The garden has done pretty well overall this year.  We had a very mild winter, and the cool weather stuff did pretty well for the most part.

• Planted spinach in several batches through the winter and it did pretty well.
• Kale planted in fall overwintered well
• Cabbage didn't do to well, mainly because it was attacked by aphids, and I neglected it.
• Lettuce did very well too, most of it was protected by a glass cover "hotbed" that I create during the winter for it.

I started a bunch of tomato seedlings early January, both Rutgers and Beefstake.   I also started some Cindarella Pumpkins (Rouge Vif d'Etampes) plants in early March in pots too, along with some Cocozelle zucchini, and some round zucchini too.  I also started some bell pepper plants.

Tomatoes

  I've had the best tomato harvest ever, mainly because I planted so many plants, and I started so early. I planted both Rutgers and Beefsteak varieties, both hierloom.   I started them from seed in early January, under grow lights.  I nurtured  18 plants, and would bring them out on nice days, and kept upgrading their pots, until late March, when they were quite big.  I gave 6 plants to my sister, and planted 12 myself in late March, hoping for no late season freeze.  They grew very well and started producing like crazy.  Unfortunate the birds found them so I had to cover them with some netting to help reduce the damage, as the dumb bird will peck out holes in many of them.

Despite the bird damage, I've picked lots of tomatoes, most when they just start turning reddish, so to prevent losing some.  But we've had more than enough, and given a bunch away to friends.  The plants dont look so good now, they are pretty spent, plus its getting real hot, so I will probably pull them out in a few weeks.

Pumpkins/Squash

I started my Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkins pretty early too (late Feb.) from seed, and put them in the ground in mid-March, being prepared to cover them in case we got frost, but we didn't fortunately.  This is the easiest way to get around the bad pests such as the squash vine borer (SVB), and squash bugs.  Usually the squash bugs show up first, in later April, and the SVB in late May.  By this time the plants are strong and are already producing. 

My pumpkins did very well.  The plants got huge, with the vines over 35 feet long!

Here is what it looked like last week. They are growing along the side of the house, which in late spring and summer gets pretty good sun during most of the day.  By the time I took this picture, I have picked 2 already. There are around 5 more on the vine, at different stages.

The biggest one is 31lbs:

Here are the first 2, along with a mongrel pumpkin:

The mongrel pumpkin is actually from a Round zucchini plant I grew last year . Last year I had some round zucchini and sugar pie pumpkin plants that I grew together and I cross pollinated, and then I saved a override zucchini to use as fall decoration, and then saved the seeds.  I planted some of those seeds.

Whats interesting is that the plants are basically 2 types.  A couple of the plants were very similar to the original pure round zukes.  They were bush-type with the normal fruit.   The leaves were also very pretty with the silver streaks.  The other plants started off looking very similar, but then as they matured, the started running and became more pumpkin-like.  The fruit were similar when young, and I picked the "zukes" from both, but as the fruit got bigger in these "viney" plants, they looked more like pumpkins.  I let a few mature. One got big and orange, and is pictured above, and looks like a regular pumpkin.  Another one is a bit smaller and yellowish, more like the mature Round zucchini.  These are also winding down now too.  I've gotten tons of squash from these and have given much away, along with a couple of Cocozelle zuke plants which have also produced very nicely.

So as expected the squash bugs showed up in mid-April, a few at a time, but I would kill them on sight, so I kept their numbers, and impact down.  Only recently are they getting out of hand, but thats because I've been busy with other projects and plus the plants are so big that inspection is not very practical or fun.  But the easy way to find them is to spray the plants.  When the bugs get wet, they usually walk up to the top of the plant, and are easy to see. Then I just crush them with my fingers.  No big deal, very quick and easy and the leave a "Dr. Pepper" smell, which I don't mind.    

This year has been a very mild SVB year, surprisingly!  I have only seen 3 moths this year, and I was able to kill them all.  I have seen a few eggs, but believe it or not, I have not seen any major damage from them, so they have been fairly inconsequential this year.  That's so nice! Again, the key to defeating them in general is to start EARLY.   They really only have a big impact late May usually, and by that time your plants and withstand them.

Upcoming...

My pepper plants are on the small side, but I expect them to keep growing through the summer, since they like the heat.  I also planted a few Okra plants, and they should also thrive.  I will probably also pull out and clean out all the squash, pumpkins, tomato, and leftover surviving cool weather plants soon too as it gets stinkin' hot around here. I might try some cantaloupe later this summer for a fall harvest, and maybe a second round of squash, maybe crookneck.

May 2019 Garden Update... Yes I'm Still Alive and Still Gardening!!

Its been about 2 years since I updated this blog!  But I am still gardening, just had gotten too busy to blog. 
So here is the state of my garden as of mid May.  I am transitioning from cool weather plants to the summer veggies.

My co-worker had started some "Biker Billy" jalapenos from seed, and he had a few extra seedlings that he gave to me, so I planted them about a week ago.  Here they are below.  We have a new puppy this year, a black Lab named Missy.  Maggie,our old dog, died last year.  Missy likes to jump into the garden area, and so the white small fences are an attempt to provide some protection to the small plants

Biker Billy's Jalapenos

I had saved some squash seeds a few years ago, but forgot to label them, and so I planted some of the mystery squash this year.    But I think it was actually sugar pie pumpkins.  I can see a few small female flowers present that look like pumpkins.  I also had save some cucumber seeds last year, and planted a few this year.   Here they are below, along with some garlic plants in between

cucumbers on left, pumpkins on the right

 Last year I planted 5 asparagus plants in the spring. This year they came up again, but I didn't pick any because I want the plants to get strong for next year.  So here they are now, and they have flowered and have berries on them.

asparagus plants

One problem I've been plagued with in early spring is the explosion of spider mites.  This year was pretty bad.  Many of my cool weather plants were severely infested. Here are some beet seedlings that had been affected, and haven't really grown much.

sickly looking beets

 Some of my spinach, and cilantro, and peas all got hit hard. I also had a huge explosion of aphids on my cabbage and kale.  The lady bugs came, but it was too late.  So my kale did ok, because most of it was planted in the fall, and we got some good harvests, but the cabbage didn't.
Anyway, the cool weather plants are on their way out.    Below are some lettuce that are bolting, some spinach and cilantro that are bolted, and some old remaining cabbage and kale. It needs to be pulled out soon.  I'm saving alot of the spinach seed for this fall.

bolted and dying letuce and spinach,along with some cilantro

Last fall I also put in some garlic again, mainly elephant garlic.  Its done well, and probably another month until it can be harvested:

one of two garlic patches

 Hubbard Squash

Wanted to try Hubbard Squash again this year.  I got a late start unfortunately, and the plants are not as far along as I would like them to be in order to beat the inevitable Squash Vine Borers (SVB).

I put them in early April.  Two set fruit pretty early.  One of the fruit has matured some but is small, and the plant has not grown much.  

 The other plant, its first fruit died but the plant is growing well,and it has another female flower that will open tomorrow.

 There are no signs of SVB yet in my yard.  But I know its any day now.  I saw a moth at a community garden this past week on my way to work.  (I bike to work,and sometimes stop and see what's happening at some gardens about 4 miles north,on my way to work).  But none here at my house yet.  Unfortunately the Squash Bugs have made an early appearance.  I've killed quite a few and crushed some eggs.  At the community gardens, i've seen lots there too.  I think some of those folks may be oblivious, and don't know what's going on with their plants.


Tomatoes
I planted from seed three varieties: Beefsteak, Rutgers, and Roma. All heirloom types. All are fruiting now, but the plants have been attacked by spider mites.  They still look decent though.  Some of the fruit are splitting unfortunately.

Jumbo Pink Banana Squash Harvest

Today I picked the rest of my Jumbo Pink Banana Squash that I have been growing since February.

In early February, since we were having such a mild winter, I decided to try and start some banana squash very early.  The previous planting in the fall had been a bust because of the hot weather we had in the early fall, and by the time the plants started to produce, we had very short days, and a freeze in late November.  
So I started the seeds in some plastic cups, and would set them out in the garden on during the day, and bring them in during colder nights.

Banana Squash, acorn squash, and spaghetti squash seedlings enjoying a mild winter day

On March 1, since we were still having such mild temperatures, I decided to put them in the ground, and then cover them up with plastic covers whenever the temps at night got below 40.  It was a bit of a hassle, but not too bad... I just had to keep a careful eye on the forecasts.   There were actually 2 in pots, and I also direct seeded the third plant a few days later,   because one of my seedlings had died, and the soil was not very cold.  

The plants grew pretty quickly, and by April 1st, were already vining. I had mulched the area very deeply with lots of leaves, to keep weeds out, and to try and bury the vines with the mulch as they grew to help prevent the squash vine borers from laying eggs on the main parts of the vine.  

One of the banana squash plants by April 1.  

With the warmth of April, and the longer days, the plants started growing very quickly, and started producing flowers.  By mid-April, the plants had gotten pretty large.

And a couple of female flowers had gotten pollinated, and the fruit had set.  

They start off yellow, and look very much like a banana.  You will get many female blooms, but most of them abort.  You can pretty much tell when a fruit will abort because it will stop growing.  Banana squash grow very quickly, so if you notice they stop growing, they will get aborted.  It seems that once they get the around twice the size of a real banana, they have a good chance of making it.  

Like I mentioned, they grow very quickly.  When they are getting ready to pick, the will get pretty fat, and look more like a blimp than a banana.  They will also start developing faint stripes, and the color will start changing from yellow to pink.  

By early May, a couple of the  squash were almost ready.  I had to cover most of them with some tulle netting, because in the past I have had bugs, or slugs bite holes into the fruit, or even squash vine borers lay eggs on the fruit, and the larva bore into them.  

We picked our first around May 11th, and then a few more shortly after.  

The plants kept producing, and I gradually picked more as they were ready.

The vines started getting really affected by powdery mildew, and were also getting hit by squash bugs.  The vines are so large that I didn't have time to go in and try and find or kill the squash bugs.  Also I have noticed some squash vine borer damage.  The combination of the three are pretty much killing the plant, so I decided to pick the rest of the squash, which pretty much looked ready anyway.

Today 6/12 I picked the last few, making a total of 11.  The first one above is not in the picture since we already opened it. 

I had 5 that were more than 20lbs, the biggest around 25lbs.  The first one I opened, I baked about 2/3 of it, and  pureed it(for pies, bread, pancakes, etc). The other third,  I broke up into pieces and wrapped in saran wrap, for use in cooking.  We have used it for various things such as cubing it, baking it, and sprinkling it with sugar/cinnamon, and for some other concoctions, such as in stews, and curry dishes.  It has a surprisingly good and natural sweetness for a squash.  Eating a piece of it raw almost tastes like a very firm cantaloupe. 

Out of my 11, 2 did get some deep holes in them due to bugs, and I dug into the holes with a wire, and pulled out a small couple  SVB grubs.  Most others had some shallow holes, probably caused by slugs, but those healed up well.  So I will have to check those two fruit with the SVB holes, to see if they will heal, or if not I may have to process them pretty soon.  With so many squash, we'll need to get creative on how to use it.

May 20th Update

 May 20th Update

Flowers

Every spring, I leave a little space for some flowers. The ones below are actually in a bed that created for my daughter.  We sowed a bunch of Papaver poppy seeds after her spinach and lettuce had bolted and we pulled it out in early April.  They all started blooming this week and look very beautiful.

Papaver Poppies

We have also had many volunteer sunflowers every spring.  There were a clump

of them that I have let grow, and now they are huge.  The tallest one is probably 8ft tall now.

Volunteer sunflowers

Veggies

The cherry tomatoes are doing quite well. They just started ripening, so I picked about 8 so far this week.  I need to start looking out for tomato hornworms soon.  I saw something that looked like eggs under one of the leaves.  

My onions are still there.  I still don't see much in term of bulb formation.  The plants look healthy though.  Probably be mid-June until some of these are ready.  In front of it is a yellow crookneck squash.  Its gotten a lot of SVB eggs laid on it, but I have picked some off, and have injected some of older leaf stems with BT as preventative.  I've picked one squash and more are on the way. The smaller squash plant on its left is a round zucchini, which I also intend to inject with BT.

So I guess I am doing an experiment of sorts.  I have two of the round zucchini plants out in the open, and will try to inject them weekly as a preventative.  And then I have two other plants that I recently put under tulle netting.  These plants had recently been in pots, but I cleared out some space in the garden for them. We'll see how they do, in terms of yield, and work involved.

The Jumbo Pink Banana squash are doing great.  I've picked three huge ones, of 28, 25, and 21 lbs.

And the crazy thing is that there are about 5 other ones that are growing pretty quickly.  They are mostly on secondary vines, so I don't think they will get as large as my first one.  But I think I will have so much, I am not sure what I am going to do with it all!  I will break open the 25lb one, which is the first one I picked, pretty soon.

Here are two on the same vine segment

Another banana squash growing

I do find some SVB eggs on these but have not seen any damaged vines yet.  The vines are very thick, so it would take a lot to bring these plants down.  I did pick some small ones to eat as summer squash.  They were fairly good, honestly not as good as the yellow crookneck.  But I'll continue to do some of that too.

The spaghetti squash plants seem to be dying, mostly from powdery mildew.  We picked two big ones, and there are around 6 smaller ones that are on the vines, that are almost ready to pick.  The pic below shows a part of the smaller plant that is still fairly healthy.  I did find a spot on the other vine that had an SVB grub in it, and I removed it from the vine with a wire.  But the powdery mildew is real bad on it.  Its all good, because they have produced well, and its been a success.

The golden acorn squash have also done very well.  I've picked around 12 of them of various sizes. Below are a couple nice sized one before picking. The vines are doing well, except they are getting powdery mildew too.  No signs of SVB yet, although since the vines are very short, I have been injected some BT into the leaf stems as preventative.  So far I have done it just twice, just takes a few minutes.  The vines tips are getting pretty small, so I think the plants are probably going to give up soon.

A nice golden acorn squash

Early May Update 2017

The beginning of May is here, and we've had some fairly good weather this spring... a good amount of rain, and temperatures that have fluctuated between nice and cool, and pretty warm. It was in the upper 80s on Saturday and then upper 60s on Sunday.

Squash

Since we had some very mild weather this winter and early spring, I had gotten a very early start on squashes.   My Jumbo Pink Banana squash are doing very well.  The vines are huge and sprawling everywhere, and there are three squash on it. Two are probably full size already, and one is growing quickly.

I have them covered up in some netting to try and avoid anything from damaging the fruit.   The dreaded Squash Vine Borer moths are already out.  I have killed two, and have picked off a few eggs from the tips of the vines.  The bases of these plants are buried in leaf mulch, along with a lot of the major vines.  So I don't expect the SVB to start having a big impact on the plants until probably early June, when these three squash will hopefully already have been harvested.   The two big squash are huge, I suspect they are around 30lbs or more each.

My golden acorn squash plants are doing well too. They have started vining some now, and have lots of small squash on them.  I picked the first three yesterday.

And regarding my Spaghetti squash, one of my plants has 2 big fruit on it, and a smaller one.  The other plants is a runt, and doesnt really have anything on it.   

The plant with the squash hasn't really grown that much recently and has gotten hit by powdery mildew.  Its probably because its spent all its energy producing the fruit.  This one above is almost ready for picking.

Peas and Beans

My snap peas are not looking very good.  They got hit hard by powdery mildew, and I didnt try to stop it, so most of the plant is dying now, and the new pods are pretty small.  We've been able to pick enough for three good meals, but that's probably about it.  There are some volunteer pole beans  (from last year's bean vine) that grew next to them and they will probably take over the area soon

I started another area of pole beans by the area where the gourd trellis is.  Here are the plants, with the squash vines in front of them.  I planted a bunch of there beans, but unfortunately only about 5 of them are growing well.  

Tomatoes

Here are my cherry tomatoes.  We had major wind the past few days, which damaged some of these plants, so I had to create some reinforcement for them, as the vines have really grown long and tall.

There is a bunch of little green tomatoes on them.  Will have to keep my eyes open for the arrival of the tomato hornworms.  I'll have the BT ready for them.

Mid-April Update

Mid-April has brought some very nice weather, mostly in the mid-70s to lower 80s for highs. The garden is ahead of normal schedule due to the extremely mild winter we had.   Here's what been going on since my update earlier this month.

Here is my Jumbo Pink Banana squash, with my 8-yr old son.  There are 3 plants there,in 3 hills, and they have been producing many flowers, both male and female.  There are about 4 tiny squash that seem to be forming... one seems like its swelling pretty well but the others I am not so sure about. Last year in the fall, I had so many that just withered and never grew, so I really hope these set well and get going. 

Here is another view, with the banana squash in the front of the picture. Behind it you can see a tall patch of snap peas.  They snap peas are blooming like crazy, and hopefully I'll be picking a bunch soon. Unfortunately a big part of the lower parts of the plants have gotten powdery mildew badly.  The spider mites have not hit them as I have typically see, but instead its been the powdery mildew.  I wonder if these plants just weaken a lot as they start producing, and naturally just succumb to pestilence.

I have two spaghetti squash plants growing, one plant has gotten pretty big, but the other is still pretty small.  The large plant has been blooming for a couple of weeks now, but it was all females at first. When some males started appearing, I started hand-pollinating, and one squash has set and is growing.  

I have two cherry tomato plants, and they are doing very well.  They are close to outgrowing their cages,and a few tomatoes have started growing. I'll mention about the heavy mulching I have done, with the leaves.  Most of the picture show the heavy leaf mulch, and it has been very effective at preventing weeds. But the drawback is that it has prevented some volunteer plants I have enjoyed such as the German Chamomile, and a few others, that normally have come up by themselves.


The onions and garlic are still growing. I have checked the onions, and I still don't see any bulbs forming yet.  But the plants look healthy and are doing well. In the middle of the picture is a single yellow squash plant. I sowed about 6 seeds but only one came out.  In the right is the spaghetti squash, and on the left, and in many other pictures, you can see some blooming spinach plants, being kept around for seeds to keep.

Here is another view of the garden. You can see the peas again, and on the bottom you see some turnip plants, a red mustard plant, and some cilantro that is in full bloom, plus a cabbage head.

There are still a few cabbages around, but they are riddles with some holes, mostly from slugs.  I have not seen too many caterpillars, because the wasps have been controlling them. Speaking of beneficial, the lady bugs got an early start too, and they have kept the aphids under control.  The picture also shows on the left the golden acorn squash.  There have been tons of females and most have died due to lack of pollination, But a few have set recently because some male flower have started appearing too.

April 1st Update

Today is April 1st, and the garden is doing very well.  We finished off winter with very mild weather.  It was probably the mildest winter that I remember.   Our last hard freeze was in early January, and we had barely had 1 frost in early  March, where I had to lay out a tarp to protect some plants. 

Squash

In my post from late February I talked about planting some squash plants in pots for a very early start. I had planted spaghetti squash, golden acorn squash, and jumbo pink banana squash.  I had transplanted them to bigger pots, and then around the first week of March, I put them in the ground.

Jumbo Pink Banana Squash

I put in 2 banana squash plants, and later direct seeded 1 more.   I planted 2 of the spaghetti squash plants and gave 3 plants to my sister, which we planted in her yard.  I also put in all the golden acorn squash.

The banana squash are doing very well.  I have mulched the area like crazy with lot of leaves as you can see.  They already have flowers developing, and the vines are running.  

Golden Acorn Squash

The golden acorn squash came from some seeds from a store bought squash.  So I was not sure if they would fruit true to seed.  Surprisingly these are not vining, but are growing more like zucchini!  They are even developing some female flower which look like they will open soon.  Unfortunately there are no male flowers, so they wont be able to develop.  They plants are still fairly small though, so I am surprised they are doing this!

Below is a picture of one of the female flowers. You can see how the plant seems to be a busy variety. 

Female flower that looks close to opening 

spaghetti squash

One of my spaghetti squash plants is doing very well and vining, also with some soon opening flowers.   The other one looks like it will be a runt of a plant.  Shown the big plant, shown growing next to some lettuce that is bolting soon, and some cabbage, and garlic.  

Tomatoes

After transplanting to bigger pots, I put my cherry tomatoes into the ground in mid-March.  Here they are today. I got 4 good plants, and gave the two other ones to my sister.  They are starting to have some blooms.  Next to them you can see some of the spinach that is bolting.  The spinach was awesome this year. I have frozen a bunch of it because we had so much.  I am hoping to let a bunch of it go to seed so I can collect seeds for this fall.  

cherry tomatoes

variety of onions: red,yellow, white, planted from onion sets

 Onions and Garlic

My onions and garlic are also doing very well.  My onions are pretty dense... hopefully not too much so.  I dont see any bulbs forming yet, but the plants look very healthy. As you can see I have the whole garden area very heavily mulched with leaves.  So weeds have not been a problem.  This winter I would go around the neighborhood with my truck and pick up bagged leaves for this purpose.  

And here are my garlic plants. They also look very well.   

garlic

 Cool Weather Crops

 There is a mixture of the cool as well as warm weather stuff growing now.  I still have a few heads of cabbage growing.  Once again, the cabbage was great this late winter.  Probably harvested about 12 heads at least, and have three in the fridge.  The red mustard shown below is also doing very well.  My red mustard I had planted in the front flower beds have gotten powdery mildew and aren't looking as nice.

The peas I had mentioned in the previous post are doing very well.  Here they are shown in the back.  There are some flowers blooming, and a few pods have started.  The plant are about 5ft tall now.
These are shown growing behind another spinach patch.  In front of that is a small turnip patch.