Late Spring 2014 Update

Transitioning From Spring to Summer

Its late May, and many of the cool weather plants are done.   The lettuce has all bolted, and has been pulled out except for a few volunteer plants here and there.  We had a huge amount of lettuce this spring, and almost got tired of eating salad.  We gave much away too.  I even gave my chickens many of the bolting plants to eat.  The Spinach all bolted too.  It also did very well, and I froze a couple of gallon zip lock bags of it for eating later.  I have kept a few plants around, to collect their seeds. They are almost dried up now.  I like to save spinach seed, since you need really fresh seed for them. (they have very short shelf lives).

Brassica Plants 

There are still some cool weather plants around.  The aphid onslaught ended.  I think the parasitic wasps is what did them in, along with lady bugs and other predators.  And the cabbage and Brussels sprouts all recovered somewhat.
Here is one of my green acres cabbage plant. (which I mentioned in my last blog).  Its head is not very big, but it might be ready to eat.  I think the aphid setback might have stunted it enough to not let it get very big.  Besides its not supposed to be a very big cabbage anyway.

Green Acres  Cabbage

 When I planted many of these plants in the late winter, I had mixed cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli plants, but since then I have forgotten which plants are which.  So I have a number of mystery plants that are still around and growing

Mystery brassica plant

I'm pretty sure these are Brussels sprouts

I'm not sure what to expect from these... will they just hang around all summer and produce in the fall? But right now they are all leaves, huge leaves, and they take up a lot of space.

The Summer Garden

Its late May, and its starting to feel like summer will soon be here.  Its been in the mid-80's the past few weeks.  Unfortunately we've been drier than normal this year.  For the past few weeks my garden has been transitioning to warm weather crops.  

Tomatoes

In the last post, back in late March, I showed a picture of the seedlings from the  heirloom tomato seed mix I had gotten from Gurney's.  They were planted in mid-April, and they have really grown big since then.  Unfortunately since its a mix of seeds, I have no idea what plant is what.  But I can certainly see that they are different type of tomatoes.

small variety of heirloom tomato

plants have overgrown their tomato cages

this type almost looks like a "beefsteak" type tomato. 

So I've been very pleased with these plants. They seem to be producing real nicely. And fortunately they have not been hit by the spider mites yet. (More later on these pests!)  But I know that later on as it gets hotter, and the plant get older, they become more susceptible to spider mites. 

Pole Beans, and Spider Mites

In early April I planted some pole beans, Kentucky Wonder.   It was a rough start.  First, some critter decided to chop off many of my young seedlings, almost down to the ground.  Maybe cutworms?  So I had to break out the sevin, and dust the survivors.  I had to plant more.  But then later in late April, I was really surprised to see them attacked by spider mites.  They came quick and hit hard, and soon the plants were looking very sickly and yellowing!  I started to spray the plant with soap and neem oil spray.  I think after a few treatments, I got them under control.  I've seen been spraying once a week, and wetting the plants daily to keep the mite at bay.  I think it was the dry spring we've had, and the warm days we had that got them going so early.  

discoloring on leaves, due to spider mite damage.

If you look closely, you can see the tiny red dots on the back of the leaves. And you can see them move too.

stippled discoloration from mite damage

The plants seem OK now.  The mites persist, but hopefully I can manage them until I get a good harvest from these plants. The vines are growing fairly well, but no signs of flowers yet.

Squash and Volunteer Pumpkins

I also planted a couple of round zucchini plants early this spring in round pots, and transplanted them in mid-April. These are from the same seeds I planted last year.   But unfortunately the spider mites that attacked my pole beans also liked these too.  I also noticed the discoloration on the leaves.  So I had to spray these with soap/neem too, and the plants seem to be recovering nicely.  Also they have been covered with tulle netting (to ward off the Squash vine borers) until early this week, when they started blooming, so I removed the covers. This morning I had two female blossoms that I pollinated, so I am looking forward to the first crop of these soon.  This is one of the plants.  The other one is smaller. It was a weaker plant, and got hit by the spider mites worse but now its recovering well.

Round Zucchini

 I also planted some acorn squash around early April.  Its the Table Queen Acorn Squash, the same I planted last year. I also ended up covering them to ward off the SVB, but the plants got too big for my tulle netting piece I used, so I uncovered them, and have just been covering parts the vines with mulch whenever possible, to encourage secondary root formation.  And I have been looking for SVB eggs and hand picking them off whenever I see some.  I have 3 squash that are definitely growing now, and 3 more that I hand-pollinated a couple days ago.

Table Queen Acorn Squash 

Table Queen Acorn squash

 Unfortunately some critter has taken a liking to my female squash blossoms.  I noticed that two of my blossoms, on the day they opened up, were shortly chopped off,leaving the tiny undeveloped fruit behind.
This was very frustrating, especially since that morning I had hand pollinated those flowers.  So the past few day I have been covering the blossoms to protect them.

Protecting the female blossoms

I did not intend to grow any pumpkins this spring, but some volunteers have come up.  This one is a pretty big plant. I suspect its from  a jack-o-lantern type pumpkin my daughters bought to carve last year.  I remember composting some of it, and I used some of that compost around my corn this spring.

volunteer pumpkin, maybe Jack-o-lantern type?

Its much thicker and stockier than my sugar pie pumpkins plants that I am used to.  I've been trying to take care of it, mulching it well, and picking any SVB eggs I see on it. 

Sweet Corn

The other thing I am trying again this year is sweet corn.  But it has not gotten off to a good start.  I also started them in April, but they also had a rough start.  Some varmint quickly discovered that I had planted the seeds, and I would find neat little holes when the seeds had been, and I found parts of the corn kernel that had been dug up and chewed.  So I suspected rats.  I set out many rat traps, and ended up killing two rats.   After replanting more, they came up, but took forever to grow. And the seedlings were rather sickly looking, and some even got spider mites.  They are starting to recover, but I'm not sure I'll get much from them

Sweet corn

Now these may look pretty normal, but some are already developing the flower heads, even though they are so short.   

Other Plants 

This early spring I noticed a few familiar plants that came up.  I recognized them as the german chamomile that I had grown last year, so I took care of these volunteers.  Love these plants, they are so pretty and bloom so profusely.

some volunteer german chamomile came up from last years plants

I have two of these volunteers. They are doing great.  

 Here are some dual-purpose cucumbers I have growing (pickling and slicing cukes).  They are starting to take off, and climb up a homemade trellis.

Cucumbers, growing towards the back of the yard, along a trellis

 I tried growing watermelons this year, but for some unknown reason, they have been a bust.  They are been growing for about a month, and are still tiny, and stunted.   I think maybe the spidermites got them too, and they are sickly. I might try planting some more next weekend.

These watermelons are a bust.  I think I'll have to start over.  Not sure why these are stunted and yellowing

 The strawberry path I referred to in the last post is doing well.  The junebugs like the leaves unfortunately, but otherwise they have been problem free. These are everbearing strawberries.  We had the first harvest, and will be waiting for the second round.

The strawberry patch, doing well. We've already eaten some strawberries.