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 !