That was supposed to be 10’, not 10", which would be a mighty short trellis!
:: bump ::
Last weekend we installed the trellis in the backyard for the peas and cucumbers and melons and possible squashes. Need some more zip ties for the nylon netting, though.
It’s been really cold here, so the peas are just starting to sprout. I planted about 3/4 of the 20’ bed with peas (the rest is arugula and radishes), but didn’t really think through the sequential planting - if they are just sprouting now, I will need to rip most of them out to make room for cucumbers and melons, which will get planted outside in about a month. Ah well, maybe we can eat them as pea shoots? Or because it will take the cucumbers and melons a while to get going, I can just pull out peas so there are strategic gaps for the cucumbers and melons, and pull out the rest of the peas later when the cucumbers and melons get bigger?
Observations so far from the rest of my seedlings:
a) pepper seeds really don’t hold up very well - most of the ones I saved from 2 years ago haven’t germinated at all
b) the other peppers and eggplants are finally starting to pop up! and
c) we sure are going to have a bumper crop of tomatillos. Send tomatillo recipes!
The asclepias and bee balm are finally getting going. After a mishap with a missing package, I finally have some grow lights waiting to be picked up at an Amazon Locker near home. Lavender really does take forever to sprout - I finally have one sprout, and I hope that means the rest of them will follow along soon.
I think I am going to direct seed the rest of the flowers and see how they do in comparison with the seeds started inside. It seems like a waste not to plant the rest of them.
Has anyone here ever use a tiller to rip up crappy patchy weedy grass? Any words of wisdom?
Today’s project will be planting the various tomato seeds that I tried sprouting last weekend wrapped in damp paper towels. And seed squashes and cucumbers and melons.
Also, does anyone have a favorite source for irises and clematis and roses? I think I can turn my attention to the decorative part of the garden now.
Schreiner’s for irisis. Clematis I would only buy at a local place–I know lots of people find them easy but they’re delicate and finicky for me, so I want a big, healthy plant to start with. Roses, I don’t know. I’m just making my first forays into those.
For roses, we’ve had success with David Austin (mail order).
Harvested the first tomato last week. So much better than store-bought it’s like they are different fruits. Pool-ball sized tomatoes on one plant, baseball-sized on another, and the Roma are fruiting all over. The peppers are going gangbusters. I’ve counted over 2 dozen chilis on the jalapeno plants, and the guajillo, Anaheim and Fresno are in high gear as well. The only plants I have yet to see fruit on are the habaneros. It’s still early, and they are putting out a lot of growth, just no flowers. Time to cut back on the water even more, I guess.
We just spotted the first set fruit on our tomatoes today. The bonus of the Puget Sound area’s real-for-sure springtime is that we’re growing stuff in our gardens while most of the country is still covered in snow…the drawback is that we’re still waiting on stuff to fruit/flower while everyone else is already getting their jollies.
With this weird Spring we have had everything is behind. We don’t expect ripe Strawberries untill late this month, I should already have had several bowls of Shortcake by now.
The asparagus got a super late start here near Chicago, but the rhubarb is going crazy. Ate a few radishes. Otherwise, everything is super behind. Except the weeds, of course.
Monarch caterpillars doing great, though! Already have 18. Bumper crop!
After opting out of a garden last year I’m going small scale this year. So far I have some spinach and chard in the ground (red and white varieties) and I’m going to start clearing weeds for the beans today. I’ve got three colors of bush beans and climbing green beans. If all goes well I might buy a zucchini (you really only need one) and a cucumber already started. I’ve got some lettuce, but I might wait until the spinach bolts, rip it out, and then plant the lettuce.
That’s about it, really. But working fulltime and still working on the pile 'o stuff in my home to go through I don’t want to take on more than that.
I planted the kale in our “real” garden and it is doing well.
The 8’ x 8’ spot where I planted dandelions and broad-leaf plantain is amazing. I tilled the area repeatedly, adding composted horse manure each time. I then overwintered under newspaper and a tarp.
A neighbor came over to return something and he noticed the lush weed growth. He totally didn’t get it.
I had did little to no vegetable gardening for a few years due to shade and roots from trees. Last summer we took out a bunch of trees.
Got a late start to redoing the garden due to bad weather and the soil being compacted cause of the equipment.
I was surprised that the lettuce did well despite the late start but now with the heat and humidity it’s done for.
Done 3 pickings of Blue Lake bush beans so far. (Why do they even bother selling anything other than Blue Lake bush or pole beans? The rest are crappy.)
Picked the first cherry tomatoes last Wednesday. They were supposed to be Sweet Zillions or some such but are basically normal cherry tomato sized. No complaints. The tomato plants are the biggest and bushiest I’ve seen in years. It’s going to BLTeautiful this summer.
Picked the first cuke Sunday. Always come on after the lettuce droops, of course. Just like the tomatoes.
The peppers and tomatoes are coming in strong. Santa Fe, jalapeno, Anaheim and Fresno peppers are fruiting like crazy. The habanero are lagging a bit, but there are dozens of blossoms on both plants.
The beefsteak tomatoes are delicious. The Romas have a bit of blossom end rot, so I dosed them with a calcium spray and discarded all the affected fruit. We’ll see if the rest of them come through.
We’ve had quite a number of delicious snap peas and strawberries. Cold late spring followed almost immediately by 90-plus degree heat has confused the hell out of some of the plants, but they seem to be rebounding OK. It did mean that the spinach and arugula bolted almost immediately after they finally got going, though.
The peppers and tomatoes are coming along nicely, but just starting to flower. The eggplants are looking leafy and robust, but not flowering yet. The cucumbers and melons are just starting to get going - I had hoped that the peas would be petering out by the time it was the right weather to put out cucumbers and melons, but because of the sudden burst immediately into summer, that wasn’t the case. So interspersed the cucumbers and melons among the trellised peas, with decidedly mixed results because they probably weren’t getting enough sub because they were shaded by the peas and cabbages and collards. Ah well, it’s a learning experience.
The one acorn squash and one butternut squash have gone insane and taken over the entire bed they are in, and are trying to spill over the sides. I’m trying to get them to climb up the trellis, but we shall see. They are also starting to flower, and some of the acorn squashes are starting to form. The thyme grew from one 3" pot last year into a giant bush, so I potted up a 2 gallon pot for a friend and transplanted a chunk into the front yard as an ornamental next to the lavender and mint. Hey, it smells nice, and the bees will be happy.
The kale never really sprouted at all. The tomatillos are just starting to spring to life, as well as a couple of ground cherries. I direct-seeded some beets when I realized that the ones I started inside weren’t going to make it, and they are much happier that way - probably won’t bother starting them inside again. And the seed company sent a freebie packet of carrots (Atomic Red), so I decided to try those, too.
If I get any time this weekend, I hope to direct-seed some calendula and the ornamental peppers and a few other annual flowers. I thought I’d get to it last weekend, but decided to spread out a giant bag of peat moss and about 200 lb. of non-crappy topsoil and half a dozen giant bags of mulch on the flowers in the side yard instead, because the soil up there is crappy clay that dries out and cracks at the least provocation and I’m hoping not to kill all the flowers. But it’s supposed to be about a million degrees out, so we shall see. Oh yeah, and the packet of milkweed seeds in a wet paper towel in the fridge need to get planted, too.
What bulbs can be planted now-ish to bloom in the late summer and fall?
Is that really such a big loss ;)? I mean I give you full credit for convincing me that eggplants are perfectly good, after decades of looking at them with a skeptical eye.
But though I like just about everything else in the cabbage family, I’ve been trying to develop a taste for kale the past several years and it just isn’t working out. Chard and spinach are the money leafy greens :).
Kale isn’t really my favorite either, but I tend to use it more as a component of other dishes like soups rather than in a big fat pile. Plus Tom Scud is forbidden to eat spinach and chard for medical reasons, believe it or not. I miss my spinach!
Gotcha - soup I can get behind, about the only way the texture can be made to work for me.
Ah, oxalates I presume. My father has the same issue. Damn stuff seems to be in everything good.
It’s been unusually dry here the last month- I’m not just in England, I’m in one of the wettest counties- and it’s not rained at all in weeks, which means I’ve been having to water everything. On the plus side that means slugs and snails are less active, but it means lugging a watering can some distance.
It’s been quite interesting for me this year, this being a new site. I haven’t really moved far, just a few hours drive, but plants that were totally reliable in my old plot have been complete flops in my new site, but then some stuff I could barely keep alive previously is rocketing up here. It was a really, really slow start, with major slug and snail issues, but I’m finally picking the first peas, strawberries*, cucumbers and I think the garlic’s about ready.
*I should have had the first strawberries nearly a month ago, but some ratbag squirrel beat me too most, even after I netted them.
Yep. Red meat, hard liquor, stinky French cheese - all perfectly fine. Beets, sweet potatoes, chard, rhubarb, almonds - all verboten. I think tahini was the saddest for him, though.
He’s out of town for work for a few days, though. Oxalate party! I just had beets for lunch.
I was tempted* to order canna tubers on sale.
Depending on the canna variety, planting in early July could yield flowering plants as soon as late August, to bloom until frost.
*but not quite enough.