Spetember 25, 2009 End of the Year

I'm officially calling an end to the garden for the year.

I've learned a lot and had a great time this summer with everything! The end of the year totals were not too bad, but should of been much greater. A lot of produce went to waste from both pests and my own neglect. It seems that at the end of the summer when I was the busiest was when I needed to be out there every day harvesting and tending the garden. I had visions in the Spring of eating vegetables from the garden every day during the Summer, but that just wasn't the possible. Lesson learned...

At some point over the coming months I'm going to sit down and evaluate what worked and what didn't to hopefully improve my plan for next year. One thing that is for sure is I'll be scaling back a bit and not use the recommended square foot garden spacing as much. Plants like the peppers, for example, quickly became shaded out from the tomatoes. When I was forced to prune and remove some of them a few weeks back, they almost doubled in size. If the frost comes late and it remains warm I still may get some additional peppers from the new growth. Next year they'll get much more space between each plant and whatever gets planted near them....

This weekend I plan on ripping out everything and cleaning up the space for the fall/winter. By the looks of it it seems like a lot of work!

I'm really looking forward to putting this year's experience into practice next year!

August 30, 2009 Back From Vacation

After a week away at the beach, this is the mess we came back to. All the sunflowers were drooped from their own weight, many tomatoes rotting on the vine and on the ground, all the cantaloupes rotting, a watermelon split and rotting, and even a few of the peppers were rotting. I guess I picked the wrong week to leave everything!

I removed two tomato plants and pruned back the others. All the rotting tomatoes are now in a pile along with some other garden refuse. so things look a little more put together now. I harvested all that could be salvaged and there are still plenty of green tomatoes yet to ripen. So the season isn't over yet, but I definitely lost quite a bit!

August 16, 2009 Melons and Sunflowers

I've been pretty busy the last two weeks, hence the lack of updates. In that time all sorts of things have gone to hell in the garden. I haven't weeded the watermelon patch in about a month or so and it was so over grown that you couldn't even see the watermelon plants let alone the melons themselves. Stacey put a huge dent in pulling the big stuff the other day and I finished off the little she left for me yesterday. I hope that will buy me some time!

The real issue I've been having is with my tomatoes. It seems that they're a little top heavy and with only a single stake holding up the center the branches laden with tomatoes have become a problem. Some have broken off with some of the heavy storms, others are resting on the dirt where the bugs, critters, and fungus has taken some (but not all) of the 'maters. Next year I need to do three things different --

1) Cage them along with the stakes to support the branches.
2) Prune them back MUCH more.
3) Space them out even more. They're currently about 2 feet apart, but I'm going to try to add another foot between them.

Despite the problems I'm having, I still have more tomatoes than I know what to do with! Nice.

I also wanted to share some pics on how the melons are doing:

Also the sunflowers are all in full bloom! A couple of the flower heads have seeds set and I'll need to harvest fairly soon before the birds take too many. I've read a few methods of cooking the seeds but I'm going to try this one:

Sunflower seeds can be roasted by heating in a 300 degree F oven for 15-25 minutes. If salting is desired, soak seeds overnight in a brine of 2 tablespoons of salt to 1 cup of water. Boil the seed brine mix for a few minutes and drain. Spread seeds thinly on a cookie sheet and roast in a 200 degree F oven for 3 hours or until crisp. If roasted long enough, they are easy to shell.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/ptlk/1828.html


And finally I was taking pictures of all the bugs on the butterfly bush and thought this was a good one of a large carpenter bee hanging out.

August 4, 2009 Zucchini Pruning Update

here's an update on the pruned zucchini plants:

Take a look at the pictures of the day I cut the plants and a little over a week later. They seem to be coming back a bit. Some new flowers (all males) are popping up around the stem. Although there are several new leaves that have grown, most of the original leaves I left on it have a fair amount of powdery mildew. Not a good sign! But they've already exceeded my expectations - I kind of figured they would have been shocked to death after two days. If I get any more zucchini off of any of the remaining three plants I'll call it a success.

This was from July 24th:

...And this one from August 4th:

Check out the update to the Harvest count. It's starting to get impressive. I guess I have some more tomato sauce to make this week:



Several of the sunflowers are in full bloom. They ended up being between eight and nine feet tall. I'm pretty happy with that with so many in a small place. I think I'll space them out a little more than a foot next year!

July 27, 2009 Goodbye to the Zucchini

The powdery mildew has gotten the best of the zucchini. I decided to pull one completely and prune back the other three to the newest leaves that are not (currently) infected. The plant has powdery mildew on the stalk as well so I don't think this will work, but I couldn't bring myself to destroying the plants without trying. We'll see how long they last after loosing 90% of their leaves in a day. I'm worried that their proximity to the cucumbers may be a problem, but so far they are showing no signs of being infected.

I took a large garbage bad and covered as many leaves as I could and then started snipping the leaves off at the base. I tried not to shake the leaves too much in an attempt to keep the spores from spreading. I have cucumbers and melons fairly close by. I'll try and post a couple of pictures in the next couple of days to see how they do with so many leaves gone. Even though I ended up harvesting over thirty of them and couldn't eat them fast enough (my coworkers and friends helped out a bit) I'm going to miss pulling one or two every couple of days. I have my the zucchini bread recipe memorized now!

The tomatoes have been ripening up lately too. It's been a nice treat to snack on the grapes. I've also made two batches of sauce out of the larger ones. It's kinda cool when the sauce has three or four different varieties in them, especially the yellow Lemon Boys which turn the sauce almost orange. The place smells good from all the cooking on Sundays!

Here's a summary of the video:

• The pumpkins and watermelon are both getting big. I counted 6 watermelon and 7 pumpkins on their way!
• Three decent sized cantaloupes are on the vine. I hope I can time the melons right to get a couple of days worth of fruit salad.
  
• The beans are coming in faster than I can eat them.
• Cucumbers are plentiful now.
  
• A couple of the bell peppers are turning red and the hot peppers are all maturing nicely!
• The sunflower heads are growing, but not as large as I had hoped...one of them is about to open.
  

July 18, 2009 Powdery Mildew Fight

So I lost the fight against the flea beetles for my eggplant. And I have a feeling based on how far gone the problem is I'll likely lose the fight against powdery mildew for my zucchini. It was a few days since I was out there and it has gotten pretty bad. Nearly every leaf is covered. Only a few of the leaves have actually turned yellow/brown but I'm sure that it's not too long before the whole plant just can't take it any more and dies.

The good news is that I've already pulled nearly 20 delicious zucchini from them, but I'd still like to get 20 more! I've talked to some people in the area who say that Powdery Mildew kind of just happens in this area at a certain time of the year, and to get zucchini all summer you should do a few plantings of one plant through out the late spring/early summer. There are certain preventative measures you can take, like watering in the morning and only at base. But it sounds like even that will just delay the point at which you'll eventually get it.

So what to do? I read that using plain 'ole milk does a better job than any commercial fungicide on the market. So that's what I'm trying... read more here:

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/powdery-milk-mildew.html

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/3125/title/A_Dairy_Solution_to_Mildew_Woes

Check out this haul today!

July 18, 2009 Late Blight Warning

I was listening to You bet Your Garden this morning and heard a bit of bad gardening news: a really bad case of Late Blight has infested the east coast. As of today it's primarily in New York and New England but has been identified as far west as Ohio and down into the Carolinas. "So what?" you might ask, well this apparently it has the potential to devastate tomato and potato plants (amongst other related plants) for both home gardeners and commercial growers. This is the same disease that cause the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-1800's.

It's recommended that you inspect your tomatoes and potatoes daily and if you find any of your tomatoes are infected with late blight to destroy the plant and bring samples into local government agricultural labs to ensure that it's tracked. I just checked my plants and so far nothing that looks like the pictures. (Pictures of late blight symptoms) Good luck to all!

Here's a piece of the YBYG article:

And late blight spreads like wildfire on a windy day in bone-dry weather. If people don’t promptly remove and destroy infected plants the spores will travel with the wind to the next garden—or farm. A single spore can travel many miles. And the cool, damp weather that plagued the affected parts of the country throughout much of June provided the ‘perfect’ conditions for this nasty actor to spread rapidly. Oh and just to make SURE you don’t sleep well tonight, this is the earliest and most widespread it’s ever appeared.

The Associated Press has done an excellent job of reporting on this potential crisis. According to their story of July 3rd, the disease appears to have originated in tomato plants shipped to ‘Big Box’ stores on the east Coast—specifically Lowe’s, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Kmart. Infected plants were found at almost every store that was checked, so be especially vigilant if you or a neighbor got plants from such a store.

If you grew your own plants from seed or got them from a purely local grower—who didn’t mix their stock with bulk-purchased plants—your only risk is the spores blowing into your garden. If you’re in a community garden or other ‘shared’ situation, make sure your fellow growers are informed, and agree up front that any infected plants will be immediately destroyed.

Full YBYG Article:
http://www.gardensalive.com/article_mcgrath.asp?ai=1&bhcd2=1247942148

More info from Cornell University:
http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/blight/

July 14, 2009 Stuffed Zucchini

'Nuf said.

July 13, 2009 -The End of the Peas, Begining of the Beans!

Here's a new video of the garden!




1. Zucchini have powdery mildew, but I've got the egg shells in the dirt so at least they won't have blossom end rot!
2. Cucumbers are in season
3. Pole bean bonanza!
4. Sunflowers are about 6 feet tall and starting to form the flower heads
5. Peppers a plenty
6. The tomatoes are starting to ripen, and not just the grapes
7. A watermelon is growing pretty quick, it's not the size of a small baseball


And here's a shot of the harvest today. It made a great green bean casserole. Stuffed zucchini tomorrow...

July 7, 2009 Pole Beans Are Here

The pole beans are starting to produce some beans that are ready to pick. Right now it's only the first five or six plants that are producing but the rest of the row is not far behind. It's my understanding that you have to keep picking them otherwise they shut down - the more often you pick the better the harvest. I think I'll give it until Thursday before I start to pick just so I can figure out what to cook with them.

Also all three melons have fruiting flowers on them now. I've been a little worried about the cantaloupe because there have been flowers for a few weeks now, but no females. Today there's a big fuzzy one growing so I can expect at least one!

The 'Loupe

Two Pumpkins

Only one watermelon

July 2, 2009 The Harvest Has Begun!

I have been unable to get to the garden for a few days, luckily we've had some evening rain to keep everything healthy. The garden seems to be moving along pretty fast! The tomatoes are exploding with all sizes of green fruit, the bush beans produce a full bowl of 5-8 inch beans without me noticing, 3 large cucumbers (one of which I picked) popped up, and the zucchini are growing like mad! I've started a running count on what I harvest on the right side of the blog. I thought I better start now before there's too much to count! Here's some pictures of the different peppers coming in:

Mystery Pepper

Luigi Pepper

Cayenne Pepper

Bell Pepper (Red I think?)

Ancho Pepper

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Now to the zucchini problem:

I have noticed a problem with my zucchini, and it's been on going now since they began to fruit. Some, but not all, of the fruit begins to grow and either - 1. Becomes yellow and mushy at the end farthest from the plant, or 2. Grows fat near the plant and skinny and yellow at the far end (not shown). This could be the same problem, but it does look different on the plant. to me. The following picture shows three zucchini on plants right next to each other. The first looks great, maybe a little big, but great! The others, well not so much. Luckily there enough good ones for me not to worry too much.

I was able to do some research and found out that zucchinis (and almost any fruiting vegetable) can have blossom end rot. I experienced this last year with my tomatoes. I simply added a bunch of crushed up egg shells a few inches under the soil near the plant and it kept the black spots away for every tomato there after. Fully aware of this, a I dutifully kept my eggshells for a while and a few weeks back put a healthy does around the tomato plants, but I didn't even think to do it for the zucchini or peppers. So far the peppers have shown no symptoms of blossom end rot, but I'm going to start having eggs three meals a day to get enough shells for the zucchini!

There is a chance that some of the problems have to do with poor pollination, but I'm not convinced that is what is happening in my garden. There area all sorts of insects, and several bees specifically that I see all the time out there. But if the extra calcium from the egg shells doesn't work then I'll explore that a little further. There's plenty of sites on the Internet that give a good explanation of how to hand pollinate plants.

Here's a great link to Common Zucchini Problems from MichellesGarden.com where the above image was taken (stolen): http://www.michellesgarden.com/Main/Pests/squash.shtml

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Just to give an update on the one tomato plant that had the leaf curl:

The plant seems to be doing a bit better. The fruit are starting to turn red and the new growth is looking healthy - it even has more flowers growing. It's very stunted compared to the overflowing mass of the other tomato plants, but it'll still produce I think. Thanks for the advice from those that gave it!

And finally, here are six pictures of the garden to compare a few weeks ago from the same spots. It's looking FULL!

June 28, 2009 A Few Days of Neglect

So we've been away for a few days. It was a long drive, but well worth the fun. I had a chance to meet a lot of really nice, gracious, and fun people. I now know more snail jokes, vermin stories, and puns than anyone this side of the Brandywine River! Cheers to everyone in Rochester, Montrose, and Washington County!

In the time we were away it was apparently the hottest and driest days of June so far, and everything in the garden showed it. The ground was cracked and all the flowers and herbs on the deck are either wilted or dead. But the vegetable garden looks like it survived!

Things to note:
1. Lots more zucchinis to pick
2. Even more peas are ready
3. A full size cucumber, plus a second not too far behind
4. The first green bean on the bush has grown
5. The first tomato is turning red
6. LOTS more tomatoes on the vine
7. The watermelons have tripled in size (not in the video)

Here's a video from when we got home:

June 22, 2009 Video Tour of the Garden

Thanks to my new iPhone 3GS I can now now shoot some videos of the garden! So since today was the first full day without rain in some time I wanted to get out and see how everything is doing. So here is the first of what will be many video tours:

June 15, 2009 Extra Ten Square Feet

I pulled up the "carrots", removed what was left of the eggplants, and the last of the radishes that I left to flower. So now I have a fair chunk of space in the garden that's empty - and I have no idea of what to put in there. Any suggestions as to what will produce after being planted this late in the spring?

June 13, 2009 Garden Salad

Lots more rain today. I don't think the thunderstorms will stop for a few more days. I hope then everything will dry out!

I was able to harvest a good amount of peas along with some lettuce today. A delicious garden salad to go with the crab cakes and corn bread. Yum! Can't wait for the rest of the garden to start producing...

June 10, 2009 Big Weather

There have been lots of thunderstorms rolling through the last week. Yesterday was the most intense. Before work we got some strong winds and some real heavy rain along with some tiny hail stones. It was the first time we've lost power since moving and I was happy that it wasn't out for more than three minutes. After that storm cleared out, there was a second round that rolled through around 3pm. This one came complete with a tornado warning. The funnel was more then 10 miles away, but a coworker's wife snapped this picture of it coming down. Pretty cool!

I have been having a problem the last few days in the garden - and it's not the eggplants this time. One of the plum tomato plants has been looking a little funky. The leaves have been curling and it's size is noticeably smaller than the rest of the tomatoes. Take a look at these two pictures:

I did a little Googling and there are several potential causes, but one of them in particular sticks out as the likely cause. It seems that with lots of water , poor drainage, and severe pruning it can stress the plant severely (from the GardenWeb). If this is the case, a few days to dry things out should help. I did take a major limb off this plant that had several leaves covered with aphids, but I'm not sure if that is considered 'severe' pruning (I debated taking it off, but it was the only part of the plant that had aphids and I didn't think it'd stress the plant this much). I also find it odd that none of the other tomato plants have been affected the same way. I looked back into my photos from the last few weeks and it seems that about ten days ago was the first time that I can notice that this plant is noticeably smaller than the rest. We have received a lot of rain in that time. It still has healthy looking flowers and six or seven green tomatoes that look just fine. I'll post an update on what happens in a few days...

Here's how the rest of the plot is looking...

The peas are really starting to take off. I plan on picking the first round in the next few days. I've already snuck a few and they're tasty!

Several of the pepper plants are already showing some good signs...

The tops of the pole beans are reaching almost three feet!

June 1, 2009 Progress Report

It's a beautiful start to June! I spent a few hours this afternoon taking care of the weeds and taking some pictures for an update. Everything is taking off and looking good except, again, for the eggplant. It might be time to admit defeat and try and put something else in it's place. The garlic spray was not effective against flea beetles at all. I think the eggplant was too far gone for anything but the most potent insecticide. However, it wasn't a complete failure: I spied a cucumber beetle on the eggplant one day and give it a squirt. That thing dropped right off and went crawling away. So I may try it again.

I have also given up trying to wait for the "carrots" to mature so I can find out what it was that took over. There were a lot of bugs coming from that little patch and it was time to thin it out. In a separate effort to reduce the number of insects, I took care of the weeds completely overgrowing the berry bushes adjacent to my patch. It was getting to the point where they were choking out every bush. They also were flowering and I didn't want them to go to seed and make matters worse! But the benefit of that is that patch was just covered in leaf hoppers and various other bugs. When it was all said and done I removed a bout a 4 foot pile of weeds.

I actually started removing the weeds last week. You can see how big the problem was in the picture above (the bare patch in the picture was completely covered). I ended up removing enough to put a few more plants in. So in the annex, I put in 5 Watermelons and two more little tomatoes (Thanks Olivia!!). They both have a big hill to climb to catch up the the rest of the tomatoes, but there's plenty of time for them to grow! I hope the watermelons have enough room there.

And finally, here are five pictures of how everything else is coming along: