May 28, 2012 - Broccoli Pest

My hands off approach to pest control this season has lead to some pretty catastrophic damage to the broccoli and cauliflower plants.  Some of the plants are completely defoliated and others are noticeably stunted.  I've finally identified the culprit as the Small Cabbage Butterfly. 

And here's a caterpillar feasting away on the underside of the leaf.  There are also dozens of small eggs on nearly every leaf and the small white adult butterflies are fairly common around the field and garden.

 

It may be too late to do much for these plants, but I'm going to try and scrape off any eggs I see and squash the caterpillars.  The three cauliflower plants I have in containers on the deck have no signs of damage.

May 24, 2012 - A Fist Full of Peas

I picked my first handful of peas this afternoon. Awesome!

Here's a quick couple of shots of the containers up on the deck. 

 

May 12, 2012 - Plants are In

This year I'm approaching the garden in a little more loose way.  I'm not sticking to a specific plan nor am I placing all my plants in the plot.  I'm experimenting with growing some of the vegetables and herbs in containers on the porch to what difference some good dirt and more controlled conditions have on the same plants.  I've also had some mixed success with peppers and want to see how they do in a variety of containers.

The garden really got started a few months ago but I haven't been able to post about it.  I started some cauliflower, broccoli, and peas from seeds and all are up and established.  The first flowers on the peas bloomed this morning.

In addition to the plants I got at the market last week I picked up a number of tomatoes and peppers from the family owned garden center around the corner.  They were selling a four pack plants for under $2.  I ended up with 16 plants all together! All that is left is for some more herbs (especially basil0 and some summer squash.
 
Here's the garden plot:

 Peas and some peppers

 Broccoli

 

 Peppers are looking good

 Here's one up close

 The tomatoes

 

The tomatoes and peppers

 

 Here's what I have on the porch:

My three tomatoes in pots - Yellow Pear, Viva Italia, and Amish Paste

 Rainbow Chard.  I think they are a little crowded in this pot but I'm growing them more for decoration than for eating. There are two pots like this on the porch.

 Spinach.  This is the second set.

 Potatoes - I got two of these potato bags and thought I'd give it a try.  They are made of the material that a tarp is made from and they have velcro flaps on the sides to harvest the potatoes without ripping out the whole plant.  Kinda of an experiment.

 Scallions - These were from the grocery store.  Cut them with enough of the white part and stick them in dirt.  They began to grow in just a few days.

Peas and carrots are in the planter. And a pepper plant that was attached by birds in the round pot.  I'm hopeful it'll rebound but right now it's pretty sad looking.

 Four pepper plants in a window box

 Strawberries - there is a second identical pot not pictured.  6 plants altogether one of which is a few years mature.

 Broccoli/Cauliflower

My herbs are doing well.  The larger rosemary on the right and the tarragon plant in the long planter were from last year.  I was rather surprised the tarragon came back.

 The cucumber sprouts. 

May 5, 2012 - West Chester Growers Market

Every year the official garden season begins for me with the opening of the West Chester Growers Market.  This year was no different and despite being an overcast and drizzle filled morning we got there just after it opened. 

 

 For the past few years I've purchased nearly all my tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and herbs here from various vendors.  A few are now familiar faces I look forward to every year.  I didn't go too overboard this first day at the market, but I did come home with the following:

 

Tomatoes:  Two Amish Paste (plums), Black Krim (medium), Lemon Boy (med/large), Green Zebra (medium), and a Yellow Pear (grape)

Peppers:Crono di Toro (Sweet), Italian Roaster (mild chile), and a third pepper that I lost the ID for.  I'm sure it's some sort of sweet non-bell pepper.

Herbs: Oregano, English Thyme, and Sage.

   

Not a bad beginning, but I have a lot more plants to get!

March 31, 2012 - Brown Barn Cafe

Ah! Some Chocolates and the Brown Barn Cafe is hands down the best place eat in Dallas, PA and in the whole Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area.   The dishes are fantastically flavorful, innovative yet simple, and always interesting complete with some great service.  The place is tiny and has an open kitchen so when there it I feel like I'm eating at a friend's house - a friend who happens to be a highly skilled chef.

Go there. 

Usual table.

 Expert preparation in a little kitchen!

 Smoked pork pupusas with curdito

 

Buckwheat crepes with slow cooked chicken an tenderloin tips.

 Raspberry chocolate torte

March 22, 2012 - Seedlings Sprouting

 

The weather has continued to be more like May than March - all week it's been sunny and in the 70's.  Usually this time of year I have to babysit many of the seeds and bring them in and outside depending on the weather.  It looks like this weekend will be the end of the May weather and I'll have to pay closer attention to the sprouts.  

 
The the warm sunny weather has really given the seeds a head start.  Take a look at the progress so far: 

 Cauliflower or Broccoli Sprouts

 Pea Sprouts

Rainbow Chard Sprouts

Spinach Sprouts

Radishes

March 16, 2012 - First Plantings

The past week has been unseasonably warm.  So much so that I almost feel that I've fallen behind with my seeds!  I have to keep reminding myself it's March.  On Tuesday I planted my peas, carrots, radishes, and started some cauliflower and broccoli in little pots.  On the porch I started spinach and the rainbow char in pots. I don't feel I'm taking too big of a gamble assuming the growing season has started.  All the bulb flowers are out, buds are forming on the trees - the trees in town have already blossomed on many streets.

Before I could plant I had to really till the garden.  It was so much work this year with all the field encroaching that I was only able to do what was necessary around the trellis.  In total about a third of the plot is finished.

There is also the matter of replacing the drip line tape. After two years all of the lines were shot.  I decided to simplify the design a bit this year and run only six lines: three sections of two parallel runs of tape.  For what I'm doing right now there's really no point putting different lines to different types of plants as they all require roughly the same amount of water.  If I have to, I'll under water and hit the more thirsty plants by hand.

I have some time before the rest of the garden needs to be prepped, but I think if the weather stays this nice I'll have it done by next week.

March 5, 2012 - Ordered the Seeds

It's now March and I am just now starting to take a look at the garden this year.  It's later than years past but I think that because it's been such a mild winter I never got too stir crazy from the snow. But now we're starting to see the first signs of spring: buds on the hydrangeas and green leaves on the strawberries - it's past time to get started!

 
After taking stock of my leftover seeds I made the tough decision to get rid of them all and start fresh. Many are a few seasons old and I don't have confidence that they were stored properly.  I can't bring myself to just throw them away so I'm going to seed bomb them around town and see what happens!

 I ended up ordering  all my seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange s again this year. I've had nothing but good luck with everything I've purchased from them and they seem to be a great organization with interesting varieties.   Here's my order:

• Amish Snap Peas - Superb snap pea reportedly grown in the Amish community long before present snap pea types. Vines grow 5-6' tall and are covered in 2" translucent green pods. Yields over a 6-week period if kept picked.
• Snowball Cauliflower - Introduced to American gardeners in 1888 by Peter Henderson & Company. Smooth 6-7" heads of tightly formed white curds are solid, crisp, and tender, excellent quality.
• Calabrese Broccoli - Popular market variety that was brought to America by Italian immigrants in the 1880s. Tight heads can grow up to 8" in diameter. After the central head is harvested, side shoots will form.
• True Lemon Cucumber - Heirloom listed in the 1894 catalog of Samuel Wilson of Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania. Once a popular market variety in Australia. Short and plump, resembles a lemon in size, shape, and color; mature fruits even have a faint lemony flavor. Used for pickling, slicing, and in salads.
• Russian Pickling Cucumber - Originally from Perm, Russia. First offered in the 1991 SSE Yearbook by Daniel L. Flyger from South Dakota who said the seed was “brought to this area by German-Russian immigrants in the 1870s.” Early maturing smooth green pickling cucumber with a delicious sweet flavor and good crunch.
• Dragon Carrot - The most refined purple carrot available; bred by John Navazio. Sure to be the best selling carrot at specialty and farmers’ markets. Beautiful red-purple exterior provides an amazing contrast with the yellow-orange interior when sliced. Sweet, almost spicy flavor.
• Scarlet Nantes Carrot - Dates to the 1850s; original seed developed by Vilmorin in France. Cylindrical roots are 7" long with blunt tips. Fine-grained bright red-orange flesh is nearly coreless. Great flavor, sweet and brittle. Good when used as baby carrots.
• Ideal Market Bean - Introduced to the seed trade in 1914 as Black Creaseback by Van Antwerp’s Seed Store of Mobile, Alabama. Reintroduced in 1924 by Chris Reuter Seed Co. of New Orleans, Louisiana as Reuter’s Ideal Market. Very early and productive 5" snap bean. Excellent quality, stringless, fine texture.
• America Spinach - Long-standing compact Bloomsdale type. All America Selections winner in 1952. Grows 8" tall with thick, deep green, savoyed leaves. Slow-growing, slow to bolt, heat and drought resistant. Fine quality, suited for spring sowing in long-day areas.
• Rainbow Char - Australian heirloom from Digger’s Garden Club. Ornamental technicolor mixture of Swiss chards with shades of red, orange, purple, yellow, and white.
• Oh So Sweet Watermelon - Delicious watermelon that definitely lives up to its name. Originally from Virdie Smith of Gladewater, Texas. Productive plants bear many medium round striped fruits with high sugar content.