Garden Beginnings

Here is the progression of the new garden:

Started on July 4th:
We have 5 lanes that are 40' x 16" with 1' wide lanes in between. This time around we are following Dick Raymond's (of Joy of Gardening fame) wide row method since it is much back friendlier and more efficient in terms of time (weeding, watering, etc). The lanes run east to west with some shade on either end. We did this on purpose because we have excruciatingly hot summers here and I am tired of everything bolting in mid-June and having sun scalded tomatoes.

Verdict so far? The wide rows and the shading worked great. We need to make the paths a bit bigger and we need to add at least two more rows but that is the beauty of this system. Since there are no 4' x 8' wood borders, I can till everything under at the end of the season and start all over with very little fuss. The narrower rows have made it a bit more challenging to place the row covers over the lanes but we arranged them parallel which has worked so far.

 July 4th, 2013

Fast forward to early Aug:

And today:

Seed Starting Update no. 2

Today we sowed:

• Peppers: Beaver Dams (4), Garden Sunshines (4), Mini-Bells (4)
• Kohlrabi (6)
• Broccoli (3)

Updates:

•  Potted out early tomato starts
• Starting tomorrow we will keep them under the grow light during the day and put them out on the patio at night so they can be exposed to cooler night time temps. Apparently keeping them at 50-60 degrees at night will encourage early flowering.

Fall Garden Guilt Assuaged

We got over to the garden today and finally got some more things planted for fall. Good thing because I was really starting to feel guilty that my fall garden plan flew out the window. (I know, why did I think we would have an awesome fall garden when we have a brand new infant...crazy, right?! But we had baby help this weekend so we were able to make time to garden). We are planting super late we realize, but we hope that the row cover will extend our season. Supposedly it protects the plants down to 28 degrees. Then we will switch it out for a plastic cover. Our average first frost is October 15th but may come a bit later, so we will see how things go.

We planted more cylindra beets since our lack of watering has yielded only 4 seeds that germinated. Sadly I'm out of Golden Beet seeds which I only realized when we got to the garden. :sigh: We filled in the lettuce with some romaine and bibb, planted a row of butterhead lettuce, a row of Japanese red mustard, a row of regular mustard, a row of kohlrabi, a few wax bean seeds, and assorted radishes. We also planted one brussels sprout as an experiment since it is our first time growing it, and we are beyond late in getting the seed in the ground.  We'll see what happens. At least we can try again with them in spring.

The canola cover crop that we planted in the big bed last week is popping up. At first I always think they are weeds. We need to fill it in in some places, but it should keep the erosion under control this winter.

Our peppers are still going strong and the bees are definitely enjoying the basil seed stalk flowers as you can see in the picture at the top. Our neighbors all have amazing peppers right now too, so I think the conditions may just have been right this year.

Our blackberry is beyond out of control and is trying to assimilate the fence. Once the berries are ripened and picked this is getting whacked back.

We also got some more compost going and for once we remembered to bring some brown matter (shredded newspaper) and not just our green matter kitchen scraps. I'm trying harder since I don't want to attract any more critters.

Our Tomatoes are Growing!

Went over to the garden to water today. Lettuce had all bolted (of course) and something is still eating the rhubarb but our tomatoes are setting fruit! This is exciting because all our seed starts almost ended up in the compost after my inattention led them to get horrifically leggy (pics below). Luckily hubby intervened and decided to give them a shot in the garden anyway. Our volunteer tomato is still coming along the fastest but the others look promising!! We put in Tomatoes Alive fertilizer when we planted them and have since dosed them with fish emulsion when they set flowers. Hopefully hubby will get his coveted Cherokee Purples, and I will get at least one Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge!

Just for a reference, here is a pic of our leggy tomato starts from May. Who knew they would survive?!

And because I'm still so amazed we need an picture of my (non-devoured) green beans and the rest of the haul from the hoop house:

                                   Nothing prettier than a golden beet!

June Garden Updates

The last two days it has been 99 degrees (feels like 105) so we'll see how the plants fare. Before this heat wave, the tomatoes were doing well, radishes were going to seed, our hydrangea looks fully recovered from the frost, chamomile was done and the lettuce is was on the borderline of bolting (I'm sure it has now).

Photo Update:

In the top corner you can see our onions that seem to already have the thrip. We didn't treat them in time so we will just have to live with smaller onions this year. Bottom left is our lettuce and volunteer tomato.

Top is the rhubarb, hilled potato, and radishes going to seed. In the bottom you can see the 3 kohlrabi that made it and a bit of simpson lettuce and mesclun.

Here is our volunteer tomato. Looks like a Roma. Funnily enough it looks the best out of all of our tomatoes so far

 Our towering Prime Jan blackberry. At least it lived up to the "upright" claim.

 Here are what the berries look like (gorgeous, right?!) and below is one compared to one of our raspberries.

 

Here are our potatoes which we are hilling in boxes. Something was chewing threw them but that seems to have stopped.

Here is our tomato bed. We are doing a square foot garden, single stemming thing with them and training them up the trellis. So far so good. It helps they were super leggy to start with so they were a bit easier to train.

The hydrangea survived! Unfortunately all the aluminum sulfate I added a few years back has dissolved and it is just pink because of our alkaline soil (as much as I wanted it to be purple or blue). Side dressing doesn't seem to help so pink it is!

 I am surprised but our chamomile is all done. Hopefully it reseeded itself otherwise I may reseed it.

Rainy Week at the Garden

It is supposed to rain all week so I don't anticipate we will get the garden much. Here are some pictures of where we are so far. Some lettuce came in (as well as a volunteer tomato). Onions are starting to look ragged so the the thrip is likely starting up. Need to get the kaolin clay sprayed on soon (when the rain stops).

Radish shoulders are popping up and probably ready to be harvested. Rhubarb is going strong. Picked some to give to mom while she was visiting this weekend.

Chamomile is bursting out of its bed. Hubby deadheaded it this weekend, and I have a whole tray air drying right now for tea. Yum, yum!

Here are our semi-volunteer potatoes. I say semi because I planted them last year and they never did anything because our soil was still heavily clay at that point. After drastic enriching this spring these potato plants popped up right where I planted them last year. Hubby is hilling them with a box at the moment.

Volunteer sun-box mint is taking over. We plan to remove the box but then there will be a mint/chamomile death match. 

We have some beans that survived. Hubby put the floating row cover up this weekend to protect them from the evil Mexican Bean Beetle (my main garden nemesis). 

Our hydrangea survived! It has started to bud and then we had a hard freeze and it all turned black. But it looks like it is doing great now. 

 

First raspberries are coming in. They didn't make it home.

And our blackberry bushes are trying to escape the cage we put around them. It is now almost 7 feet tall. I feel like it wants to eat us. At least the blackberries are ripening.