Late Summer Garden

Late summer garden photo

With my planting window for the fall garden rapidly closing and the summer harvest starting to taper off, I thought I'd do a status update for the community garden. 

Squash vine borer hole at the base of my mystery squash

The summer squashes are still producing, despite evidence of both borers and squash bugs in the garden.  They seem to prefer attacking my mystery squash, which seems to be able to take the abuse.  It is also still producing, though I've cut it back a lot in the hopes of squeezing another watermelon out of the season.  The watermelon vines got a little overrun by mystery squash and basil, so they are limping along.  The basil has outperformed my wildest expectations; there is still some left in the garden after two large harvests!

My peppers are still doing well, but are under attack by some sort of stink/soldier beetle.  I've really never had problems with pests on my peppers before, but I suppose there's a first time for everything - especially bugs.

I've got five rounds of carrots in the garden right now.  Some that I planted in the spring, some from my June planting, and three rounds that I planted for the fall. The spring ones can be picked whenever I like, and the June carrots are filling out.  I planted an entire bed for the fall garden, hoping to grow some to leave in the ground for winter like last year.  It's been challenging keeping them watered, even with the weather's cooperation.

The cucumbers are just about finished, but I've been putting off pulling them out because I don't have anything else to plant in their bed and I'd rather not leave the soil bare.  The onion bed is mostly bare, and the soil there is as hard as a rock, even with all the rain we've been having.  The eggplants are just limping along as well, still under attach by the flea beetles.  It looks like I'll get at least two more rosa biancas, though.

Broccoli plant - see the half-eaten leaves?

I transplanted several broccoli back in July, and they have been under pretty serious attack by cabbage moths.  Four or five have survived, but comparing their size and vigor to the ones we had in the spring, I think any heads they produce will be disappointing.  I've transplanted a bunch more and covered them, so we'll see.  According to the almighty HG16 it is too late to plant broccoli, but I think I'd rather plant them and have them not produce anything until spring than leave the soil bare.

Tall tomato plants

I've pulled out four of the tomato plants, hoping the others would have a better chance at ripening their remaining fruit.  We've reached the part of the season when I pick a large bowl of tomatoes every time we go to the garden, and they sit on our table waiting to be turned into sauce.  There was something very odd about the way the tomatoes grew this year - when I look at them from the main path, both beds are shortest on the left, then get progressively taller and bushier as I look to the right.  Why?  I don't know.  Maybe the left gets marginally more light?  Less wind?

A wide row of beans

The green beans R and I planted in July are putting out their first beans!  Yay!  I do like planting these later much better than watching them rust and struggle through the heat and dryness and not produce anything.  It's also nice to have something just coming into crop at this time of year.

The snap peas are up - the first generation are about three inches tall, while the second are about 1 inch.  I've transplanted a whole lot of lettuces into the former potato bed, some simpson and some valerie, and one little romaine has reached survivable size, with more little ones to go in the bed this week.

I'm glad the fall planting is almost finished.  It feels like the fall weather is coming early this year, and I'm anxious to start cleaning and packing things away.  I've also decided to convert more grass to garden at the house, so it will be nice to have some more time to work on that.  (Funny how I'm even looking forward to picking less!)  But more on that project another time.

Harvest Notes

The good news is that the harvest this year is really great so far.  The bad news is that it's really been all I can do to pick it, clean it, and fit it into the fridge.  Weighing and even counting have been out of the question!  Here is my best guesstimate about what I've picked since the last harvest note:

• 12 broccoli heads (20 total for the spring), plus several small side-heads
• 14 spinach plants (I planted 27 total for the spring, but 1 died after transplanting)
• 5 heads romaine (12 total for the spring, minus 1 still in the garden)
• 14 heads loose-leaf lettuce (I planted 27, lost 5, and still have 8 in the garden)
• 4 gallon-size bags (cleaned) of pac choi
• 3 bowls of sugar snap peas

I remember when N and R helped me plant the loose-leaf lettuce.  It took up such a small space in the garden, I was tempted to plant more!

Harvest Notes



Celeriac, romaine lettuce, loose-leaf lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and strawberries

The harvests the last few weeks have been great!  I'm starting to clear out the spring crops to make way for summer ones, so suddenly we are eating fresh produce every day and not keeping up with it.

8 broccoli heads

1 celeriac root (small)

12 spinach plants

6 heads romaine lettuce

3 heads + lots of trimmings loose-leaf lettuce

handful of strawberries

1 sugar snap pea (of course this didn't make it home)

There is another round of spinach in the garden still, plus more lettuce and broccoli, and the peas are just starting to produce.  The strawberries are not doing well this year.  I've done a lousy job keeping the irises under control in the bed, so they aren't getting much sun or breeze and the botrytis and slugs are running amok.

Good Things in the Garden



Some really good things have been happening in the garden lately, so I thought I'd share.

1. R picked the first ripe strawberry from the bed in front of our house this afternoon.  It's fun to see how much he likes picking them, and exciting that he seems to actually remember it from last year.
2. 

   

   Happy grapevine (background) surrounded by floppy asparagus

   The new grapevine is growing!

3. 

   Broccoli plant, meet foot.

   The broccoli plants are huge!  And we picked the first head today, several times bigger than last year's disappointing pickings.
4. 

   

   Romaine lettuce head

   

   Valerie lettuce, and weeds

   The lettuce deluge continues.  But in new news, the romaine appears to be making heads after all.  After consulting my guinea pig - I mean taste-tester! - I have decided that commercial growers must discard those thick outer leaves I was picking before.  Which explains how they get the lettuce heads so darn clean!
5. 

   

   R really likes to help with picking

   

   Happy spinach, with interplanted peppers

   The spinach is looking great - better than I've ever grown, thanks to the lovely long spring we've had.  R and I picked a bunch on Tuesday and used it to make yummy pizzas.  This was the first time we've tried any of it outside of salads, and it was really tasty!  It has a very spinachy appearance, and I was expecting it to be too bitter or overtly spinachy, but it is lovely.  We definitely want to grow this kind again next year.  (If I know what it is; I think it's Melody.)
6. 

   

   One large celeriac - the rest are 2 inches tall

   The celeriac that sprouted last fall is quite large and is starting to make little flower buds.  Celeriac is a biennial, like carrots; it grows a bunch of foliage during the first year of its life, storing the energy produced by the leaves in a large root.  During the second year it uses that energy to produce flowers and seeds, so the best time to pick it is at the end of the first year.  (Don't ask me why I thought this was a fall crop, I honestly don't know!)  At any rate, I think I'm going to pull this one before the flowers go much further.  I don't know how much root it could possibly have grown over the winter, but I guess we'll find out!

7. 

   R helped find and photograph this ladybug

   I'm seeing so many ladybugs at the community garden this year!  R is fascinated by my claim that I like them because they eat other bugs.  He points them out to me every time we go and asks me if they eat other bugs.  When I say yes he replies, "I don't know why, dough," which is his way of asking for more information.  What can I say?  I don't know why, either!
8. 
   Another gardener at the community garden, M, planted a row of strawberries about this time last year.  It was too late to get any berries out of them then, but boy are they doing well this year!  I am definitely thinking about investing the time and space to plant some of my own.
9. I saw the first pea blossom on one of the plants at the community garden this morning. Mmmm...

Planting Update

The weather last weekend was gorgeous, and I transplanted the first round of onions.  N and R also helped me get some lettuces and spinach in the ground.  I had hoped to do more, but I really got too much sun as it was, so I suppose it's good that my potatoes didn't arrive until Monday.  (At least, that's what I'll tell myself so I don't have to be angry.)  Unfortunately, Tuesday brought rain and clouds, and the soil at the community garden has been too soggy to do much in the rest of this week.

Here's how the plot looked after last weekend:

The curtain is covering my cabbage plants, as well as all of my broccoli seedlings.  The cabbage worm moths have been circling for a couple weeks now, and I'm hoping this will stop them from laying eggs on my plants.  The problem, of course, is that the curtain is just not nearly big enough to cover the broccoli once it's planted!

Since that photo was taken I've spread some additional mulch on the paths (trimmings from the shrubs in my yard), weeded and harrowed that front bed, and hauled in some fallen branches from the woods nearby to sort of fill in that trench at the front a little.  That front bed is supposed to be planted in peas right now, but I haven't gotten around to doing it.  Hopefully I'll get around to it tomorrow, although I'm starting to think this will be a disappointing pea season because of the heat.  If the ground has dried enough I also plan to plant the potatoes tomorrow.  Yay!  (Why to I get so excited about planting the potatoes?  I just don't know!)

Planting has Begun!

Yesterday I sowed the first seeds of 2012: lettuce (looseleaf and romaine) and spinach.  Usually I direct-seed them in the low tunnel, but M at the community garden starts most of the plants in his plot elsewhere and transplants them.  His greens are beautiful and always well ahead of the pack, so I'm going to try it this year.  Once they're good-sized I'll move them to the low tunnel fairly quickly so I can have the space for all the things that need to be planted in the next few weeks.

Note to self: It took pretty much a whole day to wet the seed-starting mix.

Harvest Note

Last weekend I picked the following to take on a vacation with friends:

1 lb lettuce
5 oz spinach

N felt the greens were a little past their prime (I cut down several of the plants that overwintered in my cold frame), but others (politely?) said they were great.

Garden Update

I was just sniffing around the garden blogosphere and realized I'm not the only slacker who's gotten too busy with spring craziness to keep her blog up-to-date!  Here's some of what's going on:

1) R and I transplanted basil, dill, and eggplants into our home garden plot.  I have completely abandoned the original planting plan in favor of just getting things in the ground quickly.
2) The azalea bushes and irises are in bloom.
3) The potatoes are up in my backyard container as well as in my community garden plot, which was planted almost three weeks later.  (They're a little smaller.)
4) The first planting of peas are more than a foot tall.
5) Both of my gardens are covered in little sprouted weeds.
6) N came out to the community garden plot with me last week and helped me move a bunch more compost from the pile out there onto my plot, and turned over the soil in the zucchini bed.  I'm ready to plant the corn and put out some tomatoes, I think.  (More on tomatoes in a second post.)  We've had an odd spring, with lots of thunderstorms and cold weather, and geese still flying overhead even yesterday, so I've been a little reluctant, but the rush of all the spring stuff blooming lately makes me feel like it's time.
7) Also a couple weeks ago N brought two of last year's been teepees out to the community plot and we set them up at either end of what will be the bean bed.  From a distance it makes my plot look as though someone who knows what they're doing is working in there!  And, none of our recent thunderstorms have been able to knock them over, so that's good.
8) My neighbor at the community garden set up a fantastic fence around his three plots, with a neat little gate and everything.  He took down the pieces of small plastic fence that I'd stretched along that side of my plot to keep R out of his cauliflower, and rolled them neatly around my fence posts.  What a sweetie!
9) I'm still debating about how to stake my tomtoes.  I've been hearing a lot of good things about the "florida weave" method lately, but the upfront costs are awfully high.  You need a 7- or 8-foot metal T-post for every two or three plants (I think I could get away with 6 of them at about $8 apiece).  It's true that you can reuse them for many seasons, but I've told myself that about the staking methods I used for the last three years and here I sit, debating trying something new, again...
10) The strawberry flowers have opened and are just starting to turn down.  I'm in a hurry for them this year because I feel like I need to pick them before I go into labor or we might miss the whole season in post-baby sleep deprivation.
11) Lots of flower buds are forming on my unruly raspberry vines.  I hope we get to eat a few raspberries this year!
12) My spinach is starting to grow upward, letting me know its time is limited.  The seeds I planted this spring are still tiny, which makes me think I may not get anything out of them before the heat hits.  We'll see!

Hmm, I think that's it for now.  I'm going to try to get an updated photo of the community garden this week, which - despite the fact that I haven't planted anything in there except one short row of potatoes - is starting to look like a real garden!

Low Tunnel Plants

Low tunnel, left side.

 A while ago I promised some pictures of the plants inside the low tunnel, so here is me finally following through.  On the far left is the broccoli, with a kind of funny-looking (frost-bitten?) celery plant in front of it.  The other two plants in that photograph are the self-seeded lettuce from last year.  (Last weekend I asked N if he thought it really was lettuce and he reached down and grabbed a handful and gobbled it up.  As I stared in horror he said, "Mmmmmm!  It's really good lettuce!"  So I guess it's lettuce.)

Low tunnel, right side.

On the right is more lettuce and some spinach that was planted last fall.  It is doing really well and has a nice sweet aftertaste.  The jug of water is just in there to help stabilize the internal temperature overnight.  Last Friday we had a good solid frost.

I spread some more lettuce and spinach seeds in there, too, so hopefully soon there will be more to see.  Check out the close-up below of my broccoli head forming!  I planted some more broccoli seeds indoors - I'll keep you posted on whether they have enough time to grow into anything before the summer heat comes on.  This one has a lot of little baby heads sprouting on the sides; from what I've read they will start growing more once the main head is cut off.  Some slugs seem to have done a bit of damage to the lower leaves, but they are too lazy or inept to get to the upper ones.  Yucky creatures.

Broccoli head, about 1.5 inches across.

Garden Awakening

This is just a little post about all the stuff that's waking up in my garden.  First, there is the little flower bed by the back door, which a previous owner kindly planted lots of beautiful spring bulbs in.  You can see the crocuses are blooming now, and the daffodils are sizing up.  There are also a few bulb leaves starting to show, and the perennials I planted last year (coreopsis and Shasta daisies) are greening up.  There's also some lamb's ear mixed in there, though it seems like kind of an afterthought.  Maybe at one point it was supposed to serve as a groundcover for the whole bed during the summer when the bulbs are finished.

My chives are also starting to grow and I can't wait.  I don't like onions much, though I'll eat them in small quantities if they're well cooked.  But chives!  Now that's a different story.  N makes the best potato salad...

 The spinach I planted last fall is starting to look really good, too.  Soon it will be large enough to pick.  I had to slip the camera under the plastic cover (which I recently stapled down on three sides) to take a picture, so sorry it's difficult to get a sense of scale.  Each plant has about 4-6 large leaves on it.

There's also some little plants in the cold frame and in my new (last year) garden bed that I thought were my volunteer lettuce plants from last summer, although now that I look back at the picture in my old post, these look really different.  I'm not sure I'm confident enough of what they are to eat them.

The one late-planted broccoli in the cold frame bed made it through the winter, too, and has started to grow.  The celery plants look like they're still alive but pretty badly damaged and I think I'll end up pulling them out.

It's interesting to me that so many of these fall-started plants start their renewed spring growth more than a month before I could comfortably plant the seeds outdoors.  I'm thinking I may want to do more fall planting this year.  It would be good to have more of the garden soil covered, anyway.

Spinach Salad

N's aunt and uncle from PA brought us a whole bag of this beautiful, sweet-tasting spinach from their 2-acre homestead. Given my many and well-documented spinach growing difficulties I was quite jealous. Especially when T said this bag represented about 2 feet of garden row. We made a delicious black-eyed pea salad from it, my favorite spinach recipe.

Meanwhile, some creature pulled one of my two malabar spinach seedlings out of the ground. I found it yesterday, roots and all, lying a little ways away. Hoping for the best, I replanted it. Would you believe I found it pulled out again this evening? This must be the work of squirrels!!!!!!!

The Spinach is Bolting

This happy spinach plant that I planted last fall is starting to get taller and lift its leaves up, telling me that it is going to go to seed soon. Spinach does this when it starts to get hot, and it's always sad because it means the leaves will start to turn bitter. (Maybe the plant metabolizes the sugars to grow the flower?)

This year it's especially sad because all those little plants you see around it are baby spinach that I planted this spring that didn't even get close to harvesting, and will probably bolt (go quickly to seed) pretty soon. I am anxiously watching the growth of my malabar spinach, which has a second set of leaves now!

I'm sad to see spring go, but I'm excited for strawberries next week at my favorite pick-your-own farm and peaches probably at the farmer's market by the end of the month. Changing seasons always offer something to look forward to.

Malabar Spinach

Here is my malabar spinach, in the ground now. Some of you may recall that spinach and I have had our differences over the length of Maryland springs - spinach would prefer a little more cool weather than I usually can offer it between when the ground dries enough to dig and when the air temperatures get too hot.

Last spring when all my spinach bolted before I got to eat any - again! - I thought, "Well maybe I'll just have to only plant spinach in the fall." But then when it got cool enough (I felt) to plant in the fall, the day length had gotten too short and the plants just didn't grow much.

So over the winter I thought, "Well I'll just have to get used to the idea of eating heat-loving spinach." And voila! I ordered malabar spinach seeds. Like New Zealand spinach it is not a true spinach, but supposedly it is tasty and easy to grow. Now that I have discovered my new favorite way to grow spinach - plant in the fall and eat in the spring - it isn't quite as important to me that this work out. But my spinach ego could use the boost.

Sprouts

Happy Easter!

Yesterday while finishing construction of the new bed I saw the spinach and lettuce seeds I planted last weekend have come up in my cold frame bed. (Which isn't actually enclosed this year due to some much-needed maintenance.) I planted so late, I hope I can still get a little to eat before it gets too hot and they go to seed. Spring here is very brief and I have had a really hard time getting spinach or romaine lettuce.




This little guy is leftover from last fall. Doesn't he look happy? I don't have the hang of fall planting yet, so I planted too late last year and this little guy only had enough time to sprout and grow about 6 leaves. It just feels wrong planting when it's 85 degrees outside, doesn't it?