Slowing Down in the Fall Garden

It's been a long time since I posted!  That garden bed I talked about in the last post is now finished, mulched, and has a bunch of little plants (sacrificial lambs) poking out of it!  More on that later, though.

(Mostly) Fall garden

Here's what the community garden plot looks like right now.  There are still three tomato plants, though they are definitely on their way out.  The watermelon vine, freed from the shade of the gazillion basil plants and the exuberant buttercup squash vine, is trying to produce three more fruits in the waning daylight.  Peppers are ripening left and right, and the bean plants are beginning to dry out.  I still have summer squash plants in the front bed, mostly just because I prefer that to bare soil - production has pretty much stopped.  I mulched the older carrots with shredded tree leaves, and am looking forward to picking them well into the winter.  The first round of lettuce (that light green strip at the very back) is already trying to go to seed, so I've been picking quite a bit of that, plus there are three more planting rounds that I expect will keep maturing throughout the winter.  There are a few heads of cabbage that I think will finish before winter, and several more (plus a lot of broccoli) that will probably not be ready until spring.  Anyone want some basil?  We still have a few plants that I just don't know what to do with.  I planted some parsley where the buttercup squash was, though I'm not really sure if it will make it through the winter, being planted so late.  I just miss having parsley in the garden so much.  (N practically clucks at me every time we have to do anything as ridiculous as buy parsley.  I really have to pay more attention to herbs next spring.)

I have mostly been cleaning up lately.  Now that there are fewer daylight hours and the days are getting cooler, I am starting to catch up with the weeds.  I decided to renew the great cardboard project - I've covered about 90% of the paths with cardboard and wood chips, which I hope will last well into next summer.  In the process I've weeded most of the beds at least a little, and removed many of the plant stems and branches that were leaning into the paths.  All in all, the garden is looking much tidier. 

I think I will probably add a path along the right side of the plot, where the park service turned over a whole plot to "community space", with a picnic table and regularly cut weeds.  Technically the path will be in the community plot, but I think it will be a relief to the gentlemen who trim the grass to have a little buffer zone between them and my garden.  They always leave the weeds right at the edge uncut (truly, I do appreciate their consideration), which means I have to either trim them or let them shed seeds on my garden beds - mulching a strip seems easier.  If I have enough time before the weather turns I'll try to build a small bed over there, too, where gardeners can plant/pick at their leisure.  Well...we'll see if that happens or not.  ;)

R and I planted a round of garlic on the first - Inchelium Red.  I had three large bulbs, which provided only enough cloves to fill about 1/3 of the space I have designated for garlic next year.  I want to fill the rest of the space with cloves I harvested this year, but I am a little concerned about them.  When the papers are removed they have what look like tiny little pimples on the surface, which the internet tells me means nematodes.  Nematodes are tiny little worms that live in the soil and feed on the roots and/or bulbs of many, many different plants.  Most likely my entire community garden plot is infested with them, but I think I will still try heat-treating the cloves before I plant them.  Supposedly soaking the cloves in warm water destroys the nematodes so that they don't infest the soil of the new garlic bed.  Assuming it isn't already infested.

Well, this post is getting long, so I think I'll sign off and write more another time.  Hope all is well with all of you and your garden clean-up (or gear-up) is going well.

Mystery Squash Revealed

Sigh.  I don't like making mistakes.  Especially on the internet in front of potentially millions (billions?) of people - though I comfort myself with the knowledge that probably this post is not the one that will make my blog go viral.  (Aaaaannyy day now.)

My mystery squash is not a mystery squash at all.  I finally got brave enough to cut it open last week, and learned - to my surprise - that it tasted rather good, like something I might have grown intentionally.  I was surprised because I have always read that these off-chance squash crosses are generally pretty inedible.  Then today I was going through my seeds and took a closer look at what I had thought were butternut squash seeds.  Hmmm...wasn't that picture on the front just exactly like my mystery squash?  Doh!  Those aren't butternut squash, they're buttercup squash!

You can understand a busy mom with an antsy toddler in an bustling garden center making this mistake, right?  Anyway, they're tasty and prolific (5 squash from one bug-infested plant?) so...maybe it's for the best.

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.

Tromboncino Squash

Tromboncino

 Usually I grow yellow summer squash and zucchinis in equal numbers.  I grew six last year and decided that was a pretty good number, given how short the season was (at least for me - squash bugs decimated them after a few weeks of production).  This year I decided to replace two of my plants with these interesting fellows - tromboncino squash.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  The catalog listed them (in the zucchini section) as drought-resistant, a keyword I was looking for, given my limited water access.  I also hoped they would hold up better against the squash bugs.  And actually, they are pretty vigorous.  I think I will grow them again next year.  However, there are a few things I wish had been mentioned either in the catalog description or on the seed packet:

1. They took longer to start producing than the other summer squash
2. They take significantly more space than the other summer squash - two plants have overrun an area about 6' x 8'

However, in their favor:

1. They are now producing quite a bit
2. They taste pretty similar to zucchini, but are prettier in almost everything I've cooked with them
3. They grow in interesting shapes that are fun for kids
4. They don't have to be picked as often as other summer squash because they seem to get quite large before they get seedy and strong-flavored

All in all, a good addition to a medium- to large-sized garden.  Next year I think I will grow them on a trellis, and plant them earlier, and plant more of my traditional summer squashes along with them.

A pile of C-shaped tromboncino

Dangerous Liasons

Mystery squash

I suppose every garden season must hold a few disappointments, and this year the ugly fellow above is filling the bill for me.  This - my seed purveyor would have me believe - is a butternut squash.  Or rather, it is the product of the only "butternut squash" vine I had room to plant in my garden.  You see, members of the cucurbitaceae family cross-pollinate readily, producing offspring that are...unique.  This little guy is likely the result of someone planting their butternut squash too near to their...well, I don't know what its daddy was.  The plant is apparently very healthy, though, completely dominating the watermelon vines, the carrot bed, and a small portion of my gardening neighbor's plot as well.  (I did some work this week cutting it back down to size, so now I have three of these puppies haunting my dining room.  Is it ready?  I don't know!)

I'm kind of scared to try it.

How's the Garden?

The community garden plot

June is a precarious time in the garden.  There's a lot of empty space around plants that aren't yet fully established - prime weed-growing real estate.  There's also (in my area) not a whole lot of rain falling, so many of the newly planted summer crops need water.  Add that to the relatively little harvesting and planting to be done and the human tendency to steer clear of heat and burning-bright sunshine and you have a real recipe for disaster.  This is when we lose a lot of the new gardeners at the community garden.

Luckily, I am behind schedule this year, so I have plenty of reasons to crawl out of bed and go take care of things.  Here's a rundown of the crops currently in the community garden plot:

• Potatoes - seem to have some sort of fungus or disease causing the outside edges of the leaves to blacken, but I think it won't seriously harm the yield.  At any rate there will certainly be plenty of potatoes this year.
• Tomatoes - Both rows are setting fruit, but the ones in the back row are larger.  Both rows also seem to have the fungal problem I was worried about in the spring, which I think is gray mold.  The back row really needs to be tied and pruned - I'll have to get to that this week.
• Garlic - some if not all of the garlic is probably ready to be picked.  The plants are browning and seem to be shrinking before my eyes as the energy from the plant slowly goes into storage in the bulb.
• Carrots - there are three rounds in the ground right now, with the oldest ones ready to pick and the smallest ones barely out of the ground.  I really should have put more compost into the carrot bed before I planted it - the carrots I'm harvesting are pretty stubby and crooked and split from the hard clay soil.
• The back peas aren't really producing much anymore, thanks to the heat, I just haven't gotten around to pulling them out yet.  I'll plant some beans there soon.
• The onions are so exciting right now.  It's my first year growing bulbing onions, so I'm trying not to get too excited, but it's really hard when they are clearly making onions!  I don't know when they'll be done, but I'm thinking at least another month.
• The asparagus seem to be loving life.  They could use some light weeding, and maybe some fertilizer soon, but mostly they seem to take care of themselves.
• The back pepper plants are starting to produce lots of peppers (bell and chili), while the front ones are still getting over being trasplanted.  Also I think the front ones are a little chlorotic.  I think the wood chips I added were not sufficiently rotted and now I'm worried there's not enough nitrogen in those two beds.  I watered them with some fish emulsion, and threw some more coffee grounds over the soil, so hopefully they will start to look better soon.
• The celeriac is bushy and I think I can see the tops of the thick roots widening below the soil.  I'm continuing to weed the bed, but other than that I leave them alone.
• There are little cucumber starts tucked between some of my pepper plants that look like they're starting to take off.  It's good because I'm almost out of pickles!
• The eggplants are all growing, although they're still getting torn up pretty badly by flea beetles.  The ones I started at home, which were horribly ragged when I planted them, are starting to close the gap with the nursery-bought transplant.
• The bed that used to have the broccoli in it is full of new little things whose outcome is far from certain.  There are two watermelon starts, a butternut squash start, a spare bell pepper plant and marigold that look pretty happy, and lots of little carrot and basil sprouts.
• The front bed is newly planted with summer squash: zucchini, yellow squash, and tromboncino (seeds).  There's also an extra 6-8 feet of space in there that I think I may use for beans.   I definitely don't want to plant extra summer squash!
• I haven't seen much action where I planted the parsley seeds.  I wonder if those seeds are no good any more.  I'll give them a little more time and then try some other seeds.

Whew!   The little bit of extra planning I've done this year has made a tremendous difference in how efficiently I'm using the garden space.  Can you tell I'm really proud of the garden?  Cause I am.

A Week Worth of Neglect

Overgrown zucchini and an eaten ear of corn.

Last week my sister was talking to me about how her garden got so overrun with weeds during her recent vacation that she almost decided to give up for the year.  (You wouldn't believe how common that is right about now.)  "You can't garden on your free days," she said.  And that about sums it up.  During my recent vacation I lost another summer squash plant and two winter squash vines to the squash bugs, weeds absolutely overtook the last couple cucumber vines, and raccoons (or squirrels?) ate all but a few of my remaining corn ears.  Plus my zucchini got a little bigger than I like!

Lest you think my garden brings me nothing but grief, check out some of the corn we ate for lunch before we left:

We also took a few squash, a baggie of garlic, a basil plant (I potted it from my home garden) and a half a box of tomatoes with us.  What a tasty trip!

Squash Bugs

A healthy zucchini plant, two sad yellow squash plants, and one gaping hole that used to be a yellow squash.

I'm probably the first gardener in history who was happy to find her squash infested with squash bugs.  Why am I happy?  Because it means my squash plants weren't wiped out by vine borers before I even got any squash out of them!  (I'm not sure if that's because I planted in a new location or because I planted a little later than I otherwise would have, due to the prenancy.  I'll certainly try to repeat both next year!)  I tried spraying the plants with a dilute solution of an organic insecticide that is supposed to kill the young ones and the eggs, but it seems to have had no effect.  I also tried pulling the bugs off the squash and zucchini plants by hand and tossing them in soapy water, but they seem to have too great a numbers advantage on me for this year, because they were back in force the very next day.  I think next year I'll try an early application of kaolin clay (Surround WP), which I've heard good things about on message boards and which was suggested for keeping flea beetles off of eggplant by the HGIC.  I'm disappointed about the squash bugs, because they are also on my winter squash plants, and will probably kill them well before frost arrives.  But I am learning so much this year!

Almost Done Planting?

I keep thinking I'm almost done planting things at the community garden (and at home!) but then it always seems like there's room for a few more things.  Here's another update on the progress out there.

My potatoes are doing quite well.  Most of the chunks I planted have sprouted at least one plant, and the plants now range in size from about 2 inches (the one I chopped off by accident with a hoe) to about 2 ft above the original soil line.  I've never grown potatoes in the ground before, so when N saw me hilling them up and started asking skeptical questions, I don't think my voice quite had the ring of authority he wanted to hear.  He went and chatted with M, our community garden's helpful guru, who told him I should actually be hilling them even higher.  Suitably reassured, N proceeded to do a much nicer job of it than I had been.  (He really wants potatoes to come out of that garden!)

The tomatoes I transplanted a few weeks ago are doing really well - they've almost doubled their above-ground size since I planted them and several are starting to flower.  As an experiment I decided to cover the ground around them with the plastic bags my leafgro arrived in.  I've seen advice on several university extension websites about mulching tomatoes with plastic to conserve water, suppress weeds, and prevent potentially spore-laden soil from splashing up onto the leaves during heavy rainfall.  So far I have to say I'm really impressed; the soil around my tomato beds is visibly more moist than in other areas of the garden, and the upper leaves (those that grew in after I put the plastic down) are visibly cleaner than the older ones.  Yay!  Now I really must get to staking!

My corn (some of it anyway) has come up.  I think I'll have to go back sometime soon and re-plant in the places where it didn't come up.  I didn't do a very good job of watering it after I planted, or of mixing together the soil and the leaf mulch I put on top of it, so I guess I deserved poor germination rates, but it's important that my rows be filled in, since I only planted two rows and pollination is really important for corn.

I haven't seen any beans (green beans and lima beans) or cucumbers yet.  N helped me put up a trellis for the cucumbers and a net for the beans.  I'll have to post pictures because the whole bean structure is kind of hard to describe and I've already gotten questions about it from several other gardeners out there.  I always laugh a little when people ask what it's for, because I have no idea if it will work and I know it looks crazy.  I needed something around 6 or 7 feet tall and roughly 15 feet long and costing almost nothing to make - surely the kind of challenge that requires a creative and unique solution.  We'll see if it works, I guess.

I also planted pre-sprouted zucchini and butternut squash seeds, and a few yellow summer squash seeds that weren't sprouted yet - I just wanted to get them in the ground in case the baby comes.  (Any day now....) 

As it turns out I have a big blank spot in my community garden plan that was originally intended to be part of a shaded seating / water collection area.  My thinking was that in July when it's 100 degrees and 100% humidity it would be nice to have some shady spot to sit in and nurse the baby between gardening chores.  But there were a lot of problems with that plan, too numerous to mention at 11pm.  I also just happen to have a bunch of old seeds for large vining plants, given to me by my friend T because she doesn't have the space to grow them and wasn't really sure if the seeds were any good.  So, I may be adding some pumpkins and/or winter squash to my plot, depending on how much time passes between now and when the baby arrives.  I've recently discovered the seemingly obvious fact that garden space that has nothing planted in it still has to be weeded, so I am motivated to at least make it all useful!

Not a Good Squash Year

Well, it is now official - this was just not a good squash year. All of my baby squash plants ended up getting borers in them, and this one that I tried to save (ETA link) finally gave up the ghost. I think I could still plant some more, but I wouldn't have time to get many squash from them and I was surprised at how late in the season the borers were able to get the baby squash. From what I'd read online they should have been done laying eggs by the time I planted that second round. I'll have to keep this in mind and cover the squash until they bloom next year. (They have to be uncovered to be pollinated, as the squash bugs are similar in size to most pollinators.) I think I'll plant a little late, too, to throw them off the scent. Luckily Maryland has a nice long growing season.

Maybe it is just a bad year for these pests. I've grown squash every year here and never had problems like this. I've noticed that many pests in this area go through noticeable population cycles - two years ago we had an incredible boom of tent caterpillars, and last year I couldn't hang laundry because the ladybugs kept laying eggs on it. (Not that I mind the ladybugs, but I don't want their eggs in my house, nor do I want to destroy them.)

PS - For any who may be wondering, yes! The long pause between posts does mean I finished chapter four!

Growing Things

I thought it might be fun to post some pictures of all the things growing in my garden. Here is a happy little baby squash.




And a vigorous cucumber patch busily trying to escape our yard for the neighbors'.


Here's a nice bunch of cherry tomatoes (carried off by squirrels before this photo made it to the blog).


And here I managed to catch one of my eggplants actually growing. I have found during the last two years that they just don't do well until it gets hot. Next year I'm not going to plant these until it's warm enough to plant them outside.

Happy New Squash Plants

Here is a picture of my happy new squash plants. They were planted to replace a bunch that were infested by squash vine borer. Last weekend I found that my last healthy summer squash had been infected. I was dismayed because I thought the time for the borer eggs to hatch was over, but I guess not. The funny thing is, this last plant to get infected seemed very healthy, despite an long section of damaged stem. After some internet research I decided to try a half-hearted suggestion I read on the Minnesota extension website, to cut into the vine up to where the borer was hiding and kill it, then bury the section of damaged stem and hope that it would root.

I should note that I am not entirely sure that I got the borer. I felt really bad cutting into this perfectly healthy plant, and at some point I wasn't really sure what I was digging out of there (was it sliced borer? I don't know...) so I just stopped. Maybe I just helped him bury himself for the winter. Shrug.

Happy gardening.

Squash Vine Borer

I lost several plants to squash vine borer last year, and they must have remembered where the squash plant buffet is, because I lost a bunch more again this year. The plants wilt, then start dropping leaves and blossoms, and finally die. If you look closely at the picture above you can see the tan/brown spot where the larva tunneled into the stem. There was a lot of frass, too, but it doesn't show up well in the picture.

I pulled the infected plants and threw them in the trash. Hopefully the larvae didn't have time to depart - once they've eaten their fill they burrow into the ground and come out next year to lay eggs on a new generation of plants. I think next year I'll try moving them and putting some floating row cover over them to prevent the bugs from laying on them. In the meantime I planted a bunch more and they are doing great, loving the hot summer weather.