June 9, 2010: Made in the Shade

I planted a variety of lettuces this year. I really love to look at them, with all their different shapes and colors.

Right now they are in every stage of development, from mature to newly planted seedlings. As each plant is harvested, a seedling is ready to take its place.

Each of my two 4'x3' lettuce beds is a hodge-podge of different plants, with all different colors and textures. Unfortunately (for the lettuce, not the heat loving crops) temperatures are supposed to get up near 90 toward the end of this week, so I must take steps now to extend the lettuce season.

Simply placing a sheet of vinyl privacy lattice over each bed provides the shade to keep the lettuce cool under the hot rays of the sun. The lattice provides dappled sunlight, while the white color reflects the heat away from the plants. It still allows watering by sprinklers, without removing the panel. I've simply pounded a stake into the center of the bed to keep the lattice from sagging too much, and put screw hooks into the end posts to prevent it from sliding off, yet allowing me to slip the panel off for planting and harvesting.


It's not pretty, but it certainly helps to extend the lettuce growing season.

June 7, 2010: Harvest Monday

The weekly harvest is getting larger, and I'm finally getting something besides salad fixings from the garden!


Harvested:

In the week of May 31-June 6, I harvested:

37 ounces onions
6 ounces strawberries
80 ounces lettuce
13 ounces spinach
19 ounces potatoes
7 ounces raspberries
8 oz. carrots

10.625 lb. total for week
34.875 lb. to date for 2010

The spinach harvest now exceeds the 2009 total, 6.53 lb. to 6.18 lb. The spinach is beginning to bolt. Since our weather has been so cool and warm, I'm wondering if day length has more to do with bolting than heat does.

The raspberry harvest now exceeds the 2009 total, .44 lb to 0.38 lb. The canes are loaded with green berries, so this years harvest, the second year for the berries, should be a good one.

The lettuce harvest now exceeds the 2009 total, 14.18 lb. to 13.56 lb. There is no end in sight for the lettuce harvest.

***To join us in Monday Harvest, visit Daphne's Dandelions.***

Consumed:


One of last week's garden dinners consisted of salad greens with dried cranberries, walnuts and a balsamic vinegar dressing, grilled petite sirloin, steamed spinach, potatoes and baby carrots in butter sauce. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with raspberries (not shown). The lettuce, spinach, potatoes, carrots and raspberries were fresh from my garden, and delicious!


Lots of onions
Ketchup (2009)
Sweet relish (2009)
Raspberries
Lettuce (a lot!)
Strawberries
Bread & Butter pickles (2009)
Spinach
Potatoes
Carrots

Observations:

The larger Walla Walla sweet onions now weigh about 7 ounces each, up from 4 ounces last week.

The remaining bachelor button seedlings disappeared after I put up bird netting. The only thing I can find in the container that might be eating them are pill bugs, although I'm finding earwigs and some small slugs in the main garden beds.

Planted:

5/31 A small container of bachelor button seeds (12)
6/5 3' triple row of Ingot carrots (56)
6/5 multiple bachelor button and old marigold seed in wet coffee filters, placed in plastic bag, for pre-sprouting.

General Gardening:

Hoed all the garden paths. Very little growth on the side with wood chips, mostly raspberry suckers, but quite a bit of grass appearing in the east garden, where the mulch has completely composted. I have saved stacks of newspaper in hopes of putting down wood chips from Bryan's tree removals, but I don't think those chips are ever going to happen. There are a couple of huge piles of them, but I'm not quite up to shoveling them into the pickup to bring home.

David (DaBeardedOne) visited Friday, and brought a container of Sluggo for me. I certainly appreciate it, as I couldn't find any at Lowe's earlier in the day. He also left me a cart full of fresh grass clippings.

On Saturday, I used the grass clippings from David all over my West garden bed, under the zucchini and around the flowers and beans. The little bit remaining went into the compost, and I ripped up some newspaper to mix with it. The Sluggo was scattered throughout the entire garden, I sure hope it works.

Saturday evening I strung garden twine for the pole beans at the end of the patio to climb, as they are now poking through the soil.

Sunday I took a moisture meter out and checked all the potted plants, as well as random readings throughout the garden. While some of the pots gave very high moisture readings, others nearby were quite dry. I filled a watering can with half strength fish emulsion, and gave the dry plants a little treat. I purchased a new sprayer earlier in the week, and will give the entire garden a foliar feeding this week.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEREDITH!!

June 6, 2010: Nine Carrot Gold

OK, so they are more orange than gold, LOL. I have carrots of an edible size!

These were planted on March 30, and pulled this afternoon. From top to bottom, they are Ingot ( Nantes type), Chantenay Organic and Short 'n Sweet. There's not a lot of difference in size at this point, they all have about 4" of usable root. I was surprised the "short" ones are actually larger than the others. The Burpee packet says they are 4" at maturity, and these certainly aren't mature.



I've picked so much spinach this week, there's no way we could eat it all raw. There is too much lettuce to use up for salads, so the spinach had to be cooked. Believe it or not, this huge pot cooked down to just enough for Mr. Granny and I to have two meals from it. We'll be eating the leftovers tonight with our sweet little carrots and a grilled sirloin steak. I might have to go try to dig out a few more new potatoes to round off the meal. And for dessert? How about some of these....

It looks like just about enough to top a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream!

*YUM*

June 5, 2010: One Potato, Two Potatoes....

Three potatoes, four.

June 4, 2010: Garden Photos

I got a bit camera happy again this week, so here are (a lot) more photos of the early June garden.

Contender bush beans and the indeterminate tomatoes are really growing well and looking healthy. The raised beds are providing them with good drainage in all this rain. Before long, all those ugly green buckets should be completely hidden by the beans.

The lettuces are the stars of the garden right now. These are Summercrisp (top) and Red Sails.

Cracoviensis (bottom) and Bronze Arrow. I have so many more varieties planted....Yugoslavian Red, Australian Yellow, Drunken Woman.....I've gotten the varieties all mixed up by now, as I replant with available seedlings as I harvest entire plants.


One trip to the garden fills the laundry basket now, and this is from just one of the three lettuce beds. There is certainly enough being harvested to meet our needs, as well as to (over) feed the pet rabbit. My refrigerator runneth over with bags of greens.


Look at the size of this beauty! It dwarfs the toaster behind it.


Each leaf must be individually washed and inspected. I don't want any earwigs or slugs in my salads.


After trimming, washing and spinning it all dry, this harvest came in at 45 ounces.

The Kennebec potatoes are up to my shoulders, and beginning to blossom. They are a later variety than the Red Norlands, on the other side of this bed, but the Norlands aren't showing any signs of blooming yet. Last year, only one of my Norlands blossomed, and none of the Yukon Golds did, so maybe the red ones won't bloom again this year. Last year's harvest was a good one, blooms or no blooms.

The sweet peppers are chugging right along, and showing no adverse effect from all the rain. They are all showing signs of blossoms to come really soon.


I love the looks of these dwarf tomato plants. They are so sturdy and dark green, they could be easily used as a border in a flower bed. I have several varieties this year, all growing in containers. I hope they continue to grow well, and that the tomatoes taste as good as the plants look.


Gonzales cabbages are beginning to form tiny heads. Granny needs to get out the paintbrush and work on those boards around the raised beds!

Corn is growing quite well. The soil in these barrels is very loose, and every time we get a windstorm I have to go out and straighten the stalks and push the soil down hard around them. I might have to put a ring of fencing around them just to keep them in their container.

The carrots are putting some size on their roots. The seed mats did their job well, I didn't have to thin out a single carrot and they are perfectly spaced. There were no gaps in one variety, just a few in another variety, and rather poor germination in the third, so I'm blaming the seed, not the method of planting. I still swear by my seed mats!


Butternut squash and 5 plants of corn thinnings.


Slugs don't seem to bother the red cabbages, but they sure chew up the green cabbages and broccoli. I've been procrastinating on getting to the store for Sluggo, and I'll probably pay the price. Many of the green cabbages (and a lot of my flowers) are getting ravaged by slugs.


This bed of broccoli and cabbages doesn't seem to get the slug damage that the other bed, right next to it, does. I wonder why?


I didn't pull out all of my sickly beets last week, just a couple of rows to make room for more carrots. The beets that remain look like they might yet make it, so I'll give them one more chance. At least there's not so much leaf miner damage now. What I have noticed, when checking under the boards I lay over the carrot seeds, are a lot of wire worms collecting on the surface. I'm sure they are not contributing to the health of the root crops. I've even found a bit of wire worm damage on a few of my onions. I hope they stay out of the potatoes. Several years ago, they practically ruined my potato crop. I didn't grow potatoes for quite a few years because of these pests, but last year I had no damage to the potatoes at all. They sure did chew up the radishes this spring.


The raspberry canes are absolutely loaded with berries. So far, there have been just a few ripe ones, perfect for a snack while out in the garden. I'm still waiting for bowls full of them.


The Black Beauty zucchini is looking healthy, and growing well. The Grey zucchini, right next to it, not so much. I have planted new seeds of Grey, and they are just now poking through the soil.

There are a lot more photos that were taken yesterday, but I'm sure I've bored you all silly by now so I'll stop. Just take my word for it that the rest of the tomatoes are growing nicely and blossoming now. I am down 2 tomato plants since my neighbor and her pup killed one, and I gave another potted tomato to my daughter Amy (she'll kill it, I know...she can't grow plants unless they are made of plastic). That drops my tomato plant total to only 40.

June 3, 2010: A Garden in Bloom

Alyssum

Early Jalapeno Pepper

Mr. Granny's Gartenperle Tomato

Calabrese Broccoli

Cilantro

Kennebec Potato

Contender Bush Beans

Little Marvel Peas

Thyme

Cheryl's Lovely Lilies

June 3, 2010: Garden Pests

Garden Pest #1

Garden Pest #2

June 1, 2010: A Beautiful Day!

I was surprised to see the thermometer's reading of 70F when I got up this morning! And the sun was shining! I'll enjoy this beautiful day after all the cold weather and rainy days we've had lately. I'd better enjoy it fast, as the forecast is for rain the rest of the week.

We did get a bit of sunshine and warmth off and on yesterday. My son-in-law, Bryan, came over to help us with a few things we'd wanted to get done around here. Between rainstorms, he managed to climb up on the roof and blow off the pine needles that had collected on the patio cover. We have three large pine trees in our front yard, along the driveway. They do a good job of keeping our house cool in the summer, and provide a dry place for Annie and Otto to go pee when it's raining (they think they'll melt if they go out in the rain, you know). They do, however, make a horrid mess of our roof, yard and driveway when it rains, snows or blows.

Bryan blew the pine mess off the roof.

It went the entire length of the patio.

Then I cleaned it up.

I raked and raked and then I used the push mower and bagged the debris, which was then used as mulch around the tomatoes behind the shed.

Once that job was done, I talked Bryan into doing something else I'd been wanting done for a couple of years.

Now you see it....

Now you don't.

Can you see what is missing? That was a tiny tree when I first planted it in that corner. Of course, I wasn't expecting to put a dog kennel there at the time. The tree grew, and grew, and was getting all smashed between the kennel and the fence. Besides that, there was a sprinkler riser underneath it, that I had adapted to accept a "Y" adapter, and I had to crawl on hands and knees under the tree to hook up the hoses and adjust the flow. My neighbor, Pat, said she was so happy to see it go. She thought it was such an ugly tree! I didn't think it was ugly at all, just a bit of a nuisance. I planted blue morning glories in that corner, I hope they grow now that they won't have to compete with the tree.