Browning "surprise" onions, watermelons on trellis, a flower box, and too much rain!

We've had a lot of rain over the last week+.  Many days in a row with a fair amount of rain in each cloudburst.  All of that makes me glad that my boxes end up giving the effect of raised beds, improving drainage.  Even still, the scarlet runner beans have a yellowish tinge to them and some of the tomato plants have some spots on them similar to what I saw last year when I was an over-watering maniac.

That being said, the rest of the plot is looking good.

• Most of the peppers are growing well -- the lone exception is one that I had to transplant twice because its two forefathers got eaten off down to the ground by something right after they were transplanted.  
• The beans are growing pretty well even if they are the target of the dreaded Mexican Bean Beetle.  
• Tomatoes are generally doing well - the larger two volunteers have tomatoes on the vine with a few of my started plants just getting flowers.  The flower box with the volunteer tomato in the middle is particularly pretty.
• Cucumbers are slowly growing -- I need to get a trellis in place soon.
• Three of the four ground cherries are growing well.  They are getting nibbled on by some sort of bug, though.
• Some of the petunias are looking nice.  I took a picture of the best of the lot.

I applied some bug dust to the tops and bottoms of the bean leaves since the neem oil was doing nothing for that problem.  I also did the same for the ground cherries.  I also continued with removing the bottom lower limbs of the tomato plants to encourage air movement as well as allowing light to get to carrots and radishes.  The watermelons were encouraged further up the trellis.

The surprise onions are browning off and should be ready to be harvested shortly.  The snow peas are also just about done.

Pictures from the 23rd

I meant to do a blog post last Sunday, but was having some trouble getting the pictures uploaded.

If I recall correctly, I picked snow peas and radishes and pruned tomatoes, peppers, and basil.

I also took two pictures to try to show a snapshot of overall plot status.

Baby Tomatoes, birds, and crops........oh my!

It was quite eventful out at the plot considering I was only out there for an hour this evening.

I picked approx 20 snow peas (none were bloated for a change) and 5 great-looking radishes right off the bat.  I did a little minor pruning of pepper and tomato plants.  Also worked to assist the scarlet runner beans and watermelons on their respective trellises.

Unfortunately, I discovered that the marigolds, petunias, and two applications of neem oil aren't deterring something from snacking on my green bean leaves.  I suspect that it's the beginning onslaught of the Mexican Bean Beetle, but I'll have to do some more research on that.

I found some babies out there today, though.  I discovered a baby bird in the back left corner by the sunflowers.  I just hope it doesn't become a meal for a snake or bird of prey.  I also found my first three tomato babies on the volunteer plant that's in the middle of one of the plant boxes.  How great!

Watermelon Trellis, a Cosmos blossom, Radish, Wifey's new friend

Happy Father's Day!

Because my kind parents took pity on the wife and I wanted to spend some time today with The Boy and because my wife is a doll, I got a few hours to myself to putter around the plot today.

As a result of the efforts, the substantial work out there is pretty much done for now.

• The watermelon trellis now has the cage material installed for the plants to start climbing.  
• I picked about 15 snow peas in the last box as well as one radish.  I neglected to take pictures of the two we got the other day, but this one looked (and tasted) quite nice.  
• The first Cosmos was happily in bloom.  The flower boxes have a lot of promise to be quite pretty if this is any indication.
• I turned over the last box in need of attention and planted a bunch of flower seeds as well as transplanted a petunia.  
• Planted more radishes and carrots in some of the pepper/tomato/basil boxes.
• Ran the angular bits of twine on the arbor for the scarlet runner beans to climb.  Sorry, forgot to take pictures.
• I also did a bit of misc maintenance work -- weeding, fertilizing, watering, pruning sickly bits off tomato/pepper/basil plants.

I also saw a potential new friend for The Wifey.  He's not very big (2" long, 1" across including legs), but seemed willing to go out for a bite!

Watermelon Trellis is up!

I made it out to the plot for about 2 hours this morning.  Some decent progress was made.

I picked more snow peas.  They're about done; it's getting warmer and they're yellowing.  In two boxes, I cut the stalks down 1" above the soil.  I'm trying to get them to fix nitrogen into the soil.  I've never done this before, so I'm hoping this works properly.  I left one box adjacent to the compost bin with snow peas in it so The Boy has something to pick when he's out with me.

I planted petunias in the newly vacated boxes (companion planting w/ beans) and planted green beans in them.  I was careful to leave some room for trellis posts and marigolds.

The big project I tackled this time was to get the rest of the watermelon trellis up.  I sunk the two tall posts down to the weed fabric under the box, bored two 1" holes for conduit pipes to go through, then matched those holes to the diagonal pieces which tie the opposing tall/short vertical pieces together.  Last up is to mount the wire for the watermelons to climb on.

I applied some Neem Oil to the beans while I was out and couldn't help but notice that some of the cosmos plants are getting flower buds on them.

Stuff is growing

I made it out to the plot for a little bit on the 12th.  At this point I don't remember what I did beyond staking up a few tomato plants to prep for Thursday storms, but I took a few pictures of plant progress.  Scarlet Runner and Green Beans were coming up nicely.  A volunteer Tomato plant had flowers, and the Egyptian Walking Onions are developing bulbs on their shoots.

New sprouts and mulching

A trip out to the plot this morning yielded some decent progress.  I wasn't able to get any planting done, however, I finally laid down more newspaper and mulch.  This went adjacent to the boxes I sunk in January.  So that's pretty much done.

One thing I did a bit of back in January/February was work to put some plastic in the ground along the borders of the plot.  I thought I blogged about this, but can't seem to find any posts about that.  It had occurred to me at some point in my weeding this fall that there are a number of weeds that get into the plot by way of sending runners from outside the plot.  The only way to do that is to put in a wall.  As a result, I bought some ~1/8" thick plastic from The Forklift and cut it such that it's approx 12" wide.  I sunk approx 6" underground and left the rest sticking up above-ground.  I put that plastic in place along one entire side of the plot, approx a quarter of another, and a third of the "front" fence before I got distracted by something shiny.  Not sure why I never finished that task, but it seemed like a valid reason at the time, I'm sure.  I got a bit more of that in today in the "front" fence adjacent to the path.

In addition to that stuff, I was happy to pick more snow peas (which somehow ended up in The Boy's belly).  I also saw that the cucumbers and their radishes are doing better (minus the batch that got stepped on by The Boy).  The scarlet runner beans are starting to come up, some of the green beans are up, and the borage and sunflowers are both just peeking through the soil.

Cucumbers

A few beans

Minor improvements

I woke up early this morning, so with time to spare before going in to work, I took the boy (who also woke up early) to the plot for 1/2 hour of meanderings.

The cucumbers are just starting to break ground as are their companion radishes.  There is a new volunteer tomato that's made an appearance in the watermelon box bringing the total of volunteer tomatoes to 3, that I'm aware of.  A lot of snow peas were picked including some tiny ones.  Normally, I wouldn't pick the small ones, but with all the rain they're calling for in the next few days, I think it's necessary. 

A surprise to me was that I needed to remove suckers from tomatoes for the first time this year.  All in all, the tomatoes are looking pretty good.  The peppers not quite as much so.  I need to do some reading on how I can organically supercharge them.  I also went through the tomatoes, basil, and peppers and removed some yellowed or bug-nibbled leaves so the plants were directing their energies to the best places.

It's been a good weekend at the plot

My saintly wife did the solo-mommy thing so I could get out to the plot yesterday morning.  2 hours yielded a lot of progress.

• Trip to Home Depot to buy more topsoil, LeafGro, and marigolds.  
• Finished filling the boxes I sunk in January.
• Turned over the cucumber boxes again.  Planted cucumbers and radishes in the same boxes as last year.
• Turned over the box with the lone garlic in it (spared the garlic).
• Populated the last 4 boxes.  From the bottom of the pic (below): green beans w/ petunias, borage, ground cherries, sunflowers. 

 

• Planted ground cherries with the lone garlic.
• Nasturtiums in the flower box that I worked on Sunday as well as with the watermelons.
• Carrots in 3 tomato/basil/pepper boxes.
• Picked a few snow peas that I missed yesterday.
• Watered everything very lightly.

Until the onions and snow peas are done, all that's left is to finish the watermelon trellis, then clean up the last flower box, and populate it.

Flower box

Tomatoes w/ basil

Twice in one day!

I got another hour reprieve from the kids this afternoon to head out to the plot and tried to take advantage of what I had.  I weeded the insides of the last four boxes in need of soil (only approx 4" depth of native soil of the ~11.5" total).  These are the ones I sunk in January.  I also filled two of them with the top soil/LeafGro that I bought this morning.

Once that was complete, weeding was done followed by picking more snow peas.  I think that I'll only do two boxes of snow peas next year.  We're starting to get overwhelmed by those with 3 boxes.

And everything got watered.  :-)

Some flowers are in

I had a little over an hour to spare this morning, so I got some more gardening in.  A trip to Home Depot netted 4 bags of topsoil, 2 bags of LeafGro, and 16 marigolds for companion planting.

Once at the plot, I planted the watermelon starters and got two of the four upright posts in the ground for the trellis.  I planted the scarlet runner beans into their box adjacent to the arbor.  Cosmos went in the box around the volunteer tomato in one of the two misc flower boxes.  Once all that was done, I put marigolds in strategic locations in the tomato/pepper/basil boxes, in the cosmos box, and with the watermelons.  I got a little bit of weeding done in some of the boxes, but ran out of time.

I hope to get back out there either this afternoon or tomorrow.  I want to get the dirt into the last 4 boxes, have more progress on the watermelon trellis, and plant some more of the starters and seeds.