The Fall produce is producing

On my way from the farmer's market this morning, I stopped by the plot to see how things are doing and to do a little weeding.

The first sight wasn't a pretty one.  The post for the hose reel had rotted at the ground level and fallen over.  That post will need to be replaced.

Thankfully, the lettuce bed on the other side of the bench wasn't harmed when the hose reel fell.  The lettuce is looking great.  We'll be having some salads this week, I suspect.

Similarly the two beds (each) of the daikon and kale are also growing nicely.  I think we should be able to start harvesting the kale this week.  The daikon is still a ways off despite the nice greenery.

It's been a long time since I've rock and rolled....

An entire growing season has come and gone since I've posted last.  What a shame.

Three big things occurred that led to that.

1. We had a lot of illness in the family this year.  Hobbies tend to get put on the back burner when that's the case.
2. When I felt like doing hobby stuff, I spent a fair amount of time doing woodworking instead of gardening.
3. I decided I wasn't going to track the harvests this year as I did last year.  That led to a lack of attention on the blog as well as general garden upkeep.  For much of the summer, I had a hard time getting out there more than once a week.

Some reflections

• We had a huge crop of beans this year.  I planted two crops.  That worked pretty well.  It would have done better had I trellised the 2nd crop effectively.

• Tomatoes did okay, but suffered because I didn't do a good job staking/caging them up.  The bell peppers did better this year than last.  The hot peppers didn't do much, though.
   
• We had three okra plants that survived.  Twice that would allow for more frequent picking.

• Kale was very happy.

• The cucumbers grew reasonably well.  It took a while for female flowers to appear for some reason, but we did get some good cucumbers.  They were oddly-colored, too.  Yellow/orange.  They did taste good, though. 

• For the last month of the summer growing season, I allowed beans that I wasn't able to harvest (read: they got bulbous before I could pick them) stay on the vine and dry naturally.  I've harvested a lot of green beans as well as some scarlet runners and shelled them for next year.

Where we are now

I have lettuce, daikon, and kale growing in the garden now.  The walking onions in both beds are still quite happy.  I've cleaned out a few beds to prepare for planting garlic which needs to be done this weekend.

Bean problems

Some of the beans are having problems.  There's definite discoloration in the leaves.  It's very possible that it's due to all the rain we've had lately, just as the tomatoes are suffering.  It could also be a nutrient deficiency.  I need to read about this.

I've also noticed that there's a distinct lack of flowers on both the scarlet runners and the pole beans.  It's easy to see where the flowers should be, but aren't.

I've found a lot of flowers on the ground and on the Adirondack chair.  Considering we have had a fair amount of tree limbs down in the area, my guess is that this is from the wind and rain.  There are also darker-colored flowers on the ground next to the chair indicating that this has happened on multiple occasions.

What I don't know is if this will have any long-term effect on bean development.

Plot progress - Melons, okra, cucumbers, beans

After a lot of rain last night, I decided to see how the garden stood up.

Some of the tomatoes aren't especially happy with all the water they've received lately.

We have our first baby okra.

The first melon is growing nicely and is now accompanied by a half dozen siblings.

It's too early to tell for sure, but we may also have our first baby cucumber.

I picked quite a bit of decent-sized kale and a ton of beans.

Plot Progress - new veggies, bean plantings

Another day, more watering.

Upon our return, I made it back to the plot to water and apply dust.  I was also happy to see that the garden has been growing in my absence. 

We now have baby peppers!

The baby beans have also grown quite a bit over the last few days.

I turned over the two garlic boxes and planted new beans in there.

The cucumbers have grown quite a bit over the last few days.

The best bit of news, though, is that we have a baby melon on the vine!  Extraordinary!

There are many pretty flowers in the plot

There are many pretty flowers out in the plot this year.  Borage, Cosmos, and even a unknown blue flower that I added in a mixed flower bed.  That's not including the bean flowers or marigolds.

Plot progress - new beans, cucumbers, watermelons

We made it out to the plot today to water and check on progress prior to heading out of town for the weekend.

I'm happy to see that the new box of beans that I planted are growing nicely.

The runner beans are all growing rapidly and have even reached the far end of the arbor.

The cucumbers and watermelons are all around 2' tall.

The tomatoes appear to want to begin ripening.

Our first raspberries!

I got home from work today to have The Boy meet me at the door and proudly show me that our first raspberries are about ready for picking.  I'd been watching them slowly get a bit of a blush on them, but the two berries he found had been hidden behind some leaves.  I'm going to give them one more day, but tomorrow we'll each have a berry.

I think this is pretty exciting.  Since we started our gardening a few years ago, I've always wanted to grow fruit.  That's why I tried the ground cherry experiment last year and strawberries in the first plot back in 2009.  To have a potted raspberry plant on our front porch seems somehow extravagant.

I'll see if I can transplant a few of the runners into another pot to double our yield next year.  Need to research when is the best time of year to do that, though.

And the plants, they are agrowin'

Bob Dylan references aside, it's getting to the most fun part of gardening: picking time!

I made it to the plot today for an hour to apply bug dust (we had a lot of rain last night) and reroute bean runners.  Also, the runner bean tendrils have stretched 3/4 of the way across the arbor.  Still trying to engineer their expansion to provide some decent shade under the arbor.  Most notably we have a few tiny runner beans on the vine!  They're approx 1" long, but are a great start.

I turned over the southern-most shallot box and planted a new crop of beans in there.  Once the garlic is all harvested from their two beds, I'll do the same with them.  Also worth noting is that we've had green bean flowers for about a week.  I finally managed a good picture, too.

I was happy to see that the watermelons are growing up their trellis nicely.  I still think it's too early to see if their predator has come out of the ground, yet.  I'll be watching the ground under/inside their collars for indications of activity.

Nearby, the cucumbers are also growing.  It's exciting to see a bunch of flowers on them, too!  I didn't see any cucumber flowers last year until late August or so.  Perhaps I did the right thing by planting them earlier this year.

I turned over the other shallot box, too, and planted a second patch of tomatoes in their place.

The older tomato plants are generally looking well, too.  That's somewhat surprising considering we've had bouts of heavy rain and wind a few times in the last month.  Although I prefer the San Marzanos, Old Virginia tomatoes are also growing nicely.  These are about 1.5" across.

Plot Planning - Adapting to Change and Transitioning Between Seasons

As I was working on my plot layout and did the post about my plan for the year, I put a bit of thought into what I wanted to grow, what would grow well together (companion planting), and what crops grew at what times of the year.  There is a lot that goes into a good plan and that plan continually evolves, especially as I get more and more experience with gardening and see what does and doesn't work.

Adapting to Change
Looking back at my plan, I can already see a few things that changed. 

• The green circles indicating snow peas and lima beans never happened.  The weather got warm too quickly to really warrant as many snow peas as I'd initially intended.  I also had a lot more tomato plants needing homes than I'd intended.
• I decided against planting radishes with the kale (yellowish box in top left quadrant).  Also, we'd gone to a farm market and saw someone selling organic okra starters.
• The yellowish box for carrots and radishes hasn't happened.  The Boy broke two sides of box and I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.  I've been underplanting carrots and radishes among the peppers and tomatoes in two boxes thus far.  I also have used the raised garden box on our front porch solely for carrots and radishes.
• I will also be planting beans in the front box vacated by shallots.  I'll, instead, be planting daikon in the box where the snow peas currently are.

Transitioning Between Seasons
I am glad that I planned ahead, though.  As we're picking the garlic and shallots, it helps to have planned ahead.  I already know what I'm planting in their place.  What's being planted there will work well with plans for crop rotation, and I know that the new plants will live happily with their surrounding plants.

Knowing that garlic and shallots (same family of crops) are harvested in late June, I knew that it was too late for a standard planting of pretty much all summer season crops. What went in their places needed to be a later planting of something.

The large garlic bed will be giving way to a later crop of green beans.  We eat a lot and I saw last year that our bean crop was tailing off in production in late August.  To maximize the growing season, I'm trying a later planting of beans.  Similarly, the shallot box in the up left corner will give way to some tomatoes still surviving on our front porch.

As the snow peas (sugar snap, really) die off and I finally repair the carrot/radish box, I'll still be able to do a late summer planting of daikon and lettuce for fall harvesting.

By applying principles of crop rotation, doing a bit of research on what are companion plants and paying attention to when crops are harvested you can have a good plan in place during the Winter when you have the time to do a lot of thinking.  A good plan helps maximize what you can grow and helps avoid wasted time in the garden.

A Tuesday Harvest

Wifey and I made it to the plot at the tail end of something of a date day.  It was nice for the two of us to get out there without the rug rats in tow.

She weeded and I trimmed the pepper plants.  I tackled watering while she picked stuff. As with our marriage, it was good teamwork.

She pulled the bulk of the garlic (15 heads), picked some snow peas, and removed the rest of the shallots.

Two Weekend Harvests

There were two harvests this weekend.  Wifey took the kids out to the plot while I was at work Friday.  They got quite the haul.  I also fit in a detour after our trip to the farmer's market today to apply bug dust, reroute some bean runners, and to pick some more

Here are our harvests. 

Friday (from top left):

• Shallots
• Walking Onions
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Radishes
• Kale

Sunday

• Radishes
• Kale
• Sugar Snap Peas

Notes:

• The kale is getting toward the end of the season.  Makes me glad I interplanted okra a month ago.
• This is the entirety of one of the two shallot beds (the one near to the gate).  They really didn't do much.  Perhaps I planted too late in the season?
• I'll most likely plant more beans in the shallot box so we'll have a late-season crop once the current boxes die off.

A caterpillar eating my goji plant leaves!

On Friday, Wifey let me know she saw a neat-looking caterpillar out on one of the goji plants.  She said it was so neat that I should get pictures for the blog.  I didn't get around to it that day, but went back yesterday.  It took me a minute to find him, but then I found he'd been munching on some of the leaves!  For that he paid the ultimate (green, gooey) price.

I did get a few pictures of him before  I gooshed him, though.  He was neat looking.

After doing a little digging this morning, I've determined he's a White Marked Tussock Moth larvae.

Correction.  He was a White Marked Tussock Moth larvae.  Now he's a green smear in a paper towel.

First Harvest of the Year!

Today we went to the plot after hitting up the local farmers' market.  I'd noticed some items that I thought Wifey and The Boy would enjoy picking when I was doing work yesterday.

It'd been a while since they'd been out there so it was nice that they oohed, ahhed, and made yummy noises.  They picked the first few snow peas, some of the walking onions and some kale, The Girl accidentally harvested some Thai basil with her rump when she fell on a plant, and I picked the first few radishes.  Then I watered and applied bug dust.

Looks great!

Plot progress - weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeds!

We received a lot of rain this week.  I'm pretty sure it rained at least Monday-Thursday.  We may have received a bit of a drink Friday, too, while I was at work.

I made it to the plot this morning while The Girl was taking her morning nap.  Everything had really shot up thanks to all that water.  Many of the green beans are 4' tall and even some of the scarlet runner beans have reached the top of their arbor.

It was also really nice to see that the snow peas had grown quite a bit.  Most notably, we finally have some that are pickable!

We also have some radishes ready to be picked.

Once I evaluated all that, I started in on weeding.  Just as the planned vegetation had shot up, so had the weeds.  Virtually all of the beds were loaded with weeds and even a few of the paths had some recent additions.  A few vines from neighboring plot owners who're less diligent on weeding had also creeped over.  I spent the bulk of my hour and a half at the plot weeding.  It gave me some time to evaluate tomato growth to do some pruning of the lower limbs for better air flow.  I also was able to find some bean plants that needed a little assistance in guiding their vines onto their trellises.

While doing my weeding, I came across what appear to be some volunteer petunias from one of last year's bean boxes.

I also saw that we have our first baby tomatoes (these are the San Marzanos) in the garden.

Lastly, I fertilized everything and locked up.  The rest of the family will be coming out with me tomorrow to pick the radishes, snow peas, and some of the kale.  I'll apply bug dust to the beans at that time.