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.

Plot Progress - Watermelon Trellis is up, plants are in the ground

Today I made it to the plot and mounted the fence material to the framework for the watermelon trellis.  As I mentioned previously, the trellis is rotated 180 degrees from last year.  I have the downward slope facing to the south this year.

The idea is to try to grow the watermelons and train them up the trellis (as last year) and to grow cucumbers in the shade created by the watermelons.  I'd read that cucumbers won't create female flowers if the temps are consistently over 95.  Considering no cucumbers came about until the end of August, that theory makes sense.

Once the trellis screen had been put up, I scrounged up some triangle-shaped tomato cages from last year to use for the cucumber trellis.

The watermelons were planted along the bottom of the watermelon trellis and the cucumbers inside the cucumber (tomato) cages.  Once they were in the ground, I put collars around them in an attempt to protect them from a second year's annihilation by some little critter or another.

I also found Cosmos volunteers (I think?) in need of transplanting and a new friend for Wifey.

Saving my Watermelons from Squash Borers and Squash Bugs

Last year, my watermelons did fantastic for the first few weeks of their life.  Unfortunately, they were wiped out by a predator.  One day I went to the plot, did some work and admired the foliage and the fruit on the vine.  Two days later, I returned and found all the flowers had turned black and the leaves looking wilted.  I was only able to harvest a single watermelon from six plants.

Logically, that means that something had killed everything at the source.

I did a fair amount of research and I have identified two possible culprits: the Squash Vine Borer and the Squash Bug.

The squash bug doesn't appear to attack the melon plant directly, unlike the squash borer.  The squash bug injects a disease called Yellow Vine Decline into the plant as it feeds.  The disease starts to yellow vines, but can and will kill the entire plant.

The squash borer will fly up to the base of a target plant and lay an egg inside the stem.  Once the egg hatches, the larvae feeds on the inside of the stem blocking the water and nutrients from flowing upward killing the plant.  Once it's large enough, the larvae exits the stem and burrows into the soil to become an adult moth at a later date.  I've found some sources that say that the borer will occasionally attack melons.  I think this is a more likely culprit given the rapid death and the fact it came in June which appears to be when the borer moth is said to go active.

Last year, I was applying Seven Dust to my watermelon plants to deter pests.  I can't say that I really applied a lot to the base of the plants, however.

This year, I tried something different.  I had Wifey save toilet paper tubes and installed them as collars around the base of the plants.  I did this for all my watermelons and also put them around the cucumbers just for giggles.

I really hope this works....

Plot Progress: bean trellises are in, first runner bean flower

This is going to be a bit redundant with a post I just did about how to create trellises.  I was just going to post about what I did today, however, Wifey had recommended that I do more "how to" type stuff on the blog instead of merely giving statuses of progress.
Today, I installed two green bean trellises as well as the scarlet runner bean trellis.  Took quite a while.  I used up some leftover bamboo from a few years ago as well as a few stakes I'd created by ripping some lumber.  Cheap!

I was also thrilled to see that we have our first flower for the scarlet runner bean.

Plot construction: Making Trellises

Last year I did a post discussing building trellises for crops to climb. 

The preferred method of trellis that I use is to create an A-Frame from poles.  Bamboo is great for this purpose; just be sure to dry it for about 10 days vertically before using it to ensure it doesn't take root.  Lumber works, too.

Helpful hint:

Rather than buying stakes from a hardware store (Home Depot sells 5' stakes for $2.28/ea), buy a 1x4 from a salvage yard and carefully rip it in half with a saw.  My favorite salvage yard, Community Forklift, sells them for 15 cents/foot.  A 90 cent board that's 6' long would give you two two stakes making them 45 cents a piece.  Much better value considering you're going to leave it outdoors exposed to the weather, anyway.

I stick the base of the vertical poles in the soil around 8"  and have them cross at a desired height then lash the spars together where they cross.

Helpful hint:

Give thought to how tall your trellis web will be before you lash the spars together.  Seems like common sense, but I've mistakenly made mine too tall on occasion.  Like this year, for example.

The web for the trellis could be anything that's hatch-worked.  I use both salvaged fencing material as well some plastic fencing as you can see in the picture above.  To attack, you just tie some twine to the corners of the web, then to the "corners" of the frame and tighten.  As I mentioned last year, I use taut light hitches to keep those lines snug.

Helpful hint:

Use synthetic twine for your lashing because it breaks down from the weather slower than natural fiber twine.

I've seen people weave the trellis web in some way.  One of our plot neighbors does that but, unfortunately, he doesn't speak English.  I've yet to figure out how they do that, but I'm sure impressed.

Another way to create the web is to run your twine around some screws or nails.  This really only works well if your trellis (or arbor) is going to be relatively permanent.  I did this with the runner bean arbor.  I used deck screws.  They are installed roughly 4" apart on the vertical and horizontal beams leaving about 3/4" sticking out from the surface.  The web is created by tying the twine in one corner, then weaving it down (or across) in a pattern.

Helpful hint:

I recommend using multiple lengths of twine.  By creating the web in this manner, you don't have to redo all the work if one of the lengths breaks for some reason.  For no particular reason, I generally do 3 segments per piece of twine.

Once your trellis web is attached to the spars, the only thing left to do is to help guide your crops (melons, beans, cucumbers, etc) to the desired parts of the web you want them to follow.

Proof of a predator: Mexican bean beetles at work!

For the last few years, I've lived in fear of getting my beans annihilated.  Our first year trying to grow organically, I tried Neem oil to deter pests from my beans.  That year, two boxes of green beans, a box of red beans, and a box of lima beans all met their gruesome demise.  Based on the holes in the leaves and listed expected predators from reading, I suspected it was the Mexican Bean Beetle that did all that damage.  I looked numerous times, but was never able to know definitively what critter it was that did it.

Until today.

Today, as I was preparing to apply some bug dust, I looked down and saw one of the little buggers going to town on some of the beans.  I crushed him with a certain degree of glee.  Then it occurred to me that I should have taken a picture for the blog.

After a little more looking, I found one of his family members and, after taking his mug shot, executed him in a similar manner as his cousin.

So now I know for certain what's been eating my bean plants.


I'm going to try to remember to do some research into whether there are any varieties of heirloom beans that the Bean Beetles don't care for.  I really would prefer to be fully organic; Seven dust isn't organic.  Unfortunately, row covers are the only "organic" method I can think of that would truly keep the beetles off the plants.  Also unfortunate is that I prefer pole beans to bush beans (far easier on my back and knees) which means that row covers aren't viable.

Plot Progress - Thai Basil, Peppers, Tomatoes, Beans, Cosmos

I was able to make it to the plot today to get a little work done.  Nothing all that impressive; pruning tomatoes, staking tomatoes and peppers, watering.

The tomatoes are growing steadily as are the beans.

There should be some kale ready for picking this weekend!

 

It was nice to see that the thai basil is doing quite well, too. 

The cosmos are slowly coming up from the haphazard seed job I did in their bed.