What Did You Do In The Garden?

[digitS']

It hasnt been that a cold a winter this year but the lawn still didnt grow that much, but was starting to look a little shaggy... It looks like my shallots are suffering from mildew. ... I just tried a chives tea spray

Just to contrast our climates, beyond the differences in hemispheres : I have months and months of not mowing - is it 6 months? Maybe so but your season is now in the middle of winter. It would be like me mowing in February .

The shallots could be planted in the fall but I have always waited until very early spring. I haven't had a problem with mildew.

Is the author sure that the shallot's chive relatives is the plant for a beneficial tea? It would seem that if the fungus thrives on one that the other wouldn't inhibit it. I'm trying something like that this year: mint tea. Only, it's fermented mint. Yuck. I didn't realize that it would smell as bad as that compost tea I made many years ago.

Anyway, nothing much bothers my mint. It's probably a pretty good nitrogen source. Would it deter bugs while fertilizing the plants? I'm trying to find out. Tomorrow will be the 3rd application on the cabbage. It may have been the wrong year to try this. The aphids have not been on the broccoli much, at all - and, they have had none of the tea. Aphids have been a real problem in the past for broccoli and cabbage. The cabbage is having problems with mid-summer heat but, the plants always do. I'm not crawling around looking under every leaf but it doesn't seem that the aphids are troubling the cabbage. It actually looks as though the fertilizing value is coming through but it's difficult to know about that.

Steve

 

[Trish Stretton]

Thats a good point-technically the same family. We shall watch and learn.
I aim to feed with some liquid seaweed fert tomorrow in the hope that helps.

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday was a rather light day. i did the usual morning rounds, picked off the bugs and harvested a few peas that were ready/dried down enough.

later on Mom brought some stuff home from the garden she tends by the post-office and it was sitting the the wheelbarrow until i could dump it out for her later.

didn't think much of it, but in the dumping we walk through an area where deer sometimes frequent.

this morning i wake up and find a deer tick on my leg, gladly it was not fully engorged yet and hadn't really burrowed in too far, but bled a little when i pulled it off and then made sure the wound bled well and then peroxided the whole thing a few times. will keep an eye on things... *sigh*

normally i find the ticks by feeling them crawling as they tickle. this one got me when i was dead to the world. had Mom check my back.

in good news there is a report of a new vaccine for Lymes coming out and i hope that happens.

won't be doing anything outside today in the rain. well perhaps later i might have to pick some cucumbers...

 

[Zeedman]

It rained most of the day, but I was able to pick one more round of okra before it started. The rain & cooler temps were welcome, since it gave me time to begin pickling the week's okra... which came to 4 quarts. Of the first picking of Emerite snap beans, we gave some to DD, some to friends & neighbors, and about 1/2 bucket to the food bank. Yesterday we picked another 5-gallon pail, which we cleaned & sorted today; they will be used for freezing & making dilly beans tomorrow.

The Sierra Madre yardlongs have reached the top of the trellis & are setting pods; numerous flowers too, so should be a good year. Shiraz snow peas have begun filling out, the pods on the MN 150 cowpeas have begun to turn purple, and several of the soybeans have started to fatten up...

... which is usually the cue for the annual vole invasion. I saw the first one in the garden yesterday. AND saw one run across my back patio. AND trapped one in my basement. AND DD#1 trapped one in her kitchen. AND DD#2 trapped several on & under her back porch. To judge by the last few days, this may be a bad year for voles. I couldn't spend much time in the gardens today due to rain, but I'll have to begin laying out the traps tomorrow to protect my seed crops. One of the soybeans I'm growing this year is the same one completely destroyed (as in harvested) by voles last year, I won't let that happen twice. Between the home & rural gardens, I expect to put out about 40 traps; so checking, cleaning, and re-baiting will be added to my daily garden routine.

The progress on the rural garden has been steady. The first sweet corn patch, now weed free, has turned dark green & is growing vigorously. DW & I finished weeding the second corn patch, then cleared the area around 2 more cowpeas & laid mulch. I tilled & weeded around the cucumbers, trained the vines to the trellis, and found two cucumbers I didn't know were there (they never made it home ). We pulled the vines back from the gherkins, weeded adjacent to the plants, mowed the surrounding weed lawn & weighted-down black plastic over it. Hopefully that will kill the weeds more efficiently than weeding that large area, and the gherkins will appreciate the extra heat (and nutrients released by the decaying vegetation). I tilled between the rows in the back 1/6 (where there were many rows of various bush legumes) so we could begin weeding those, tilled all around the eggplants, and began tilling the weeds adjacent to the tomatoes. All of the caged peppers are rebounding, and have started flowering & setting peppers. The bitter melon likewise is rebounding, branching & climbing rampantly; we picked the first two bitter melons, which we gave to a Filipino friend.

Our watermelons have several small melons forming now, I'm trying to be optimistic about their chances. The kabocha squash though, and one of the two tromboncino plantings, are a lost cause... I'm going to turn them under & plant something else there, either peas or a cover crop. The second tromboncino patch has put up a good fight in spite of the weed pressure, so we will give it the same black plastic treatment as the gherkins, and hope it becomes productive.

 

[flowerbug]

we picked most of the green peppers yesterday to give to my brother to take since he's the one we planted them for.

i've not grown jalapenos too often before to know how long they take to reach their full size but i'm thinking they might need to be picked some in the next few weeks. i tried one out a few days ago and it was plenty hot enough.

went out this morning to check for tomato worms and to see if the live trap had been visited. no luck there. whatever has been getting into the fenced garden started eating the cherry tomatoes. i'm not sure if it is a raccoon or ..., but it didn't touch the trap last night or disturb the bait. found a few smaller worms. this is certainly the worst we've been under attack for tomato worms in quite a few years. i don't think it will make that much difference though in production because most of the tomatoes are already there - some of them are already getting a bit of color to them.

normally i also check for Japanese Beetles but today i didn't have my glasses on or my mud shoes so i'll have to go out again in a few moments and do that.

 

[digitS']

Picked at least 5 gallons of green beans, yesterday. Those are now snapped, rinsed and ready for processing - on their way to the freezer.

Our watermelons have several small melons forming now, I'm trying to be optimistic about their chances. The kabocha squash though ...

Our melons are still a little questionable but there are some Passport galia melons setting fruit. A few had a few fruits last year, terrible as it was. The cantaloupe plants are vining along. (Last year, my Goddess melons died! 🙄 . I think that I continue to bring up 2019 problems to lift my spirits about 2020 .)

The Gris de Rennes melons have lots of flowers on the plants. The cucamelons are growing - that's about all I can say about them.

It now looks like the winter squash have made a very good start. The La Madera is kinda funny now that it's something of a land race. It will have the biggest "buttercup" squash I've ever seen . Of course, I should put the "La Madera" in quotation marks, too. There is a real possibility that much of what is inside of that squash is empty space. That was characteristic of La Madera in its first season - delicious flesh but only about an inch and a half of it .

Yes, it is a good year for the green beans but ... there isn't a single bloom on my Bei soybeans. Let me rephrase that: on my and Zeedman's Bei soybeans . I am really encouraged by how well the seed came up. And ... the plants are nice and tall. Maybe it will be a good year for them and there will be replenished seed, at the very least. And, maybe I will grow them here at home in 2021 where conditions are likely better for their growth.

Steve
who needs to inventory saved tomato seed so that the best seed can be saved from the early fruit

 

[ducks4you]

Hay man decided to bring ALL 400 bales of hay and 50 bales of straw on 2 truckloads yesterday. The 2nd trailer load was so tall we had to pull out the extension ladder for the guys unloading to the loft. My 2 guys were inSide of the loft.
Still, everybody was sweating and I provided plenty of chilled Gatorade and a bucket with cold water and towels. ALL was greatly appreciated. I watched the work, bc I knew I had to unload branches from DD's tree that were on the truck, to be transported by the tractor, then feed their cats--they were out of town--and collect the last load. I drove it straight out to the burn pile. If you pull right, the whole load will pull off as one. DH used the tractor to push it all together.
The old truck, supposedly DD's truck (although I keep asking when they will take it), was my tractor before when I chopped down saplings. Sure a LOT easier with a tractor! I will post a picture of the hay load on my thread.
Today I had a morning closing. Too tired to do much else, but I can always burn! DD's had an old particle board bookcase that I had to dispose of and I burned some dried out burdock with it. It took some doing but 3 hours later I had a nice fire. EVERYTHING had gotten soaked from all of the rain and humidity, so it took some doing. Yes, I Did add a little bit of kerosene at one point to help it, but you could have had some nice s'mores cooking on it by the evening.

 

[seedcorn]

Hate to waste a good fire. S’mores sound SOOO good. Can't have them.

 

[Prairie Rose]

Pulled some potatoes out of the grow bags today, cleared out a spot to plant the peas I still haven't started. Have lettuce and greens laid out to plant tomorrow. Working till after dark today, but the grass is getting mowed this afternoon. Tomorrow after work going to lay out plastic over where the new garden beds will be and pin it down. By the time I finally walk away from the grocery store or get my vacation in late october (I have promised to work that long, we'll see if they can manage what it will take to get me to stay), they should be nice and bare for me to layer on compost, leaves, and mulch to overwinter.

At least I hope so, this is traditionally the hottest part of our year and the low last night was in the 50s. I'm loving the cool, but I need some heat to ripen my tomatoes and melons!

 

[Zeedman]

To judge by the last few days, this may be a bad year for voles. I couldn't spend much time in the gardens today due to rain, but I'll have to begin laying out the traps tomorrow to protect my seed crops.

My suspicions about mice were correct. While I was laying traps, DW tied up a sprawling tomato plant - and found a pile of soybean shells. In the two home plots, I laid 20 traps, under anything with developing pods. This morning, every trap under the soybeans was tripped; 8 mice, and two that got away. To my surprise, 5 were field mice; only three voles, and those were juveniles. I'm guessing one of the adult voles got away... they are the ones I really need to catch.

Didn't do much in the garden yesterday & probably won't do much today either (other than replacing the traps). We're taking advantage of the cool weather to do pickling & freezing, when it won't heat up the whole house. DW will be harvesting the 2nd picking of chard though, since it won't be wilted in the cooler temperatures.

The Sierra Madre yardlong beans have started, I have to be careful when walking there since many of the first pods reach the ground & trail out in all directions.