Third time isn't always a charm...

Year three with my garden is turning out to be a frustrating one. Spring was long and cold. May and June were very very dry. July is bringing some rain and hot days but with that also comes the risk of hail. Here's our little hailstorm July 4th... It came with over an inch of rain and we didn't get the big bad hail that some others nearby got, so I guess I won't complain.

These milk jugs didn't really appreciate that hailstorm though they were likely brittle from the sun exposure though. They are on season 2 of use.

This bed probably bothers me the most. This should be full of zucchini, pattypan and pole beans by now. The indoor started zucchini didn't survive a strong windstorm early on. The direct sown seeds either didn't sprout or were immediately eaten by the bugs. The indoor sprouted zucchini seeds were eaten. I just planted out some indoor starts yesterday. They were still there today so I guess there's hope. At least 2 of the new ones already have their first true leaves so hopefully they're big enough to survive. I've planted the pole beans I think 3 times. These should be Rattlesnake and Zi 28 Long beans. Today when I looked, I do see a few new sprouts so maybe...

Same story with the other pole beans (I think Kentucky Blue and Blue Lake maybe?). I tried to presprout some in the house like I've done with peas but it didn't work so well. I've replanted AGAIN and fairly heavily. Hopefully something will survive and be able to produce before frost.

Even the bush beans are having some trouble. This year, instead of my normal spacing of about 9/sf, I thought I'd try out wider spacing. I planted them about 6" apart or 4/sf this year. Unless the surviving plants produce like crazy, I think I'll go back to my previous method. At least that way, when a couple didn't make it, there wasn't a huge gaping hole where a plant should be. I'm going to replant the empty spaces sometime this week.

The tomatoes were doing well until something came along and chewed the stems. I lost 2 this way last week. The others seem to be doing well though a few of them are very small still. The Galinas Gold Cherry and I think the Thessaloniki are growing well at this point.

This half bed should be full of broccoli and cauliflower. Sadly, right after I gave away my extra starts, I started losing plants. I'm not expecting to see any broccoli though I may get cauliflower.

Finally, my carrots did not do well at all. With the dry windy weather, I guess I just didn't keep them wet enough to sprout. I have about 3 carrots from 4 squares that sprouted. So sad. I sprouted some indoors (wet coffee filters) and put them out today. Perhaps they'll survive...

I guess, on the plus side, the onions are doing well this year, much better than the past 2. Of course, I mainly use onions when I cook zucchini...

Transplanting Tomatoes & Peppers

Today was a beautiful day! Earlier in the week, the forecast temperature for today was 93 degrees which I was somewhat dreading. My house does not have central air and it's early in the summer for that kind of heat, I'm just not used to it. Thankfully, the forecast changed. Today was in the mid-80s and a little cloudy most of the day with just a little wind. It was hot in the garden when the sun came out and I did end up with a bit of a sunburn, but I finally got some more planting done.

I transplanted the peppers into their designated area (I call this ring #3- though it's really more of a rectangle, it's named for the way it was built). I added the jugs of colored water and a couple dark rocks to absorb heat and there's plastic 3/4 of the way around the outside to add some warmth and cut the wind. I tied some row cover fabric over the top as well- sort of a pepper-incubator if you will. I add the extra heat steps because our nighttime temps dip pretty low all summer long- in part because of the altitude (we're at 7000'). I am just now planting them out because I think I put them out too early last year and the peppers were stunted until late in the season. I'm hoping I get some peppers before October this year. In this ring I have planted two Banana peppers, two Pimiento peppers and two Carmen peppers. I also have a third Carmen that I planted in a pot. I'm especially looking forward to the Carmen peppers, they sound like they'll be really good. The Carmens are the big plants in the foreground.

I also planted the tomatoes. Some of the little guys are still so very small. Hopefully they'll grow now that they're outdoors. The photo shows about half of a 4x10' bed. In that half, I've got 12 tomato plants. I suspect some won't make it or will remain small this year. The big ones you might actually be able to see in the picture are Galinas Gold Cherry (2) and Thessaloniki (2). I've also got a Jubilee Yellow, a Kelloggs Breakfast, two Black Cherry, three Rutgers and one Roma. Since it doesn't look like hubby is likely to be around this summer either, I'm not terribly concerned about tomato production. I'm not a big tomato eater (though I do sort of like the flavor of the gold and black cherries). At this point, I'm starting to think of growing tomatoes as sort of a challenge. Except for the cherries, we have not had great success yet.

When watering yesterday, I noticed there were a lot of ants on my larger Catnip plant. When I flipped over the leaves I found masses of aphids. I hosed them off last night but as you can see, I didn't get them all.

The lettuce & salad greens are growing pretty well now. The cabbage worms have discovered the Savanna Mustard though. I'll have to remember to look carefully when I pick them - I'll pass on the extra protein if I can at all help it. It's not a major infestation at this point, hopefully hand-picking will keep them at bay.

The poor started-too-early spaghetti squash transplants are still looking pretty sickly though there's actually a female bloom starting on one of them!. I planted some seeds just in case and I noticed one direct-sown sprout today. I wish I could remember how many seeds I planted though, the pumpkins don't look like they're going to make it and I hope I tucked in a few seeds.

I lost all the zucchini transplants (I think the wind beat them up too much) but the pattypan squash transplants are looking quite healthy.

I also planted two more varieties of beans today, Top Notch (yellow bush) and Burpee's Tenderpod (green bush). The Tendergreen Improved (bush green) and Cherokee Wax (bush yellow) I planted earlier are starting to sprout now. I'm still waiting on the Zi 28-2 Long beans and the Rattlesnake beans to sprout. They should be popping up soon.

Now, we just need a little rain... (just a little with no hail please) :-)

Tomatoes in my shower??

Yes, that's right, I have tomatoes in my shower. I started to think the basement might still be a little chilly for the toms and they might benefit from some upstairs time. Problem is, I only have ONE south-facing window on the upper floors of my house. Here it is:

One benefit to having seedlings in the shower - they're easy to water :-)

On another note, I have finally broken out the colored pencils again and created a garden plan.

I still have a couple tweaks to make - like filling in the tomato varieties and adding the potatoes but it's pretty close. I'll use the ladder trellis in the cucumber ring and the other trellis I built last summer for the winter squash & cukes.

I'd best get busy soon with some outdoor work as spring may have finally sprung. I'm seeing signs of life around the yard now. The grass is beginning to green. The jostaberries have leafed out. Tulips, hyacinths and iris are showing green leaves and the daffodils are blooming. We need some rain soon though or I'll have some serious watering to do this week. We've got a chance of afternoon showers for the next few days, perhaps some moisture will come our way.

These little green sprouts are the new suckers from the Anne raspberries I planted last year. The Carolines are also spreading. I peeked under the leaves around the one blackberry that grew last year and I saw a little green sprout under there.

The rhubarb popped out of the ground quite nicely this past week. No sign yet of the asparagus or strawberries but it's probably not quite time for them yet. Soon enough, we shall see.

Mmmm...what's growing in my basement?

Ok, maybe I shouldn't ask that question, I'm not having the best luck this past week or so... While working on my caulking/weather-sealing project last week, I discovered the exterior trim around my kitchen window was in bad shape. It was wet and rotten. When I pulled it off, it got worse. I won't know the full extent until it's time to take it all apart, but at least I've got someone to fix it for me. He'll have to pull the trim & siding and the kitchen window for sure. Hopefully it's not too much worse in there.

Anyway, this is what I have and WANT growing in my basement!! This is my indoor lettuce (Mesclun) box and very soon it will be salad time!

It looks like the cat has stopped tromping through the seedlings now. I don't think she did too much damage in the end.

This is what else is growing in my basement. It's my collection of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini & squash. The spaghetti squash is off to a good (though accidentally too early) start. They are the tallest seedlings under the lights. Soon I may have to put them in the window by the mesclun and see if that's enough light for them. Otherwise I'll need to find more ways to prop up the tomatoes & peppers! My Carmen peppers sprouted and soon will be moved downstairs (or squeezed in I should say). Maybe next year I need to get another light (or self control?? Nah, another light).

The Slacker is Back (and it's Seed Starting Time!!)

First of all, my apologies for the hiatus. I didn't do much outdoors this winter and found myself with very little to post about. It will probably take me a bit to get back into the swing of things but I'll try to be better!

I'll also admit, I am a bit slow with this post as well. I was thinking of you all and I did take pictures and I was thinking about my blog but alas, I was sidetracked. I also discovered I never re-installed my photo software when my hard drive crashed in December and I don't seem to be able to get it reload from the disk, grrr...

I finally downloaded Picasa so I'm at least semi-functional photo-wise (but I'm still annoyed about the other software).

Anyway... I'd like to show you my high-tech germinating set-up.

Spiffy eh?
The TV puts out enough heat to keep the seeds a little warmer than room temperature.

My lack of success with pepper germination last year led me to a better setup for those this year.

I have an old heating pad that my husband used so much over the years the "high" setting no longer works. Medium seems to do a good job keeping things at 75-80 degrees in the box though. The Rubbermaid box protects the pad from any moisture and a piece of plastic wrap keeps the humidity high in the box. One tray (those are Oreo trays just in case you wondered) has 3 types of onion seeds, thickly sown as they were older seeds and I was unsure of their viability. The other tray has pepper seeds. I planted 5 in each row. One row has Sweet Banana and the other two have Sweet Mixed Pimiento Dulce, also leftovers from last year. With the bottom heat I had germination in about 10 days or so. About 2/3 of the peppers have sprouted so far.

There are also some squash or cukes filling in the rest of the heated space. The tomatoes & the rest of the cucurbits were in the cooler box over the TV. Most ended up rotating into the warm box at some point but were doing well in the cooler box. My OOPS on this (also read "lack of planning or paying attention") is the fact that I STARTED the cucurbits. I will probably wish I had waited on those as they may be huge by the time they can go out. Oh well...

This feisty little Spaghetti Squash (Small Wonder), like some of it's companions, actually had a root coming out of the bottom of the peat pot about as soon as it sprouted. The cotyledons aren't even completely open yet.

I am anxiously awaiting fresh salad season. We haven't had a lot of warm days yet for planting outdoors (matter of fact, right now, my garden is completely covered by several inches of snow!). I decided to try an experiment. Using the "rooting box" that I retrieved from the front porch, I pretty thickly sowed Mesclun seeds (from 2008). It was fast and easy since it was already filled with seed starting medium. I gave the pots a little cleaning and added a little fresh medium and planted. I put the cover on the box (propped open slightly) and set it on the living room floor for about 4 days, until the seeds germinated.

Once I had sprouts, I moved it to the basement. It sits in a sunny, south facing window. The basement is heated somewhat but is very cool (it's unfinished space). When I check on the lettuce, I just look out the window into the cold snowy garden. It makes me think this might be a good idea! So far, they're doing quite well though the little cat keeps stepping on them. She's pretty sure the water in the pots is for her drinking pleasure.

Speaking of the little cat, here they are catching a little sunbeam in the morning sun last week. As they get older, they really seem to enjoy following the sunbeam through the house. I find the gray one laying in random spots around the house, like in the closet doorway, on the bedroom floor, on the stairs...

Annie & Gabby

So, there's the beginning of my catch-up posting. I'll be back again soon!!

August Update

It's been a pretty quiet week in the garden. I have harvested just a few zucchini, a half pound of beans and just under 2 pounds of small potatoes. A few of the pots of potatoes were looking dead and I was pretty sure it's too early for most of them to be ready. When I poked down around the "done" plants, I discovered that they were dry! With all the rain we had in July I was worried that they were too wet. Most of the straw was wet but the compost at the bottom was dry. I watered the pots and I plan to take the moisture meter out to check everything tomorrow as it has been several days since we've had any significant rainfall.

Early week harvest - zucchini, beans & potatoes.

I hand-pollinated the little pattypan when the bloom opened the other morning. There are a few more female blossoms starting to form now as well.

The Green Dragon Burpless finally has a little cucumber! I need to look up when these started producing last year, it feels like they have been very slow this year.

The yellow bell pepper is growing nicely. The other peppers are showing more blooms now too.

I did make this unpleasant discovery on my Roma tomato today (grrr...). I'm going to try adding some calcium (and checking their moisture) though from what I saw online today, Romas are very prone to BER, so it at least makes me feel a little better. :-)

To end on a more positive note, I've got a couple of these blooming...

The sunflowers are planted along the edges of the corn bed in an attempt to aid pollination by possibly acting as a windbreak so the pollen doesn't all get blown away in our winds. I honestly don't know if this will make a bit of difference. It was a suggestion I received over on GardenWeb and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. As a bonus, I plan to save the seeds- some for the birds and some to sprout for shoots to add to salads.

That's about all for right now. This week we're supposed to have temps in the 80's so I should be seeing a little more production in the garden soon (I hope!).

Then & Now - July Review

Today's a double post day - be sure to scroll down & see what else is happening out there!

It's time for some before & after photos! When we see our gardens every day, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of just how much has happened over the past few weeks. Here are some comparison photos to show growth for the month of July.

June's green beans weren't looking so great. Sickly and yellow. I think it was too much moisture.

Much improved for July. They are behind last year's beans though. Last year by this time they had produced the bulk of their crop. So far this year, I've only harvested a handful.

The tomatoes are plugging along...

They're hiding, but they're in there! The storm clouds rolling in today looked a little nasty, so this is my attempt to offer a little hail protection. I have a few green tomatoes but not huge amounts. They are still producing flowers.

This one actually surprised me!

Once the corn finally gets going, boy does it grow!

Finally, what's likely the most impressive thing growing in my garden...

I have about 10 or 12 of these babies growing on the ladder!

-JULY HARVEST TOTALS-

Strawberries - 2 oz

Sugar Snap Peas- 22 oz

Broccoli- 4 oz

Radishes- 2 oz

Cucumber- 3 oz

Lettuce- 49 oz

Garlic (untrimmed) 44 oz

Zucchini- 11 oz

Potatoes- 17 oz

Scallions- 1 oz

Beans-(green & yellow) 2 oz

July total: 157 oz = 9 lb 13 oz

June total: 69 oz =4 lb 5 oz

May total: 10 oz .

Total: 236 oz = 14 lb 12 oz

Fresh from the Rain

After a few warm dry days, our stormy weather returned. We had temperatures near 90 at the end of last week then a cold front came through and dropped us to about 60. I think Colorado Springs had a record low for the high temperature yesterday. Today warmed back up to around 80 or so, at least until our afternoon storm arrived. We've gotten another 2 inches of rain this week! Last July was apparently one of the driest on record. This July is the total opposite!

Between rains, I went out for a few pictures.

The daikon seed pods are finally starting to dry.

My first blush of tomato color! Strangely, this is probably the smallest tomato plant I have.

Soon, I'll get to taste a Pattypan!

I don't think this is good... This potato plant (I think it's Yukon Gold, I forgot to check the tag) has black spots all over it's leaves. It doesn't look as healthy as it's neighbors. I'll have to look this up.

With all the hail that our area has had recently, I've been concerned about the garden. I've been covering what I can. The tomatoes have a chicken wire cover over the top (2 layers, overlapped to make the holes smaller) to hopefully protect them from any whopper hailstorms. Since I can't easily toss fabric over the top, I wrapped it around the sides. I don't think the fabric will stop huge hail but it should at least protect against smaller stones. Since I've covered plants, the hail has skipped us (thankfully). Of course, now I'm a little paranoid - I'm afraid the day I don't cover will be the day the hail comes...

I have one little bell pepper starting. This is a purchased plant though one of my seed starts looks like it might actually kick into gear and bloom soon.

The first borage bloom opened today.

My sugar snap peas have passed their prime. While I keep thinking I should cut them down, they still produce just a few peas. This is why I haven't cut them yet..