Garden Update

Just a few photos of the garden today.

The spaghetti squash is cruisin' along. I'm trying to convince it to climb the ladder. Looks like the first female blossoms must not have been pollinated as they are yellowing and one fell off today. There are probably 8 more there already, so I'm not worried. I'm pretty sure I will have a jungle of spaghetti squash come end of summer. The pumpkin is following quickly along behind the spaghetti. At least they are both small fruit varieties (small wonder and small sugar).

When I ordered seeds this spring, I also ordered some seeds for sprouting. On a bit of a whim, I decided to plant some mung beans last week. I've don't know much about mung beans other than the sprouts are pretty good and it sounds like they're a bush bean. I've tucked them in along the edge of the squash bed, just to the left of the nasturtium in the above photo. We'll see what happens!

On the subject of beans, something is wrong with my bush beans.

At first, as the leaves yellowed, I thought it was the normal period where they get a little yellow after sprouting but they didn't get better. The front 6 squares in this photo are one variety, the first planting of beans. I plucked the worst leaves from the plant in the center square, but they were very very pale. If I remember right, the center plants were the first to sprout and the edges were later. I did plant a little early, so I'm wondering if it was still too cold for them. The greener ones behind the bad ones in the photo were planted a couple weeks later than these. If they yellow too, it may be a disease or a deficiency. This is a new bed this year, so maybe they don't like something in the layers.

Mmmmmm...... Tomorrow.........

I SHOULD have had my first ripe strawberry earlier this week. I checked the garden and saw the first blush of color on the berries one afternoon. The next morning when I checked, I was surprised to see a bit of almost ripe berry (so soon!) and was quickly disappointed when I saw that something had beaten me to it. It and it's 3 friends. I'm quite sure it was a bird since the berries had a slashed area in them.

I used one of the sheer curtains to cover the top thinking that the moving fabric would deter the birds. When I checked the next morning all looked good. When I checked that afternoon, the one ripening berry I had was GONE. The cap was there, the rest was gone. The strawberries are now completely wrapped. I have a piece of old sheer/gauze type curtain material my mom had in a trunk (probably for 30 years - who knows). It's about 20' feet long so even though it's not too wide, I can make a couple passes with it. It seems to be working as I have ripening berries under there that are still intact. Today, there was another that was nearly ripe. I couldn't take it- I ate it. It was so good... it reminded me of the wild berries we used to pick when I was young. I'm letting the rest ripen before I pick them.

The All-Blue potatoes in the ground are the first to bloom with Kennebecs soon to follow.

JustJenn, I made a point of smelling these this morning and I agree, they do smell good.

I'm very curious to see what's going on underneath all the potato foliage but I am resisting the urge to snoop until they're ready (or closer at least). I hope some of the blue or purple potatoes are ready when my mom comes to visit in a couple weeks. I'm crossing my fingers that at least something from the garden is ready while she's here. I'm afraid lettuce and peas will be done but I'm not sure what will be ready.

Speaking of fingers, I went to have my fingerprints scanned today for a background check (I'm getting my real estate license again and Colorado likes to check you out first). After she scanned all my fingers, she had to roll & scan each one individually. The computer compares the two scans and apparently tries to match a certain number of points. If it can't match a certain number, it rejects the match. The program rejected every one of mine from multiple tries. The first question she asked me when we were having problems - Do you do a lot of gardening?? Ok, so she tossed in "without gloves" or have you handwashed dishes for a long time? I guess it wears the fingerprints down enough to make scanning difficult.

I twice worked as a dishwasher many years ago, I worked at a flower shop for 6 years- about every job there was there but mainly in the greenhouse or design room, 5 years or so of sign work, I'm a pretty chronic hand-washer and I only started wearing gloves regularly in the past few years. Not lookin' good for these fingertips...

Trellis Progress

I've made some progress with my trellis situation this week. I stayed with essentially the same plan but I changed how it's put together. My original plan was to build 4 individual rectangles to go over the bed. Once I built the first one, I felt it was not going to be sufficient once the beans & tomatoes started getting tall.

Here's what I ended up building...

While it looks very similar to what I had planned, I made some real changes to how I built it. This one is built in sections that run down the sides, not over the bed, which makes it much less dangerous (for the plants) during installation. The 4 uprights have a loop of pipe strap at the top which is how they're attached to the top horizontal piece. Having the uprights loosely attached made it easier to adjust placement (read: lots of wiggle room!). I marked where I wanted them on the side of the bed, attached with one screw to hold the height, straightened them out and added a second screw in the bottom. I then put up the other side the same way. I put the overhead cross pieces on last. There are 2 at the tomato end to run string from. There's one at the pole bean end just for visual balance and a little extra support. I'm going to run horizontal lines for the beans similar to the peas but a little more heavy duty (and neater) as they'll be there much longer than the peas.

I also decided to use my scavenged ladder for the Small Wonder spaghetti squash and Small Sugar pumpkins. The ladder is not safe for use anymore so it's got a new purpose. I picked this up free on Craigslist this spring. I also added a few cross pieces to it. These were also scavenged. They were attached to the stairs we re-purposed so I wouldn't have to jump off the retaining wall anymore (or go the long way around) to get to the garden. All last summer, I used a bale of straw as a step (still had to jump down, just not as far). By fall, my step was getting lower and lower...

Anyway, I have a little pile of these 2x2's from the stairs and I was happy to finally find a use for at least a few of them. This poor ladder will look like a jungle by fall I suspect. I did put a couple screws in each side to attach it to the bed so (hopefully) it won't come crashing down in a storm.

I still have to add something for the cukes, patty pan squash and watermelon (if they ever sprout - I had one weak start but it died shortly after transplanting) .

Speaking of spaghetti squash, here's why I was getting anxious about a trellis here...

I know, it's not huge, but it's growing pretty quick. It's sending out tendrils and if you look to the right of the photo, there's a female bloom about to open. Luckily, the bloom on the left appears to be male. I'm surprised how quickly this one bloomed. The spaghetti squash and pumpkin are the farthest along of my vining plants. The cukes & patty pan are hanging in but are smaller. The watermelon is non-existent. The zucchini seem to be starting to show some growth now as well.

The potatoes in the bin didn't put on a huge amount of height this week but they are filling out more. I'll add another board soon. I've added some straw to nearly all the potatoes this week. . Some are growing faster than others, but most seem to be in good shape. The only variety that seems to be doing poorly is Viking.

These are Red Pontiac, a late season variety.

When reading about growing strawberries, I read conflicting information about what to do with Junebearing strawberries. Some sources say pluck the blooms the first year, others say leave them. I even read that they won't produce the first year. Unless that last bit refers to runners that are sprouted in the summer, I'd call it false information.

This is one of the Honeoye I planted this spring. I decided to learn for myself what the best way to handle the blooms was. I plucked blooms off half the plants and let the other half go. I have 4-6 berries started on the ones I let the flowers grow. I'm planning to allow limited runners this summer. I want the bed to fill in but I want to (try to) avoid total chaos. We'll see how that goes...