And then it was June... in New England

Its almost mid-June and today (6/14) I have my first little tomatoes forming inside my isolation bag on the Green Zebra tomatoes.



There are 3 little babies inside the netting above. I also bagged 3 more tomatoes today to save seeds; Nyagous, Red Zebra and Mexico Midget. I already have over half a dozen varieties bagged for next year's seeds. For Maine, this is early. Needless to say, I'm over-the-moon right now. I just hope pests and diseases stay away.

Oh wow, Bea! How exciting!

I will be over the moon, too, if/when I ever see baby toms. Glad to hear yours are early this year. What is normal baby tom time? Maybe mine will catch up?

CC

@CapeCoddess.....I'm usually transplanting tomatoes outside around June 1st or 2nd. This year I transplanted many on May 15th, so its a whole 2 weeks earlier. That goes the same for tomato blossoms and babies. A whole 2 weeks earlier this year than 2011. I'm hoping for a bonanza crop this year if the season holds.

Most wearm-weather crops in zone 5a can be sown or transplanted during this time now. Since my corn hasn't come up at the community garden, I'll be re-sowing more this weekend. The ones at home are starting to grow, they just were a few days later than expected due to all the rain we had. June is usually a busy month for Mainers with gardens.



My garden view today. The towels hanging from the fence posts are handy to cover the eggplants during the night when temps drop below their 60* zone. I'm hoping to get more than 2 eggplants per plant this year.

I've never planted eggplant before, but all four of my plants have small eggplant buds about 1" long on them. I am waiting for the blossoms to open so they can pollinate. Anything special I should know? I am in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Just like to report that I am still on a Slug Hunt every dusk. I pull off maybe 30-50 slugs per night and plunk them in the beer cups. I guess this cold, rainy June has resulted in a banner crop for slugs this year. They particularly love the onions and the potatoes. The straw mulch I put down probably doesn't help either - maybe I should skip that next year.

I've had to replant some peppers too, but I found a great supply of organic big transplants at the local feed store - a friend farmer grows them in his greenhouse for fun and delivers to the feed store. One can get transplant happy, they're so beautiful.

The fog is supposed to clear away but so far so cold and cloudy. And then summer to slap us hard mid-week. Wonder how the garden will fare with all these extremes.

NHGardener wrote:
The fog is supposed to clear away but so far so cold and cloudy. And then summer to slap us hard mid-week. Wonder how the garden will fare with all these extremes.

oh the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, okra, beans, chard, yeah just about everything will love it. I plan on watering at 6 am and at 6 pm. I have also topdressed with compost in anticipation of the hot weather coming along.

I read somewhere that slugs don't like pine needles so I've been putting some on my garden and it may be working. Guess I should get serious about making it thicker in anticipation of the coming summer.

Camp, looks like your heat is coming tomorrow! We may be lucky and hit 70...

CC

PS I think one of my zucchini plants has a female flower about to bloom...FINALLY

CapeCoddess wrote:

Camp, looks like your heat is coming tomorrow! We may be lucky and hit 70...

It's wicked HOT! 93 and 73*F dew point. it's yuck! And the stoopid chipmunks stole my strawbs!

OH! Those Alvins. I have a friend here who also lost her strawberries - for the 2nd year - to chipmunks. She said they'd eat them before they even turned red. My chippies haven't figured out I have them yet, because this is the first year. I've had some red ones, and there are more there than I thought there would be for first year. I have nylon net-ish fencing around my garden, but a chipmunk could easily get under that. The only thing I can think for that would be a bed cover, but my friend mentioned that they dig...

Glad you mentioned watering both morning and evening, camprn. I was out there @ 6:30 a.m. watering.

I read you're not supposed to mulch (with straw, like I did) your "hot weather" veggies because they like the sun on their soil, so I took the straw off those, and figured it was probably an excellent slug breeding ground anyway. I left it on the strawberries, potatoes and peas.

Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter, from what I heard. But then next week, high of 70 again. Shock therapy from Mother Nature.

So are you getting some cats or a bb gun?

We finally hit summer heat, too! I watered last nite and this morning, and top dressed all the veggies with finished compost.

Then at lunch today I watered (possibly boiled, since when I finally touched the hose water is was burning hot) the lettuce boxes and covered them with burlap on bamboo hoops. Should I have covered the beets, carrots and swiss chard, too???

Also, when I pulled out the finished sugar pea plants yesterday, I used them as a mulch on the newly planted tomato babies. Since the toms are growing in mostly unfinished compost I thought the peas would be a good addition of nitrogen. Any thoughts on that anyone?

CC

You really do not need to be covering anything. This little wave of heat above 90 should be gone after tomorrow. The irrigation should be the best solution, but I'm sure the lettuce will fare well with your ministrations.

Now if you were in Texas, I would give a different answer.

Isn't using unfinished compost or fresh cuttings on a plot defeating the purpose? I thought they needed nitrogen to finish composting/deteriorate and that means they'll take it from the soil before the crop can use it.

I don't cover anything but my spinach and lettuce with shade cloth and they are still doing good. I've been covering them for weeks now. The chard and other crops can take the heat being buried in soil.

Romaine lettuce under cheesecloth and tulle.

Always run your hose several seconds to move the hot water out of the hose before watering your garden. It gets mighty hot inside a hose.

quiltbea wrote:Isn't using unfinished compost or fresh cuttings on a plot defeating the purpose? I thought they needed nitrogen to finish composting/deteriorate and that means they'll take it from the soil before the crop can use it.

I don't know the answer, Bea. I've been asking around the forum for days now but haven't received any replies about it except this one of yours.

What I did was use an empty half box, filled it with unfinished compost, put in 3 little beds of MM, laid the 3 tom transplants on each little bed, covered each with finished compost, then topped with more unfinished compost.

Then two days ago I discovered 2 more bags of finished compost down in a trash barrel that I thought was empty, so top dressed all the veggie gardens with that, including the toms. Then topped the toms with the pulled pea plants to add nitrogen and keep in moisture during this heat wave.

So I guess that particular tomato bed is like a lasagna.

Anyone have thoughts on using the unfinished compost for the tomatoes?

CC

@CapeCoddess.....I'm no expert about it but remember from my dad's days. He had the best garden in the neighborhood. He'd use kitchen scraps and veggie wastes and just bury it right in the pathways between the veggie beds. Then by the following year they were composted my Mother Nature so he moved the beds over to the pathways and put in the crops there, putting the new scraps and crop waste in what was the old beds of last year. He said that the scraps and waste had to be aged and deteriorated before being used by the crop beds. Of course, this was in the 1940s and many things have changed since then but I think that scraps still have to be aged before they are any use to plants.

Wow - crop rotation - good for him!

I have 3 new 4x8 beds that I'm not planting till next year (except for garlic in the fall for next year). So I put the chicken manure/shavings from the coop that I just cleaned out (9 wheelbarrows of it) into the bottom of these beds, and I'm planning on just tossing my compost materials from the house in there and mixing it all in until I'm ready to plant, and then put MM on top of it. We'll see how that goes.

http://www.emailajoke.com/images/ver4/funny_pics/general/Hot_outside_corn_cob_popcorn.jpg

I really did laugh out loud!

We are on vacation right now in Chattanooga, TN and it is about the same temperature! My neighbor is watching my garden while I'm away... I'm a nervous wreck! Vacation is nice, but home will be nicer with tomatoes, squash, and beans... oh my! BTW, the neighbor did say she put 2 chipmunks to rest while we've been gone. I put snapping traps in some of my beds to "get the word out" that garden is off limits to diggers!

That's so funny, Camp! I posted it to my Facebook page right away!

Guess what?!?! I've got warm weather VEGGIES!!!

Two baby zucchinis:


Hard to see but at the very center of the pic is a little cuc... on a 5 inch plant!


Sungold toms, but the flowers came with the distressed plants:


I know they are only POTENTIAL veggies, but I'm "over the moon" as Bea would say! Now, if they would only hang on...

CC

I FINALLY have gotten my squash and melons in the garden. Have to plant the okra and artichoke before I head off to camp for the weekend. I should have gotten up at 4:30, this heat is sucking all my energy.

camprn, one of my hives looked like this today.

http://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2009/06/cooling-bee-hive.html

I was wondering why they were out there - thought maybe it was a sign of potential swarming, so I looked it up online. It's more active than the hive next to it, which had only 1/5 the bees outside.

NHG, has your queen been very productive? If there are a lot of bees, and it is REALLY hot, like today, they will come out, some at the entrance to fan the hive to cool it. Do you have a screen bottom? Top entrance? I vent the top of my hive by placing thin shim stock under the top cover or by lifting the front of the top cover and placing it on the edge of the inner cover and the girls will fan at the top of the hive too. this is an ok solution until a dearth and then I usually put the telescoping over back in place to discourage robbing.

I saw my bees washbaording the other night.... not sure why they do that...
I am at camp until Sunday evening, but I will post a photo when I get home.

HERE are some other cooling ideas.

Deleted my last post because I guess you can't edit after a certain amount of time? Just wanted to shorten.

Yes on the screen board, and I don't have the top propped because there are top feeders with loads of syrup in there and I don't want to attract robbers.

Looked in slower hive yesterday and it's doing beautifully. Going to look into the more active hive today - had to add a super already (#3) (mediums) and if this one keeps at it, I'm going to have to split it (next spring I guess).

Did your split take okay, camprn?

I hate squash bugs!

I don't know why my veggies are so s-l-o-w. I'm not near the point of squash bugs. But I did put out the Japanese beetle trap today, after seeing one.

I just had to share my "bee keeping" picture with you local bee keepers! We are nearly done with vacation and I can't wait to get back to my garden! The Children's Discovery museum here in Chattanooga TN, has a large honey bee display with 2 hives, pretend play, and 6 videos about bee keeping. Makes it tempting to want to start.