PNW: July Updates

I am SO jealous of your ability to grow cauliflower and artichokes. I didn't even bother with cauliflower this year, and my one artichoke plant gave up the ghost.
Nice job on the corn

So, with those little individual shower caps on the cabbages, does that really work?

Yeppers. The shower caps are shade cloth cut to size. No worms in my cabbage, and Josh can't see how big they are!

I had gotten two heads damaged, so I inspected these real close before I covered them. We've eaten four clean heads already.

My only complaint is that the hearts weren't very tight. Anybody know how to prevent that?

Hi, I posted an introduction on the main board and someone pointed out that there was a PNW forum. Glad to be here.

I live in Corvallis, but I lived for a number of years in the South Kitsap area and raised a garden while we lived there so I'm familiar with the climate around Puget Sound. We get more summer heat here so tomatoes and other solanaceae are easier to grow. (but still not easy)

I have garlic just about ready to harvest, 150 plants of various varieties (my wife thinks I overdid it?). I'm hoping we don't get any more significant rain before it's time to dig it up.

We got a later than normal start on some things this year because we were on vacation for a good part of April. Well late potatoes store better than early.

Here's what we have in the ground right now. Tomatoes, costata romanesco zucchini, tromboncino squash, potatoes, lettuce, eggplant, english peas (grow better in Washington than here), basil, pole beans, cukes, peppers, parsips, magenta spreen lambsquarter. I know I'm forgetting something.

We try to grow high value crops that are expensive in the organic produce section. We also like to grow a few unusual crops, this month we will plant salsify and long black spanish radish for our winter garden. We'll also start red russian kale, upland cress and a fall crop of kweik lettuce.

Six blueberry bushes a patch of raspberries a big old gravenstein apple tree and a partridge in a pear tree. Rabid gardners like most of you.

Bill - I'll post a few pictures soon, thanks

to the forum plainolebil!......look forward to viewing some pictures!

Boffer your garden looks wonderful and congrats on the nice cauliflower harvest!!...if you dont eat your artichokes....i would love to see what they look like when they bloom your 8 squashes ...well....they are HUGE what kind are you growing?....your corn looks to be twice as tall as ours....our oldest corn plants might just hit the knee of our 12 year old daughter.....

gwen....thats so funny about the flamingos.....my best friend had that happen to her and no it was not by me.....though i think it would be fun to do that.....hmmm...

theginpalace....your front yard SFG is wonderful!!....congrats on such a lush garden growing..... its a fine example of growing in SFG box's!

smriti.....i am going to google fenugreek...dont know what that is ....hope your toms recover from the move and give you lots of fruit!....i know how hard it is to prune....i tell my tom's its for their own good

hugs

rose

well i went out sunday feeling sorry for my self .....to find my self cheering up when i took a close look at whats growing even with the lack of sunshine

this is what i found.......

sweet strawberries we are eating at least this much daily



our sugar snap peas are over the top.....the vines are loaded and so sweet!...they are loving this weather!



fava beans are doing well....and very yummy....we couldnt wait and picked them to soon.....some of the beans inside were small.....thats ok...we are learning still and the kids had fun taking them out of the pods!...we ate them in a pasta dish....



our first scapes havent picked them yet....kids call them dragon tails



not sure if you can see them thru the tellie....these are bok choi seed pods we are going to save these seeds.....we have TON's! of pods



our blueberries are turning blue



our re-seeded spinach is coming up...hoping to get some spinach this time....going to move that pot around to shade it....



beans that we may have planted to close together



my daughters flowers



cilantro flowers



so lesson learned.....the garden is alive :drunken:

hugs

rose

Rose, how lovely!!!

FamilyGardening wrote:well i went out sunday feeling sorry for my self .....to find my self cheering up when i took a close look at whats growing even with the lack of sunshine

As I recall, you said in another thread that this is your third year of gardening? If so, I wanted to say that you have an unknown wonderful experience waiting for you when we finally have another warmer than usual summer.

2009 was about 25% warmer than usual, and I could do no wrong! I direct seeded everything except tomatoes, and I had harvests coming out my ears. My wife overplanted an area, and we had tomatoes, cukes, squashes, and beans climbing all over each other creating a jungle that made it difficult to find the veggies to harvest. The jungle got hit by the yard sprinklers everyday, and ventilation had to be poor, but everything thrived with no disease issues. I was able to grow and put up enough corn to last nearly a year. I'm getting goose bumps thinking about how great it was!

Then we got hit with 2010 and 11 which were cooler than average, and I hardly had any warm season crops to can. It was devastating to me. So I started concentrating on cool crops and experimenting with hoop houses, and finally, this year, making a greenhouse so I could have some warm season crops regardless of the weather. This spring, as I was building my greenhouse, I was secretly hoping that just because I had a greenhouse, the joke would be on me, and I wouldn't need it. It hasn't turned out that way unfortunately.

Anyhow, hone your cool weather gardening strategies, and sooner or later, we're going to have a 'good weather for gardening' season that will blow you away!

Bof, how do you attach the shower caps to the cabbages?

They're just laying on top with the corners tucked under a leaf. Haven't lost one to the wind yet. I'll try to get a close up pic later today.

When it comes to work, I'm a minimalist!

boffer wrote:When it comes to work, I'm a minimalist!

Am I the only one who likes our weather here? Remember I was raised in Alaska (too cold), then went to college in Arizona (too hot) before moving here (just right!). I was happy when I heard it raining last night - that meant a day off from hand watering. Plus, we have the best weather for rainbow hunting!

One of my favorite things is when it's sunny and raining at the same time. The raindrops just sparkle!

Before I forget, we had some lovely last posts in our June update thread - I hope you all saw happycamper's before and after pictures! And Lavender Debs has a lot going on getting ready to make room a new greenhouse. I see you're eyeing your sunny front lawn as potential garden space - hopefully TheGinPalace's front yard garden served as some inspiration in that regard. I was reminded of a post by Rowena who shared that she has a front yard "gleaning garden" for passers by to take from. This would be a lovely way to accomplish that. I'm hoping to inspire a neighbor across the street who has full sun in her front yard, and a side yard just like that that is currently unused except for a large lavender that is full of bees - perfect companion for a garden!

boffer, I'm loving your gardens as always. Can't wait to see your pics when we do have one of those above average summers again. I'm interested in yours and Rose's snap peas. Looks like they produce really well and also grow really tall, which would be fun for the kiddos. My Oregon sugar pods top out at about 3' I think. When did you plant those carrots?! Mine are only a couple of inches tall.

Okay, enough stalling - I admit I'm feeling a bit reluctant to post pictures of my tiny garden after all the beauties that have been shared. But here goes! Here's an overall shot. Lots more MM showing than I would have liked at this point in the year. Still trying to get cucumbers. Brandywine has been pruned so much it hardly shows up against the trellis. Four of the five carrots that got their tops munched down grew back, but overall still puny.

I see some of you have been harvesting your garlic - is there some sign I should be looking for to know when it's ready to harvest? You can see here how my lettuces are finally beginning to fill up their squares.

My poor pepper plants look like little trees with all their lower leaves missing. I figure when the weather warms up they'll fill in. But this pepper is hanging on and growing well!

Tiny broccoli's. Oh well. They can still be eaten.

I dug around this onion that bolted and it hadn't begun to bulb so I left it in to see what the flower would look like. It's really grown! I'm glad the others didn't bolt - they seem to be beginning to bulb out now. One in the corner got broken by the hose or something. I cut it down and we'll see if new greens will come out.

That's a really tiny broccoli plant behind that onion square. More shade there than I realized. That must change with the season, because the cauliflower I planted there last year grew fine. Anyway, there's my garden!

gwen your garden looks great

that sure is a tall onion.....are you going to save seeds?.....we have a green onion that we are going to try and save the seeds from...it has a nice flower ball at top...but im not sure what it does next and how to save the seeds....

our sugar snap peas are from ed humes were sown in march.....we grew them last year too...and love the sweet taste of them and they produce really well.....they are a hybrid so we cant save the seeds....we also tried an heirloom type of sugar snap this year....but they look more like a snow pea and even though they taste ok...they are not the same as our ed humes sugar snaps....not the same sweet taste....they were only to get to 4ft tall...but.... they went up and fell over our 5ft fence.... ...hope are neighbor likes peas...... .....they are hanging over our fence on top of our neighbors rose bushes......

hugs

rose

Boffer thanks for the advice.....and everything you said (((hugs)))

*hone your cool weather gardening strategies* YES....YES....YES

i have learned so much from everyone here in our PNW forum and feel blessed to have this forum to come to for help....we are excited to have our first true fall planting with our hoops thank you so much Boffer!!

hugs

rose

boffer wrote:A 2x2 box full of sunchokes. I'm afraid that I'm going to get one giant sunchoke that's 2x2!

Hey boffer, you had to google forking pranks, I had to google sunchokes! Posting my find in case anybody else was wondering:

They sound really yummy. I'm inviting myself to your place when you're ready to harvest so I can taste them and bring home some of the smaller ones to start my own patch.

gwennifer wrote:...Hey boffer, you had to google forking pranks, I had to google sunchokes! Posting my find in case anybody else was wondering:

Yeah, but forking pranks wasn't a Rookie Topic!

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t6834-friday-s-rookie-post-iiisunroots

Anybody is welcome to a few pounds this fall to get your own going. You can replant perpetually, and they grow good in 'dirt' too. This past spring I measured out 2lb, and they fit in a 'if it fits, it ships' old box that I had for $5.50. I went to the P.O. to get the boxes before I said anything on the forum, and they had discontinued that small size box.

Prices on the internet are all over the place. I've seen them for as much as $8 per pound, which is a rip-off in my opinion.

In my defense, I would have had to actually click on that topic to know that sunroots were the same thing as sunchokes...! (I've hardly read any of the Rookie Topics. Shameful, isn't it?) I found your harvest picture. Question: Did you grow these in MM? They seem very clean - no problems with the vermiculite sticking to them like it did your taters?

The skins are tougher than taters. I took a scrub brush to them. The skins are edible though. They sure are ugly looking things, eh?

gwennifer wrote:Am I the only one who likes our weather here? ...
I'm interested in yours and Rose's snap peas. Looks like they produce really well and also grow really tall, which would be fun for the kiddos. My Oregon sugar pods top out at about 3' I think. When did you plant those carrots?! Mine are only a couple of inches tall.

I like any temperature as long as the sky is blue. There'll be no Arizona winters for me in the future-my wife loves our weather too.

The peas in my picture are Super Sugar Snaps from TSC, planted on 3/17. They're only supposed to reach 5 feet, but mine are pushing 7. I made four carrot plantings in the box. The left corner was planted 3/7, and I've harvested some already. The right corner was planted for carrot week, but they're not ready yet.

With the variety you have in your box, it's much more interesting to look at than a box of carrots, or a box of beets. However, I chuckled at your leaf lettuce because that's how I grew them my first year too. Now, I plant at least 20 per square and snip at them pretty hard as they grow. I can get a lot more lettuce out of a square that way. It will be time to harvest your garlic when they turn partially brown. My spring broccoli heads have been small the last three years, and I've been getting big heads in the fall.

I forgot to mention that for the first time I'm getting baseball size Walla Wallas. They are incredibly sweet, and so much better than store bought. But my box of potato onions all turned out very small, and the red and white onions all bolted early. Go figure.

The summer greenhouse.


18 tomato plants; next year will be 30.


No blush yet.




More garbage can lid lettuce; I've got five of these scattered around.


I pruned a secondary vine off a plant, and stuck it in MM. It's not very healthy looking, but it's got two fruit coming.


All the fruit is on one branch, and I'm having trouble keeping it on the rope.


Only one spaghetti squash so far.


I'm losing the battle with aphids on my peppers, but this is the first time I've gotten jalapenos.


More sad looking peppers on the water barrels I'm trying to use for passive heating. Solar passive heating in the PNW? NOT! The tall cylinder in the back is my old water heater I replaced last month, full of water.

Looking GREAT Bof!

Great greenhouse growth Boffer!

GG

PS - Hubby would love your weather too. He likes those temps and gray skies.

Even by PNW standards I am way behind. No shortcake, but the corn is about knee high. There will be peas for dinner. The rest of you PNW'ers amaze me!

the weather is wonderful ......this weekend we transplanted two pepper plants into larger containers....glad we did because it looked as though they were starting to get a bit root bound they each have several green peppers on them.....we are thinking about keeping them out of the green house while we are in this heat wave......we are also wondering if its to hot in there for our brandywine tomato plant......today at 3:30pm it was 119*



our first green pepper






over the weekend we also started some more bean starts.....it might be a bit to late....should have thought about it sooner and had them ready for when we pulled our potatoes ...yes we dug up our taters a couple of days ago.....worried they may have blight...... but after researching more.......i dont think it was blight....i think they just got extra ugly this year the taters are more *new potato* size.....very yummy :drunken: we got over 20 lbs worth!





here is some of the harvest.....we already had two meals from them before taking the pic



our lettuce is waaay out of control and remember the cantalope starts we bought because i was so worried the seedlings we had were to small....well....they are just about the same size now

store bought cantalope starts



our cantalope from seed




our cucumbers, squash and pumpkins all have either flowered or have flower buds

pumpkin from saved seeds of last years



cucumbers



its amazing how much the garden grows with a bit of
sunshine

hugs
rose.....

Lavender Debs wrote:Even by PNW standards I am way behind. No shortcake, but the corn is about knee high. There will be peas for dinner. The rest of you PNW'ers amaze me!

Debs we think you are pretty amazing too!!

:drunken: sooooo jealous of your corn!! :drunken:

hugs
rose

boffer wrote:I planted these seeds 90 days ago. I swear the package said Iceberg Lettuce.

Hey boffer, I almost forgot... I took a picture of iceburg lettuce starts I saw at Home Depot:


They look like a match to me. Have you ever grown a head type lettuce before? When I saw Josh's pics from his Big Stuff thread, it looks like tons of loose leaves grow too. Are you gonna keep letting them grow to see if they form a head? I think there is a Rookie Topic on head lettuces in the works...

No, I haven't grown head lettuce before. I have the room, so I'll let them grow. I tasted some old and new leaves yesterday, and they're getting bitter. These are iceburg lettuce from a flat of starts that I picked up from the nursery that were on closeout. These started heading up when they were quite a bit smaller.


Maybe there's a trick to get them to head up. I look forward to reading the RT.