PNW: August 2013

southern gardener wrote:

gwennifer wrote:Harvested our first few Dragon Tongue bush beans today.  Hmmm....  Everything I read about them here, not once did I see it mentioned that they are FURRY!  

furry?? ours weren't furry!! they were sorta "slick" and yellowish with purple veins  

 Furry?
Did they look sort of like this (still green, it gets yellow as it matures and flattens like a Romano)


Or maybe more like this?

Rose

This is feedback to the posts you made in the 3 sisters thread.  I'm growing corn in boxes for the first time this year to make weeding easier and to be able to cover them with a hoop house.  I'm doing 8 inch boxes full of 5 way compost.  One box is sitting directly on the old garden soil.  Two boxes are sitting on plastic over the old garden soil.

No bottom on the left; plastic bottom on right.  Both boxes got the same seed planted on the same day.


The left box was my corn hut, and the stalks grew a lot faster than in the right, although the right has caught up considerably.  The left box has many stalks with two ears; the right box only a few.  I don't know if that's due to the early extra heat, or the apparent nitrogen deficiency in the right box.  

I'm impatiently waiting for harvest so I can examine the root structures.  Supposedly corn sends out very deep tap roots (like 4 feet).  I doubt the roots punctured the plastic in the right box, but the plants are doing OK, and would certainly look better if I had added some nitrogen at the right time.  The cobs seem to be developing normally, so I'm letting things stand as is.  Harvest will tell about size and flavor.

I've posted pics before of long season corn roots, and I just can't fathom 4 per square, so I've always grown them 1 per square.  This year, I layed out the grid at 9 inches, rather than 12, to see what would happen.  9 inches is 1.75 plants per square.  By making the grid 9 inches rather than planting 2 per 12 inch square, it keeps the stalks in rows that make weeds in the inner box easier to reach, and it made laying out a soaker hose easier too.

For next year, I'll remove the plastic from under the two boxes, and make huts for them.  Other than that, I'm pleased with how the corn is growing in the left box, and don't plan on doing anything other than adding more compost after harvest.

Boffer, super interesting experiment. If I understand you correctly, your soil is straight compost, not the 3 way MM? Please keep us updated! Sounds SORT of like what we're toying with. Good luck!!

Yep Debs, the first picture is the one. I still maintain that they have a furry texture very similar to a peach. They do look sticky like Rose mentioned, so maybe that's all it is.

Had my first homegrown marketmore cucumber and sungold tomatoes in my salad tonight!

southern gardener wrote:Boffer, super interesting experiment. If I understand you correctly, your soil is straight compost, not the 3 way MM? Please keep us updated! Sounds SORT of like what we're toying with. Good luck!!

Yes, I grow my corn in straight compost since it costs next to nothing, and corn is supposed to be a heavy feeder.

 

Raccoon's got into our corn last night!  

the way it looks  ......they sat up on top of the hoops   ....peeled the ears of corn and invited their family and friends  .....we have naked corn cobs still attached to the stalks....  

 
rose

FamilyGardening wrote: 

Raccoon's got into our corn last night!  

the way it looks  ......they sat up on top of the hoops   ....peeled the ears of corn and invited their family and friends  .....we have naked corn cobs still attached to the stalks....  

 
rose

oh RATZ!!!! man, that's got to be frustrating!!  Racoon stew!!  Sorry Rose, that's a tough one  

Ah nooooo...say it ain't so  

Did you have corn growing in both the front and back yards?

southern gardener wrote:

FamilyGardening wrote: 

Raccoon's got into our corn last night!  

the way it looks  ......they sat up on top of the hoops   ....peeled the ears of corn and invited their family and friends  .....we have naked corn cobs still attached to the stalks....  

 
rose

oh RATZ!!!! man, that's got to be frustrating!!  Racoon stew!!  Sorry Rose, that's a tough one  

I can tell you from experience you need to parboil the coon for quite some time to get rid of the gaminess........  

  par boil!

boffer wrote:Ah nooooo...say it ain't so  

Did you have corn growing in both the front and back yards?

yes it was the corn in our Back garden they got to .....we have had such a hard time with these corn beds.....first the direct sown corn didnt germinate well....then rats pulled up the new seedling transplants.....then birds took off the silks (that happend last year as well but the corn did fine) now the coon's .....blah!....we even planted squash and pumpkins in these beds so the coon's would stay out....but...it didnt dawn on us that they would climb up onto the hoops avoiding the pumpkins and squash vines......our second planting of corn is just now starting to shoot up its tassels....so we are hoping to get some corn still....this is the bed where we had to replant because of the rats.....

they havent touched the corn in our SFG three sisters garden.....

we also are leaving our dogs out over night and keeping the garden gates open!.....I was up 4 times last night out into the back garden checking for pesky critters!

happy gardening
rose

camprn wrote:

southern gardener wrote:

FamilyGardening wrote: 

Raccoon's got into our corn last night!  

the way it looks  ......they sat up on top of the hoops   ....peeled the ears of corn and invited their family and friends  .....we have naked corn cobs still attached to the stalks....  

 
rose

oh RATZ!!!! man, that's got to be frustrating!!  Racoon stew!!  Sorry Rose, that's a tough one  

I can tell you from experience you need to parboil the coon for quite some time to get rid of the gaminess........  

  
rose

Well....... the coon's continue to harvest our corn  here is what we found this morning....... 



we do have some good new's and pic's with our three sisters corn in our SFG that we will share in the three sisters thread...... ...coon's so far have kept out of those beds  

still harvesting a gallon size bag of beans every other day.....picked our first Acorn squash and lots more to come.....yippee!..... 

fall sugar snap peas are here and yummy!.....fall cole crops are growing well under the hoops....spinach is starting to grow and we plan on sowing some more lettuce....

powder mildew is here  .....YUCK!

happy gardening
rose

LOL that's just rude! Those raccoons are serious business!

On my end, my corn got to all of a foot or so high and threw out its male seed stalks without anything resembling a tassle underneath it. I planted very late, just because my mother loves sweet corn and dearly wanted me to try, so I did. But nature put me in my place.

Also, it looks like whatever has been attacking my medium-to-large tomatoes (cherries have gone untouched) is back, taking out nearly all of them by gouging huge chunks out of green and near-ripe ones alike. I'm starting to suspect it is not hornworms doing it, though the damage appears identical, but turkeys. Today is not the first time I've seen a turkey feather in the garden.

It's my neighbor's garden, and he's letting me use his beds gratis, so in plenty of ways I sure can't complain. But at this rate, I'd say I'm looking at two-thirds of my tomato harvest going to the birds (or whatever) and my getting a third of it. Not really worth it, though I've loved the tomatoes and we still got a lot of them, since I planted almost 20 plants. But next year, if he lets me use his beds again, I'll use them for something else besides tomatoes. His fencing is just too haphazard, with plenty of gaps near the ground in multiple places.

Next year I'll try to find some tomato space in another neighbor's better-protected garden. Early this month he invited me to leave the self-watering 5-gallon tomato bucket I was putting together, with his help, at his place. He had gotten very curious about the project and wanted to see it develop. Heck, I'd gladly give him half the tomatoes. That would be less than the critters are taking from me! He never gets critters. Too well-fenced. And I'll try to find more space in the almost non-existent sunny space I've got at my place for tomatoes.

FG, Amazing pic of your corn. Dexterous hands and sharp teeth.were needed! Hmmm, sure looks like a raccoon to me.

Marc, I'm so sorry about your corn and tomatoes. Turkeys! That's a new one!

Thanks sanderson! The corn is kinda funny -- I planted too late so didn't expect much, but got even less! The tomato thing, though, has been frustrating as heck.

But you know what? I still learned plenty this year. That's worth more than any particular year's harvest. Next year is very likely to be better because of what I learned about so many things this year.

Marc Iverson wrote:  
But you know what?  I still learned plenty this year.  That's worth more than any particular year's harvest.  Next year is very likely to be better because of what I learned about so many things this year.

Totally with you.  This year was the Great Experiment.  You know what they say,"You learn from your mistakes...".

I just planted 3 sq of corn last week.  Maybe or maybe not a success this year?  But now I know I want to try Silver Queen next year.

I'm already planning next year's adventures too. I looked at seedsavers.org last night and once again, regardless of how much garden space I really have, I want one of everything.

Marc Iverson wrote:I'm already planning next year's adventures too.  I looked at seedsavers.org last night and once again, regardless of how much garden space I really have, I want one of everything.

  

I would say you are officially 'hooked'!  My list for next year is already waaaaaaaay too long and I am plotting how many new boxes I can sneak past Hubby............

GG

I'm plotting to see how many beds/buckets/planters/pots I can grow too. Luckily I have neighbors who are very generous with their space and have given me the go-ahead to drop by and tend the plants I keep with them anytime I feel like it. So maybe next year I can step it up a bit! I already had a lot of space this year(almost all of it borrowed), but a lot of under-performers/critter victims/wilt victims too. So I'm going to go into next year thinking again that if I don't plant more than I need, I probably won't get anywhere near what I need.

Well this past Saturday we got our first frost, and have had a frost every night since.  We have almost gotten all of our garden harvested, I am going to finish up the brussells sprouts 
and carrots tomorrow.  We got a total of 5 cantaloupes from our 2 plants, grown outside this summer, (we were told we wouldn't get any at all).  Our tomatoes gave us about 4 dozen tomatoes, the peas didn't do well this year, I think it got too hot for them.  Broccoli and cauliflower did well. We have lettuce coming out of ears and I only planted 2 square feet of that.  My strawberries are still producing.   

We are getting ready to mulch my strawberries and tiger lilies, any ideas on what we can use besides hay, we have to buy hay by the bale and we end up only using a very small portion of that for the 2 boxes.  

Johanna

Johanna:

Congrats on your cantaloupe!  It is always a joy to successfully grow something people say can't be done! And tomatoes?!  WOW!!!  We are currently in a heatwave, but Fall is definitely in the air here in SD as well.  We are only a few weeks away from our first frost. 

For the mulch, can you use a bit of a straw bale for the mulch and use the rest of it in a compost pile?  Or you could cover the rest of the bale and it may just survive the winter well for use next year? 

GG