New England, July 2015

Go.

Succinct.

Banner veggie season this year!  Still picking a cntr of peas every day.  I keep trying to leave the top ones to go to seed thinking they are the last, but then more flowers above them appear.  It's crazy.  They are already hanging down the other side of a 6 ft trellis.


I've decided that Marvel of the Four Seasons is my go to lettuce.  I left one to bolt and seed, and the leaves are just not bitter at all.  Another that had bolted earlier was delicious, especially the core/stem.  I want to start some more and see how they do in the heat of summer. It's the one in the very back corner but this is an old photo and now it's about 2 ft tall:

As AtlantaMarie's avatar says, our weather is bi-polar!  I wore a coat into work this morning, then we had tornado warnings (for the 2nd time this year EVER), then got almost 2 inches of rain in an hour, now there's not a cloud in the sky and it's warm out.  Muggy as heck, too.

19 pears on 2 trees this year...a first!

I'm glad you liked marvel of four seasons. I've gone back and forth between liking it and not. It wasn't super-productive for me and did at times get bitter. Maybe I just expected too much. I'm not an experienced lettuce grower anyway.

Marc Iverson wrote:I'm glad you liked marvel of four seasons.  I've gone back and forth between liking it and not.  It wasn't super-productive for me and did at times get bitter.  Maybe I just expected too much.  I'm not an experienced lettuce grower anyway.

Maybe it's just too dang hot in your area, Marc. I mean, over 100???!!! gadz!

Yeah, it gets well over 100, for weeks at a stretch. I did try growing some in fall too, but the leaves were smallish and the plants didn't seem enthusiastic.

boffer wrote:Succinct.

LOL, yup.

My potatoes are doing pretty good. At least they have nice foliage.



Of course, my brother's first comment was that I need to mow the grass....

Of course, my brother's first comment was that I need to mow the grass....

LOL ...my grass looks the same. So many clovers growing, I won't let my husband mow it so that the bees can get plenty of nectar. 


I'm having a stellar lettuce season. Loads & loads of it. Most of it is under netting, but I put quite a bit until squash plants, broccoli, beans & even tomatoes. The leaves have given them enough sunlight to grow well but they also provide good shading during the days of intense heat. I'm also sowing my seeds indoors where it's cool & then transplanting after a few weeks. My favorites are black seeded simpson, red salad bowl, winter density romaine & bibb. 

camprn what kind of potatoes did you plant?

CAgirlinMA wrote:

Of course, my brother's first comment was that I need to mow the grass....

LOL ...my grass looks the same. So many clovers growing, I won't let my husband mow it so that the bees can get plenty of nectar. 

+1

That's my excuse too for not mowing!

It's hard to imagine that until the mid-twentieth century that a yard full of clover was the epitome of a perfect lawn.  All the grass seed companies put clover seeds in with the grass seeds because "it’s low-growing, evergreen, drought tolerant and manufactures its own fertilizer by storing atmospheric nitrogen on its roots."

The Scott's Company, looking to gain more market share by selling the newly developed selective chemical herbicides, created an advertising campaign to target mothers.  It was an ingenuously simple message: "Moms, clover attracts bees, and you don't want your children to risk getting bee stings, do you?"

And so began the marketing efforts to convince consumers that a perfect lawn was only grass.  With all the environmental issues we're facing now, I wonder if the trend will go full circle, and clover will again be desirable?

I love the look of clover. Our street has a park on it with plenty of clover, and it doesn't detract from the grass a bit. I always found the look of clover somehow charming.

Do I give up on my eggplants, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers?  I have no idea what needs pollinating. They're putting out a lot of pretty flowers, and growing fast, but the flowers are dropping off and there's no sign of any fruit. I'm still very new to gardening.

There is just one hot pepper plant that has fruit on it, and the indeterminate tomatoes and the bush snap beans are growing.

My guess is the cantaloupes don't like how cool it's been; they're still short.

Am I doomed to walk the supermarket aisles?

I hope someone in your area can help. Peppers and eggplants do not need pollinators. Cucumbers and squash, yes. If you don't have any pollinators, then you have to do the job with artist paintbrushes. Squashes are easy because the male and female flowers are big. But, cantaloup and cucumbers are tiny and need a tiny brush. There are some good videos on YouTube on pollinating with brushes.

sanderson wrote:Squashes are easy because the male and female flowers are big.

If they ever appear at the same time!

Well, yes, there's that.

Hi, Point.

Don't despair or give up just yet. Part of the challenge joy of gardening in our zone is realizing that we generally have a very condensed growing season and it often looks like things are stalled when suddenly BOOM! It all explodes in August.

Pollination can be helped out by doing as Sanderson suggested and doing some research on hand-pollination of the particular varieties you have growing.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not all varieties are able to reach maturity in a short, cool season; some tomatoes need 100 days and others 45. Again, do some reading and experimenting and see what grows best in your garden. Don't despair.

You guys left me behind! I was talking to myself in June there.

CC, how old is that pear tree, that you got pears????

point, I'm thinking the first few flowers may not even put out pollen. I'd definitely give those time - the season is still young!

My cantelope (how do you spell that...) seedlings that I bought up and died as soon as I transplanted them - grr. Peppers, I wouldn't base my gardening career on those, I find them super hard to grow. It seems they hang at death's door for a long time until all of a sudden they find their roots and then they grow. Sometimes. Eggplants are late, but they're pretty reliable I find. Cucumbers still need time.

NHGardener wrote:You guys left me behind! I was talking to myself in June there.
The only thing that again isn't growing well, besides the carrots, is the peppers. The plants get spindly and stay small. They grow little blossoms but the pepper would be bigger than the plant. I have to figure out how to grow peppers. The tomato plants look very strong and green, with some blossoms. And the calendula are beautiful.



CC, how old is that pear tree, that you got pears????r

NHG, I fudged with your post, bringing a paragraph from June  into July because I could relate so well to it. My peppers are anemic. There are blossoms on them and I thought the same thing, the peppers will be so much bigger than the plant. But like Molly said, the plants will catch up eventually. Hard to believe but it does happen. What carrots are left after the mourning dove family ate most of the seeds are doing well  but there are only about  6 or 8 of them.  I  have lots of tomatoes forming. Everytime I turn around there are more. I just saw two striped Romans that are 2 inches long already and I hadn't noticed them before even though I'm trimming the suckers daily. 

I need to build a trellis today for the trombicino squash. They look a little pale so I'll compost them also. Everything else is doing very well. The bush beans arevflowering and I'm still eating lettuce.  


The onions and shallots are falling over (rear box in above photo) and the lower leaves of the garlic are dying off. The pole beans are heading for the sky! Daily!

Still picking fat sugar snap peas and I'll be taking a bowl to the BBQ this afternoon.
The cucumbers from direct planted seeds are still itsy bitsy. I'll be weaving a trellis for them over the weekend. I have high hopes! Hahaha

I planted the pear trees last year and didn't get any fruit. There was weird black stuff all over the trees and I think it was due to some kind of worm. So this year in spring I sprayed them with soapy water like I do the roses. And voila, pears! 

I'll post this now so I don't lose it and then edit with a photo or two.

I can relate to some of you.  My peppers are always a disappointment, or most of the time.  I think its because our nites are so cool, in the 40s and 50s this time of year.  As for eggplant, I rarely can get more than 2 fruits on a plant.  Again, eggplant likes their evening temps at least in the 60s so they are difficult for me.
I'm glad that tomatoes aren't so particular.

quiltbea wrote:...eggplant likes their evening temps at least in the 60s so they are difficult for me.
I'm glad that tomatoes aren't so particular.

This is the reason I put the few boxes that typically have peppers, aubergine, and tomatoes in the driveway. At night heat will radiate out of the pavement and give just a little more heat to the plants.

What what a great idea, Camp!

Historically, i've kept the eggplants in pots which then get brought inside (almost every night it seems) but this year I wanted to try growing more than a couple of plants so they're outside in the SFG, living under cloches until they outgrow them or the nights are consistently warmer.  We'll see how it works.

Gahlic

camprn wrote:Gahlic

Very nice! Mine is not quite ready to pull but I love the aroma it gives off. What kind did you plant?

You already pulled your garlic, camprn? 

So the peppers' problem is the temperature? Hmm. Have to think about that.

And CC, wow if you planted the pears last summer! Those must have been mature trees. What kind are they? I planted 2 asian pears but I hear they have more of an apple texture. Next spring I may want to put regular pears in too, if they grow here.

camprn wrote:Gahlic

NICE!  What a great harvest!