Third Year SFG in Canada

Nice, TD!

Starting to see signs of small Melons and Golden Zucchini.

Melon (I think).




Golden Zucchini.




Tomatillo fruit are starting to develop.




Zucchini flower complete with insect.




Nasturtium volunteer found in the strawberry bed behind the rusty chicken wire cage.




Historical plaque at our goldfish pond.

sanderson wrote:

sanderson ... as always, thanks for your encouragement.

Ahh, good! Summer is reaching you at last.
My goodness that melon baby is fuzzy

Yippee! My cucumber plants I have multiple small cukes developing including English, slicing and pickling cukes.

The Canada Crookneck Squash plants continue to grow but it looks like my mega-trellis is going to be overkill for these plants. The biggest plant has not yet made it halfway up the trellis. I hope I don't run out of season before the squash get a chance to develop.

We are back to cool weather today and tomorrow's high is expected to be only 64F. That will not help the heat loving plants. The good thing is that we will be in the 80s on Tuesday and Wednesday.

OMG, TD...that plaque at you pond just cranks me up!!! I had to show it to EVERYBODY.

Congrats on your baby veggies! Hope I'm right behind you.

CC ... I'm glad you and others enjoyed the pond plaque.

I've got a flower on one of my Okra plants. I've put a yellow oval around it in the photo. 




Here is one of the baby English Cukes.




This small, emaciated, insect eaten pepper plant is putting on flowers. Amazing. It's a real fighter.




Overview of the leg of the U-bed that has the mega-trellis. This is mostly Canada Crookneck Squash, one Melon plant, radish in the two middle squares in the near end and carrots (invisible) in the two middle squares in the far end.

This is the lost summer of rain and cool temps. I checked photos of the veggie garden as it was at this time last summer. The sunflowers were several feet high and were in full bloom. One of the acorn squash plants already had a nice sized fruit. This summer is totally different. The largest sunflower plant is only about 18 inches high and no flower. The acorn squash plant is barely visible ... forget about getting any fruit. It looks like I am going to run out of season before a lot of things get a chance to mature. 

Here is hoping that you have a long warm fall.

trolleydriver wrote:This is the lost summer of rain and cool temps. I checked photos of the veggie garden as it was at this time last summer. The sunflowers were several feet high and were in full bloom. One of the acorn squash plants already had a nice sized fruit. This summer is totally different. The largest sunflower plant is only about 18 inches high and no flower. The acorn squash plant is barely visible ... forget about getting any fruit. It looks like I am going to run out of season before a lot of things get a chance to mature. 

My acorn squash isn't doing much better on the east coast here.  My corn is only about 3' tall and has already started to tassel with no silk in sight.   My tomatoes and herbs are going gangbusters, but I'm not sure how my peppers will fair.  I'm hoping that they flower soon.

So here's hoping for more warmth, and a mild winter.

Decided to harvest some garlic. I would like to wait until several leaves at the bottom are turning brown but the top leaves are starting to turn before the bottom ones.

So here is the first square of Russian Red Garlic. The knife is in the picture for size comparison. These were planted 4 per square.



I harvested two more squares one which was planted at about 7 per square and contained a mixture of Red Russian and Music. The photo shows what came out of the three squares. The smaller bulbs in the picture came out of the square that was more densely planted.



Here they are hanging in the garage to cure.

Nice garlic!

Yes, very nice, TD!  I chopped the tops off my garlic....hmmm.  Oh well, it is done.  Same here, just a super late start for things.  No cukes yet, sugar snaps are over, so will get those out tomorrow. Just wet, and a cool long spring set us back....

I have some baby Canada Crookneck Squash on two of my plants.




The two Tomatillo plants (at the trellis - middle and right side) in this bed are getting huge.




This Golden Zucchini is slowly getting bigger.




A Sweet Melon also increasing in size.




This is a baby Cucamelon.




I harvested the remainder of my Garlic squares. They are all out now. This photo has Russian Red on the left and Music on the right. 




The garlic hanging in the messy garage to cure.

I have garlic envy! Not a one survived this year.

Decided to cleanup the SFG square containing the Daikon Radish plants.

Here is what they looked like hanging outside the box and onto the lawn.




we had a couple of the grandkids over at our place for the day so I put them to work taking the pods off the Daikon Radish plants.




And here is what we got.  Still need to go through them and clean out the old and bad ones.




Here is the largest of the currently developing cucumbers. Soon be ready for pickin'.




And finally here is a White Eggplant developing.

OK, so that cuke pic made me laugh.  I was there last week.  

TD, did you leave some of the daikon pods on the plants to ripen for seeds?  Or do you have enough seeds already?

Trader Joe's puts daikon seeds in one of their yummy dry rice mixes.  I love it!  Daikon seeds would probably be good for winter sprouts, too.  Did you try that?

CapeCoddess wrote:OK, so that cuke pic made me laugh.  I was there last week.  

TD, did you leave some of the daikon pods on the plants to ripen for seeds?  Or do you have enough seeds already?

Trader Joe's puts daikon seeds in one of their yummy dry rice mixes.  I love it!  Daikon seeds would probably be good for winter sprouts, too.  Did you try that?

CC ... A couple of winters ago I bought Daikon Radish seeds for sprouting and growing microgreens indoors.  Then in the Spring I used some of the seeds in one square of the SFG.  They did not produce radish roots but I did get a ton of seed pods. Then this Spring the plants came back as volunteers and again I allowed them to bolt and produce pods. I have a ton of the original microgreens seeds so those pods that were picked today will be eaten or tossed.  I'll be looking for recipes on the web. 

Is this the same English cucumber you took a photo of on July 23?

sanderson wrote:Is this the same English cucumber you took a photo of on July 23?

Nope. The English ones have smoothish skin whereas this one has bumps. It's a slicing cuke. Looks like I am about to get a whole bunch of cukes and I still have several jars full of them that I canned last year. 

The photo below shows one of my English Cukes (red oval) next to one of my Slicing Cukes (blue oval).

My very first ever Okra!!! (I think). I was not sure they would grow in my climate but the recent heat and reduced rainfall (compared to the first half of the summer) have caused these heat lovers to get moving. This is in an Old Style SFG bed.




This Dreadlocks Amaranth plant is flowering. Taken forever. This is in one of Mrs TD's flower beds.




The Tomatillo plants in this Old Style SFG bed are going crazy.  Lots of fruit.  The tallest of the two plants is 6 feet high. There are also tomato plants (on the left of the trellis) as well as multiplier onions, etc. in this bed that was started this year.




Sweet Million Cherry Tomato is ripening. I doubt that this one will make it to the house once I pick it.




This Sweet Mellon fruit is plumping up.




The Snow and Sugar Snap Peas are finished for this year. The plants grew way above the top of the trellis until they started to bend over from the weight. I enjoyed eating the peas, most of which did not make it to the house. I took out the plants this afternoon.  There is a Cucamelon plant and a Sakatas Sweet Melon growing up the trellis. They will have a ton of room now that the peas are gone.




As mentioned on another thread, my curiosity got the better of me and I dug around one of the Yukon Gold Potato plants growing in the leftovers of a compost bin.  Here is what I found ... about one and half pounds of potatoes.

TD, The English cucumber looks similar to what we call an Armenian cucumber. I can't believe you have a melon, okra, and potatoes, in addition to the usual tomatoes and cucumbers. You are having a good 2017 summer garden.

I like the looks of the Okra flowers.









Some Banana Peppers making an appearance.

I filled in a few empty squares today by sowing seeds for the following:

• Beans - Golden Wax
  
• Beats - Golden
  
• Carrots - Danvers Half Long
  
• Carrots - Red Core Chantenay
  
• Dill
  
• Greens - Mizuna Red Streak
  
• Kale - Mix
  
• Lettuce - Butter King
  
• Onion - Bunching
  
• Peas - Sugar Snap
  
• Spinach - Long Standing Bloomsdale
  

I have no idea if any of this stuff will grow or reach any level of maturity before the first frost hits in about two months.

I've also got seedlings of Pak Choi, Carrots (Rainbow, Danvers and Chantenay) and Radish (Red Globe and White Icicle). These were started from seeds sown a few days ago.