2017: First full year of SFGing in ND

Beans look stressed, a little top dress with blood meal can never almost never hurt.  Might just be "being a bean".  What variety are they?

One square is blue lake... um 274? The other is "jade". Gibbs plant one more square of it this weekend, haven't rebuffed which of my two varieties though.

Gonna plant*

Time for pictures!

A. My squashes. From top to bottom: Sunburst Pattypan, black beauty zucchini with a flower about to bloom, delicata sending out some tendrils. Was planning in just having it sprawl since it's in pot. But maybe I should figure out a small trellis. Idk yet




B. Beans are starting to perk up after some blood meal and worm casting


C. Beets are finally taking off some. I noticed some bulbing up when I like around, but the largest is still about the size of a quarter.


D. And my little rockstar: Fairytale eggplant!

Photo comparison of my smallest pepper plant. It was a last minute discount purchase at nursery. It's pretty far behind so in worried about it. But it is finally making some progress.

A. Gypsy pepper on 6/15/17


B. Same pepper from today. 7/11/

And the black beauty zucchini is the first squash with a flower, it appears that the Sunburst Pattypan is not far behind though! And of course the first flowers will all be male. Maybe I'll pick a few and fry them? Hmmm...

No room in the budget for actual shade cloth,  so I looked up how to use weed fabric for shade cloth since i had that on hand. Since weed cloth is so thick,  it blocks too much sun unless you cut some strips out. It might not look the prettiest,  but I think it should give the plants SOME rest from the full intensity of the sun.

Last night and this morning I was busy. I screened about half my compost before I took a break and got "distracted", used the screened homemade compost to top dress the garden. Figured doing that would have a mulch effect for this hot weekend. I also added compost to my 5 empty squares that needed to be recharged before planting and mixed it in well. While doing so to the square on front of my sunsugar tomato, I think I pretty severely damaged it's roots. It had long roots going all the way across the square in front of it! At first so thought it was just left over roots from the lettuce that was there so I kept digging away. Hope it doesn't do too much damage yo the plant. It's my best looking tomato plant right now.

I'll actually plant those empty squares probably tomorrow morning, today is just supposed to be so dang hot. Tomorrow *only* 93.

Wednesday I forgot to mention I put an upside down tomato cage in with my potted delicata. Just something for it to climb. I know it won't be big enough but I'll just let it go down after it reaches the top.

Some pics from the past few days. That is the screened compost, there are plenty of left overs as well.

Nicely done Rob ... and good lookin' compost as well.

Thanks TD! This is my first day off work since putting up the shade cloth. Finally got a chance to see how much shade it is providing in the afternoon. It might be hard to see in the pictures, but I'm happy with the result!



I tried to give more shade to the bed with the brassicas and less to the bed with the hotties, and that seems to be what is happening so mission accomplished!

Finally planted into my empty squares. I had 5 squares. I planted into two of them of of each of my varieties of broccolini. Hoping to water winter cold water to keep the soil cool enough for them to germinate. Hoping for a fall crop there obviously. Also planted 2 more swuare of avalanche white beets. And lastly another square of jade bush beans.

Noticed the first tomatoes to set fruit in nearly 2 weeks. I like to think it's my shade cloth helping.

Lastly, here is a bumble bee that I noticed visiting my male squash flowers. Still no female flowers yet.

My delicata squash in the container is growing nicely. The tendrils have found the tomato cage. For some reason I am finding the growth pattern of this plant fascinating. From the looks of it, it sends out suckers in a similar way cucumbers do. On one topic here there was a video in how to prune cucumbers to a single vine, and I think I could do the same with my delicata that will be growing on the trellis. Although that one is quite far behind at the moment.

At least I'll have a good idea how to prune it if it gets out of control.


Also, here is a pic of my tomatoes.

My poor tomatoes in containers at work all have blossom end rot. I shall be making hard boiled eggs tonight, and save the water to make them. The tomatoes plants shall be water will the egg water and have some crushes egg shells added to the potting mix.

What variety of tomato are those with the ber, Rob? My Gilberties do that but none of my other varieties do it.
CC

Amish paste. I think th3 potting soil at work had some fertilizer in it, as this particular plant grew super fast, and has huge leaves compared to the same variety at home. I think this contributed to the BER.

Garden looks great,, Rob!

Thank you! Just harvest A LOT of kale finally. Yes they are big old leaves, but I taste tested a few and I think they will do just fine a soup. Somewhat bitter, but not any more so than most kale I've had. My lettuce was 5x to 10x pas bitter when I tried it. The lettuce went straight to the compost pile,

Having some damage on my radishes and now my freshly germinated broccolini. No picture today, but it looks from Google searches like flea beetle damage. I have not seen anything near these plants that looks like beetles though, and these plants are under tulle. Granted the tulle isn't very tight in some locations and I know bugs can get in, as there is always a number of box elder bugs in there as well as aphids.

Anyway, symptoms include small holes on broccolini seedlings and radishes. Established broccolini and kale show no signs of similar damage, even though some of the radishes are in the very same square as the larger broccolini plants.

Recommended course of action?

Robbomb116 wrote:Having some damage on my radishes and now my freshly germinated broccolini.  No picture today, but it looks from Google searches like flea beetle damage. I have not seen anything near these plants that looks like beetles though, and these plants are under tulle.  Granted the tulle isn't very tight in some locations and I know bugs can get in, as there is always a number of box elder bugs in there as well as aphids.

Anyway,  symptoms include small holes on broccolini seedlings and radishes.  Established broccolini and kale show no signs of similar damage, even though some of the radishes are in the very same square as the larger broccolini plants.

Recommended course of action?  

Flea beetles are very small ... about 1/8th inch.  They are especially drawn to radishes which can be used as a trap plant if planted away from the main garden. So far, I just let them have their way with my plants but I probably should try to bring them under control.

I've read the damage is usually not fatal to established plants, but I'm worried about my broccolini seedlings ad they truly are babies just planted Saturday morning and germinated Tuesday night (side note, wow that was quick!)

Scorpio Rising wrote:Garden looks great,, Rob!

+1

Rob, I let the green Roma varieties with a bit of BER (blossom end rot) go ahead and ripen. Then, just cut that part off.

They were all still under an inch long and already has BER, so I figured they were a lost cause and it'd be better to let the plant focus on other fruit.

Things seemed to mostly survive the hail last night. One green cherry tomato was knocked off but that seems to be the worst of it.

Time for pics!

A. Tomatoes




B. My two Hungarian wax peppers, who whole having lots off peppers, are really short and haven't seemedto grow much at all. Also is my gypsy pepper plant which is looking WAY healthier, but still really fat behind.



C. Fairy tale eggplant, with its line decent sized fruit. Probably ready to harvest. Hoping it will set more after I harvest this one.


D. Swiss chard, which is twice the size of the eggplant!


E. Beets bulbing up!


F. Leeks, carrots, and parsnips.


G. Delicata squash and black beauty zucchini. The first male flowers are opening on the delicata, and the bc dust female flower is about to open on the zucchini!



H. The cukes and delicata that were seeded behind the peas. Growing faster now, but I think they are quite behind. Not too worried about the cukes, but not sure I'll get much out of this delicata. Luckily I have the other in the container.

First year? WOW! 

countrynaturals wrote:First year? WOW! 

+1