My Garden Adventure, 2012

The saga of the purple broccoli...

When I saw them again they were carrying in SFG boxes! They had found the forum and decided to convert their garden.


They have the coolest self-watering system. I hope they join the forum so they can explain it.


Anyway, they have transplanted it into a box. They have laid down their weed block, filled their boxes, have weed block on top to protect and have marked off their grid.

As for my cole crop seeds NONE of them have popped. Not a one! Not the purple Brussels spouts, pixie cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, broccoli rabe, kohl rabi...nuthin'! Was it the heat (85*)? Was it the cold that followed (50*)? They stayed damp.

Someone gave me a cauliflower start. I had it at home in it's little 6pak container. It was being eaten by a super tiny cabbage worm that ate only it, and not the Brussels sprouts starts next to them (I had bought a box 6, planted one, reserved the rest). With hesitation I planted this eaten cauli in the garden, and it is doing better. No more attacks! I guess it shows that bugs attack weak plants.

The existing coles are getting bigger but not doing much else. The broccoli put off side shoots but they are getting ready to flower. Now the question is: are they pereniels or annuals? Should I keep the box for coles or convert it for summer growth? At least the cabbage has a head!


So much to learn.

wow what incredibly healthy broccoli and ?? cabbage, they are HUGE

@GWN, maybe it's the zoom lens! They are about a foot tall. But there's nothing to eat (except for the 3" cabbage head)! From the end it's Brussels Sprouts, broccoli, cabbage and (not shown) cauliflower.

AvaDGardner wrote:
Then today, as the DH was viewing the garden & plots, I saw this wiggling toward my baby asparagus:



What is it? It's about 1.5" long on a tiny lettuce leaf. Do I need to be concerned about 'brothers & sisters'? Do I need to take action? It is an organic garden.

Ava

I believe that larvae was a harmless crane fly. You know...those giant looking mosquito-looking things that pop up in the early spring?



I brought home some lettuce a few days ago, and while cleaning it for salad it we found another larvae. We think it was an armyworm. They come is so many colors! No damage to the plants though (image from wikipedia.org).


DD found ladybug eggs too, but didn't know what they were, and having just found the army worm, thought they were also bad, so she destroyed them. (from Wikipedia). Poor ladybugs (image from PrayingMantis.org)!


It's too weird to think of them as caviar! They hatch in a few days. Next time they'll go out by roses. Although so far I've only had aphids on one bud for a few days and I've had cut roses to enjoy since mid-February. VERY UNUSUAL, and at least a month early for my roses. I'm going to the Rose Society meeting this week to compare notes with other growers.

It sounds so hoity-toity!

Praise God for radishes! Such a fast grower, it really makes a new garden feel productive.

Here's my first harvest - White Icicle Radishes. Planted from seeds March 1, 2012.



Lessons learned:

1) although all seeds go in the ground together, they do not all germinate at the same time.

2) although the package says harvest in 28 days, it is only a guide. Only those on the left are MAYBE close to harvest size, and they're small.

3) temperature is everthing. Plants are definitely more productive in warmer weather, even if they are a 'cool' crop.

4) leaves are a great indicator to root size. At least 5 on the left look like they need to be replanted! For a radish, the baby ones have more of a diacon flavor.

Growing & learning...

LOL, I replanted the tiny radishes. Several people asked what I was planting now, and laughed when I told them because they weren't big enough...we'll see what happens. Maybe they'll recover, maybe not.

SOMETHING is coming up in the center position where I planted bell peppers over a month ago. They are too young to identify!

The onions:

AvaDGardner wrote:

When I planted them, they looked like that.

Now they look like this:

These are what sweet onions are supposed to look like...[image from wikipedia]


Isn't what I have too close together for them to bulb? Do I need to separate them? This is seems like a situation when Mel would say to take your scissors and snip, except they are getting kind big now.

Separate, or cut?

AvaDGardner wrote:And then there are the mystery plants. This one comes up wild in the first box we finished. I've transplanted 5 so far. Are these lettuce...or something else? They may not all be the same thing...

Now that they look like this,
I'm resigned to the fact that I've transplanted dandelions!

They're coming out tomorrow. Lettuce seeds (or onion transplants?) will be in their place!

Ava, lift the little clumps of onions out, separate them and replant the individual seedlings. They look quite healthy and should do fine.

Ava,

Why not transplant the dandelions into their own space or pot? Then one day you can add them to your salad greens.

AvaDGardner wrote:LOL, I replanted the tiny radishes. Several people asked what I was planting now, and laughed when I told them because they weren't big enough...we'll see what happens. Maybe they'll recover, maybe not.

The radishes responded well to the replanting.


Then the greens went into a dead faint. I gave them all buzz cuts (removed all the wilted greens). They are now growing new greens and doing well.



As you can see in the photos, the Brandywine sprouted in the passing of time. It's so cute, I couldn't help but make a pun of it..

AvaDGardner wrote:The onions:

AvaDGardner wrote:

When I planted them, they looked like that.

Thanks to the feedback from CampRN and Curio, they now look like this, and take up 8' plus the corners of a square. 6 plants became 25 plants!

AvaDGardner wrote:

AvaDGardner wrote:And then there are the mystery plants. This one comes up wild in the first box we finished. I've transplanted 5 so far.

Now that they look like this,
I'm resigned to the fact that I've transplanted dandelions!

They're coming out tomorrow. Lettuce seeds (or onion transplants?) will be in their place!

donnainzone10 wrote:Ava,

Why not transplant the dandelions into their own space or pot? Then one day you can add them to your salad greens.

We tried some, today even. With the rains we had several leafy, non-flowered dandilions. We found them rather flavorless, so into the city compost they go.

Now the area is planted with Sea of Red lettuce.


Even though yesterday's storms were more electic and gave more water, there was less damage to the garden. My bush peas were knocked over, but they'll stand back up. All my lettuces, arugula and spinach need a hair cut. And the tree mulch all around the garden is very springy!


Except for succession planting, every square is planted! Even 4 rows of Nantes for the Carrot Week 2012. Boxes seeded 3/1 finally popped around 4/10, because I think I planted them too deep. I'm trying to be more careful. Poking my finger in the medium is such fun!


One tomato, the Bell peppers, Portugese kale, and 3 varieties of bush and pole beans are popping. 3 sisters are coming together (the squash is 4" high and to the left of the corn.)



First planted celery is about 9" tall! You can see seedling covers on the left. In the front right of the picture, you can see the tops of younger/shorter celery.




There are a few oddities...of 12 soya seeds, one has germinated. Will have to call Ferry-Morris on Monday.



Of 12 or more lentil seeds, one has responded. I've got more seeds - maybe I'll do a germination test.




The other big excitement was BIG GREEN CABBAGE WORMS! So soft. So SQUISHY. Such a delightful color of green ooze.

I first found several worms & eggs on my Brussels sprout, and Thursday I found one tiny worm on the lowest leaf of my broccoli. There is a white cabbage moth that flits around constantly. I opted for white bread clips and with a few days of use, the Brussels sprout has been worm free. I caught a fat cabbage worm running away from the lettuce (SQUISH!), and today I saw the moth light on a strawberry then the arugula. They seem rather indiscriminate to be called a 'cabbage worm!'

The trick is the moth thinks another moth is already on the plant/leaf, and seeks another area. Territorial are they! The magic to the trick is to use White Bread Clips (which are also used on bags of potatoes). Gently open the clip, slide in the leaf, and release the clip (used clips are easier to work with!).

I'll keep you posted on this one. So far, I'm stoked!


Thanks for your interest in my garden adventure!

Ava

Wow Ava, everything is looking great from my standpoint! I'm intrigued by the way you've marked off your soil...it's like a ladder with long narrow spaces on either side and then some squares running down the center...instead of the traditional squares. How did you come up with that arrangement? It looks like you're planting mostly salad greens and onions outside the squares, is that right?

givvmistamps wrote:Wow Ava, everything is looking great from my standpoint! I'm intrigued by the way you've marked off your soil...it's like a ladder with long narrow spaces on either side and then some squares running down the center...instead of the traditional squares. How did you come up with that arrangement? It looks like you're planting mostly salad greens and onions outside the squares, is that right?

Hi! Yes, my grid is like a ladder. It's made from lath, that thin wood behind real plaster walls. I use the middle bar to make a visual division on the thin side-planting areas.

Yes, in the thin side areas I'm planting small things like onions, lettuce, spinach, arugula, carrots, (groomed) herbs, flowers, etc. The 'main crop' is in the middle, the side bars are companion plants. The northern edge of the box especially, so they can be shaded. The southern edge has things like onions, bush beans, bush peas, shallots, etc.

I came up with it as the only solution to surround the main crop with companion plants and provide shade for the delicate ones.

One of these days I'll figure out how to post a grid. I have it in Excel. I tossed my first plan (WAY over planted), have re-arranged the second one then come back to the original 2nd version...one of these days!

Thanks GMS (GiveMeGreen is so garden-oriented!)

Time for an update.

I called the soy bean seed company. A new pack is on the way. Go Ferry Morris!

Tonight I bought a used Rodale Press book on Organic Gardening for $0.50! It's from 1969. No author's name on the cover, and it's written like a personal journal. I also purchased a Burpee seed cataloge for a quarter...their Silver Jubilee edition (2001). They will make fun reading.

My family saw the garden tonight. My DH squealed when he saw the corn. He couldn't get over that it's there (and about 9" tall). He kept saying "LOOK AT THAT CORN! CORN!!!" It was pretty funny. He was impressed how much the garden had changed (greened up) in a few weeks (thanks to warmer weather!).

I'm wondering if planting other things with the strawberries was a mistake. The peas are about a foot tall, and hiding the strawberries.



My broccoli keeps flowering. I keep cutting it, and putting it into salads. Gotta make lemonade! All my neighbors have heads, so maybe its the variety plant I chose. The cauli hasn't headed, and except for size, no activity from the Brussels sprouts, either. (No worms however...the plastic tabs are working!)




The heavy rains last weekend caused my cabbage head to split. Here's my 5"Wx7"T head before I took it home.




I'm blanching a head of celery for harvest in approximately 2 weeks. I reseeded the celery (the plastic hothouse to the right), and I think the seedlings are showing!



Salad greens are all doing well. Some seedling are showing. I'm already harvesting from the spinach and arugula plants.



Then there is the monarch moth:



Nearly everything has popped: eggplant, Italian kale, Portugese kale, brandywine tom, green zebra tom, mini orange bomb tom (that's my name for them), bell peppers, kohlrabi, leeks, Asian melon, carrots, celery, pole beans, bush beans bush peas, spinach, and lettuce. A few haven't popped yet...some of the seeds already mentioned, Broccoli Raab, mini yellow pear tom, cherry tom, daisys and cosmos. The replanted beets and radishes are doing well (we ate two of the radishes tonight in the salad). The first round of carrots (long imperators) are in sprout:


It cracks me up how the same plants of a variety on the west side of the garden are larger (even if just a bit!) than the ones directly east. Look at the carrot sprouts!

As for my patio, the latice lath cover is up, and now I see I have partial sun/dappled shade in that area. I've planted cantaloupe in a mound, and am going to plant the rest in salad greens. We like our greens really young, and I'm harvesting 'young adults with long necks' from the plot. Having them here will make it easier to pick for dinner, too.

I do wish I could figure out a way to make a salad table there (without rotting legs!), but I'll just have to get my stretching and bending exercises in. Go glutes!

I haven't done anything with herbs...except transplant some basil I bought. The more I read about their spreading, the more I ponder planting seeds!

Overall, 90% of what I harvest now is from starter plants planted in mid-February. The only thing with flower are the flowers and the broccoli. Certain things should be in flower (peas) or with heads (cauli and Brussels and broccoli). The rest of it is all very young and less than 2" tall. But hey...the less plastic hothouses are needed, the greener it is!

Today we spent 5 hours at the garden, as it was monthly community clean-up day.

There were only 4 of us today...usually there are 15+. Our project was remove everything but what was native in a planting strip that runs the length of the dividing fence. (Our garden is two side-by-side properties where they removed the houses).

I rescued for replanting a number of geraniums, nasturtiums, a corn, a beet, and some strawberries. I gave the veggies to another gardner for their plot who has a lot of space.

Then we came to our beloved poppies. How can you remove our native poppies! We protested, but the coordinator wouldn't budge. With a weedwacker in hand, he was pretty formidable!

So my DD staged the Protect the Poppy Sit In. Here she is, looking Shasha-fierce. (I recommend you enlarge to see her expression...it's priceless!)




In the end, he won. But before he wacked, we dug up what we could. I gave one away to another gardener who came to help, and have a big plant of them to take to the nursing home (along with the geraniums and nasturtiums).

They are soaking in water in my truck right now...waiting for Monday!


The pole behind her is the dividing line of the fence. They are removing what she is leaning against so the left side gardners can access their plots and the trash cans more easily (about 4' of fence). The poppies were mostly rooted on the other side, and they'll reseed (right???).

We pulled all the weeds (lots of cheeseweed, crab grass and dandelions), updated the soaker hose, laid down heavy black pastic as weed block around 3 existing plants, dug in 3 more native flowering sage through the plastic, then covered the plastic in red bark mulch. It looks great!

Ava

AvaDGardner wrote:Today we spent 5 hours at the garden, as it was monthly community clean-up day.

Our project was remove everything but what was native

Then we came to our beloved poppies. How can you remove our native poppies! We protested, but the coordinator wouldn't budge. With a weedwacker in hand, he was pretty formidable!

In the end, he won.

Ava

But the California poppies ARE native. What was that about? What a dufus.

Chopper wrote:

AvaDGardner wrote:Today we spent 5 hours at the garden, as it was monthly community clean-up day.

Our project was remove everything but what was native

Then we came to our beloved poppies. How can you remove our native poppies! We protested, but the coordinator wouldn't budge. With a weedwacker in hand, he was pretty formidable!

In the end, he won.

Ava

But the California poppies ARE native. What was that about? What a dufus.

So glad to see you, Chopper!

Yeah, they are native. But they had to come out because the fence is coming out behind her. Now...we didn't remove the poppies on the other side...and the trash cans go right up to their edge. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Hey...the nursing home will get some poppies!

ava your garden looks great!!

thanks for sharing!!!

love the stories too!

hugs

rose....who is sooo tired tonight.....long day...but worth it to be in the garden with sunshine

Ah Rose...you bless me so.

Have a great weekend.

Ava

I spent a few hours in the misty garden this morning, picking out weeds and harvesting greens. It was an interesting time to understand how the garden is growing, what is working, and what is not.

For instance: growing things UNDER the shadow of the cole crops is not working. The shade is too much and the plants are stunted. Maybe when we get our heat they will do better. Yet they've been growing a bit but not very big. The coles are all very large, but nothing to eat. The broccoli keeps flowering, the cabbage head was removed when it split, and nothing but size from the cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.

I've looked around the plots, and no one has heads on the cauliflower. One plant is 4' tall! Maybe it's a SoCal thing?

Likewise, the lettuces that are now under the HUGE leaves of my squash plant are suddenly stunted. They aren't bolting, they've just sort of stopped.

Speaking of the squash, I can't get over how huge the leaves are. I think they are nearly two hand-spands wide. EACH of them! This is a cocozelle squash...I have a feeling it will be way too large for me!



Arugula seems to grow as fast as radishes. This one is already bolting:


My bush peas haven't stood up yet since the rain we had over the past weeks. They are interplanted with the strawberries. They create too much cover for the berries, and attract snails. No one to be repeated! I used cord and stakes to stand them up, which will bring more air to the berries. Under the cover of darkness some roly polys had quite a feast! That berry is as big as my thumb and over half was smoothly eaten away!


Other than that, everything is just growing along.

On the home front, I planted the 14sf I have on the patio. With the pergola up, it's a partial shade bed. I planted cantaloupe, some strawberries I rescued from a project at the community garden (tiny little leaves!) and then used most of it for salad greens (red & green lettuces, arugula, & spinach). There are little green specks of some first leaves popping through.

This pic shows some of the rescued berries, and one 'nuthin but a stub' of a crown that is growing leaves. Strawberries seem so indestructible! The "tiny leafed berries" are on the far right of the picture.

I have 4 types of strawberries on my patio: Sequioa, Quinalt, Sea Breeze and 'Berries Galore' (found it at Rite Aid). I can't wait for a taste test!

I found several herbs at low prices and now have 5 of them on my gardening stand. I need to get them into the ground...as soon I figure out the 'sprawlers.' I am ready for my Mint Julip this weekend - Saturday is Derby Day!

Lessons I've learned:

* Not all seeds take. My 16 Nantes are only 10 viable plants...even in the spots where I put 2-3 seeds for creative carrots!


* Some seeds are stubborn. Or it's the spot. I have 2 squares that have yet to grow seeds (but they grow weeds!). And my celery seeds seem to be non-responsive.

* It's just seeds. And time. Which is harder to lose with succession planting!

* If you are going to use herbs for companion plants, start the seeds earlier than the plant you want to protect, or buy starts! Timing is everything.

* Sometimes you get a seedling, and a bug eats it. One green zebra tomato. One roly poly. No more seedling! MORE SEEDS PLEASE!

It is time to reseed. Several plants are bolting or showing they are fully matured. Or haven't shown themselves yet. (or they were consumed by the fittest.)

Ava

Whew! It's funny to read about 'being in the misty garden' on May 1, and seeing that I was wearing a jacket. We had our typical 'May Grey' and there wasn't much watering to do. But how things grew! For two weeks, every thing got BIG!

The corn shot up about 6" inches every week.

Flowers began around Memorial Day,

and this week silks and stalks (and more flowers)! Whoo Hoo!
And now the plants are taller than me.

The cocozelle squash exploded. The squash leaves went from a 'two hand span" to 30"x24". Now the lettuces and beets are complete covered by the squash. We went from babies

to giants in days.

I FINALLY got a cauliflower head. The leaves are HUGE! This head is 6.5" across.


The cauli grew about 1/2" a day. When I harvested it, it was bigger than a skull, 8"x9" and weighed 3 pounds! It had an odd stock...the inside was hollow! There were a lot of earwigs in the head. (those squash are very long, too)

A new head has started...how cool that it develops another head! The new one is about 4" right now. It has some little leaves poking through it. It might flower (I'll keep those seeds as it was a starter plant!).

The cabbage is developing side heads too. It has 5 or 6 started. I don't know if it will get too hot for them or not. What can a cabbage do in 30 days?

The strawberries are getting bigger...here's the biggest one yet!

Mid-month we put the trellis in

and supports for the peas. The snap peas have been delicious..

In two weeks the pole beans were intertwined on the top of the trellis. What's fun about this them...all the beans were planted the same time and are the same type. The beans closest to you are reaching the trellis, the ones in the middle are not. But the ones in the middle are producing beans, and the ones closest to you are not! So weird.

I've been picking carrots. Long Imperators were my first seeds planted, and they were ready. On a whim I pulled a few at 50 days. They were 9" long!

Then came a silly shape (the youngins made a video with this one)

and today, I brought in the rest - all silly!

I've also been harvesting the celery. Most of them bolted (all were starter plants). I guess I lost track of their 'due date.' The roots are huge, and disrupted my grid. I planted them 4 per square and the roots for one could easily fill a square. And bolted celery doesn't give you much to eat!


The highlight of the month was discovering my own personal spider...an itsy bitsy thing! Its about the size of a mole or a blemish. I'm glad the youngins saw it crawling about my hair!

My FAVORITE THING about this season - the Jacaronda trees! So lovely and if there are enough of them, it is like a fairy land. Messy, I know. But still. Beautiful.

Questions and lessons learned this month:

1) I MUST revise my boxes. The explosion of growth (especially from the squash) has made it difficult to move between the boxes (there is about 7" between each). Now the question is WHEN? In August before fall planting? In December, when winter begins?

2) Mel's Mix is INCREDIBLE! One of my neighbors followed my advice and got the book and is following it to the T. The mix is amazing...so light and spongy, so continously holding moisture. (Does that add to roly poly and earwigs infestations?)

3) "Bush" peas just means 'not as tall as' pole peas. They still need support! They still tendril and want to climb!

4) Our cool overcast May & June means powdery mildew is a strong possibility and prevention is the best cure. I had 6 different types of peas. 3 were snap pods, and 3 were shelling. In 3 days the shelling peas developed such a bad case of powdery mildew that the plants were mushy! I pulled them out, quarantined everything (I didn't know what it was) and was able to harvest only a half pound of peas. I was looking forward to more, but guess I should be glad I was able to harvest that much! Next year...Neem Oil as of May 1!

The snap peas have been great, although the flowering appears to have stopped. I'm debating on getting a heat resistent variety - I love peas!

5) It's 'snooze you lose' when it comes to trellis material you find online early in the season vs what is available when you need it! The fencing I found at HD a few months ago isn't carried any more. We were resourceful and made something that worked with materials that were available.

6) I don't think 3 sisters planting is working for me. At least not with cocozelle squash. The leaves are prickly and irritate my skin. Not to mention huge...c'mon...36" x 24?" They cover up everything, and I'm losing growing space. And the squash are monsters! I use 5-6 zuchs for a side dish. I need only 2 of these. There's got to be a smaller squash out there. I have seeds for delicata, but I think they will be huge, too.

7) I don't understand how celery grows. I need to learn how to grow it from seeds (none of them germinated), so I can stagger the harvesting better. We don't eat it THAT often, and now I have an entire veggie drawer full of it.

8] Carrots...why are some perfectly shaped and others silly? AND...I need better planning for 'water happy' plants with dryer plants. Next time, celery and carrots are being planted together! And near the corn!

9) Beets - I LOVE THEM! Having only been exposed to the canned variety, I had no idea how good they are. I'm so glad they transplants I found grew, and I can't wait to plant more when the cool weather returns.

10) Reading seed information, I'm developing a new appreciation for beans. I think of them only as "green" but there are so much more. I'm enjoying my wax beans...another new thing for me. But pole beans and tomatoes together because they need a trellis is not working. The beans are blocking the light to the tomatoes!

11) The biggest lesson: plants and seeds sold locally are not always best for our area...which is so disappointing! I've spent a few days seeking out "heat tolerant" veggies and varieties, because I want to grow more than tomatoes and squash!

Like warm season greens...what you can put in a salad bowl and eat without turning on the stove or oven...amaranth? malabar spinach? It makes me wonder where they grow the salad greens sold in the stores!

If you have some ideas, post away!

Ava

Malibar spinach is a good green for the heat, plant away! As for the carrots it looks to me that they were not thinned out and they grew together then you get some silly looking carrots! I am jealous of your celery though, that was on my list this year and I failed on the seed starts!

cheyannarach wrote:Malibar spinach is a good green for the heat, plant away! As for the carrots it looks to me that they were not thinned out and they grew together then you get some silly looking carrots! I am jealous of your celery though, that was on my list this year and I failed on the seed starts!

Cheyanne - have you thought about regrowing celery from the bunch you buy at the market?
Just cut off about 1 1/2" at the root end and plant it. New celery will grow from it. You can them harvest what you need and let it regrow. Same for onions.
How to re-grow celery.
If you Google "re-grow celery", there are many sites that tell how.
Lee

My celery seeds didn't respond at all...maybe the condtions weren't right. I was glad I found celery starts at OSH (the only one left), yet I've been disappointed overall. It's a lot of green with little to eat! My drawer is full because we use all of the plant in smoothies and such. I'll be trying from seeds or 'regrow' method come fall.

The carrots didn't need thinning...they were spaced far enough apart an it was one seed per hole, essentially. If you go back in the thread, you'll see where my DD pulled all the few-day-old seedlings, thinking they were grass (weeds), then immediately replanted them. Could have it been from the replanting? But several were perfect looking.

Ava

WOW! How time flies!

I'm 100 days into a 70 day growth cycle for carrot week. It's close to 90 outside, so I'll pick them in the morning! So much for counting dates in my head! Some are showing nice shoulders.




Come Jul 1 of every year, my focus in my son's birthday, presents to wrap and the cake to bake. Will it be so hot it slides? Or will the weather be cool? Blessings of blessings, we had gluten-free pizza in a pizza parlor. Organic and locally farmed toppings. Boy, was it good. Go ZPizza!

The end of June one of my neighbors taught me how to tell my corn was done, and I harvested 8 ears. Brown silks with green near the tip means it's ready! Not bad for 2 seeds! Each seed put up 4 stalks, and each stalk had 2 ears.



I also learned that each silk is attached to a kernel, and each silk needs to be pollinated! If you plant your ears close (4 per SF) it should take care of itself. My book said 1 per SF, and it had lots of room but pollination was sporadic. The ear I pollinated was the most fleshed out. The rest were about half pollinated. Good to know! All over the garden the ears are ready. I'm ready to plant some more.

In the ears were army/cut worms. Mostly in the silks. I don't know how to avoid them. I also found the African Bagrada bug. They didn't do any damage, but they are in a lot of places, and mating, as Linda's picture shows.

Three sisters: the beans near them are KY Wonder. The are long and thin, and rather flat on flavor. Not really growing on the corn either. Not planning to replant those!
The squash (cocozelle) are HUGE. Not planning to replant those! Not sure if I'll grow a squash at all in a SF garden.

I found Territorial's seeds garden planter and noticed they give it 3 SF a space! Mine is currently growing though the asparagus fern. I'm thinking of cutting it back. It's only the new growth that is putting out fruit.

Speaking of BEANS...the blue lakes are quite prolific and delicious. A definite 'replant' for this one! The yellow wax beans are developing yellow leaves. Not sure if it is because the are determinate, or not (I don't know if they are).

Tomatoes: small plants, all from seeds, some sets started. They are maybe 4-5 feet tall. I've been single vining, so they aren't taking over.

Bell Peppers: I landed on one removing a non-pollinated corn cob growing near the dirt line. When it let go I went flying (to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction!). I wish it was recorded, it would have made a great blooper reel! Anyway, I took off the the top of one plant and the only pepper I had. Since then the plant has recovered (no signs of damage, and it has a new top), and the other peppers have fruit.

Beets, round 2: from my knowledgeable corn neighbor, who was thinning his beets! they are all doing well.

Onions: all very ready. This pic was around the first of the month. We've had a few, and they are delicious. Sweet Walla Wallas. I love how onions, beets and carrots push up when they are done.



Strawberries: getting very tall and bushy. Putting off babies. Not too much fruit right now, but lots of flowers. I'm still working on identifying which plant is which (they were given to me). Taste testing of course. And DH wonders why we aren't eating any homegrown berries. MMMWWWA-A-A-A!

Snap peas: finally pulled them out this week. All green had left the plants. Even the little shoots that were coming up and putting off pods stopped. So yummy! Can't wait to replant them!

Coles: they are holding form. The Italian and Portuguese kale a about 2' tall and ready to bring in some leaves. The broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts are holding form (although I could cut Bsprouts off the plant).

Soybean: the one plant has been producing a "gardener's share" of edamame. My evening treat when available!

Japanese cucumber: one of my Korean neighbors gave me her fruit, and it was so incredibly good. I bought a plant and it's growing tall right now. Until then, we weren't a cuke eating family!

Lettuces/Spinach/Arugula: the shaded home footage is coming along. The plants are about 4" tall and identifiable. I had a go round (almost a month!) with earwigs eating my seedlings. Yea Sluggo Plus! I seeded "round 2" the other day.

Herbs: a world unto their own. Must learn more. Not being successful. All plants purchased have failed to do more than...fail! Only curly parsley looks like it should. They have so many particular needs. Since we love Caprese, I'm glad the basil plants to buy are bigger and cheaper as the summer rolls on! The two I bought yesterday are 3x the size of the one I bought months ago.

Looking Forward:
* I can't wait to revise my garden! Will it be the end of summer? end of fall? end of year? When will the boxes be the most empty? When will it have the least impact? Oh, for 2 10' boxes with at least a foot between! Bea's words ring in my ears!

* I will learn water needs of plants and inter-plant accordingly. Basil and tomatoes. Beans and corn. {Sigh}

* I will take better care of seeds. I can tell they have lost a lot of their potency from being left in my vehicle, which can get hot when locked up.

* some plants just don't do like they should. Bee Balm put off a brown flower, not a red one. the flower looks like a tiny immature corn cob that is all dried out!

Speaking of bees: my neighbor let her Artichoke bloom. What a bee attractant! Purple Pyramids!


Ava

Thought I'd show a pic of the Italian & Portuguese kale and my Nante's carrots!





The large ones were all north of the small ones (by 9 inches). I wonder if being low on Phosphorus is why some are so small. They are delicious...even have a slight mint flavor. There's mint in my neighbor's garden, but not mine, LOL.

SwampCatNana that's really cool. I'm going to try that. As for the corn my neighbor told me to put mineral oil on the silks as soon as they begin to appear and it keeps the bugs out of the corn.