Coastal & Tropical South: Show me your May progress!!!

@CarolinaGirl: I never did say how much I enjoyed seeing your photos. Everything looks great, even the "wonky" trellis. Those peppers look like my green bell peppers...are they a yellow bell pepper?

@acara: Thanks for sharing your garden with us. Looks like you have a good start on things.

First tromboncino female blossom! Hand pollinated just in case. So excited at the idea of getting squash again as I've not had any since the hailstorm destroyed my main squash bed and PM has kept it from coming back. But if this plant does well, it should be all I need.

And my one corner that is just a jumble of tomato, cuke, beans...turned out to have 2 tomato plants in there, not 1. The tomatoes are ripening now so I finally know that what I've got in the corner turned out to be Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge and Sungold! Yay! I've been wanting to try Sungold and I'm so glad one of the seedlings that made it through everything turned out to be that variety. Just as tasty as I'd hoped.

With the late start it took me awhile to get something to post.

I guess this is cheating because the pepper was already set on the plant when I purchased it. But it is definitely growing.



The corn is almost unbelieveable. I planted on May 7th and this is May 14. It is over 3"
tall.

This me enjoying the garden. Everything is coming on fine.

Elliephant, that is GREAT news! I'm glad to see your garden coming back so strongly, and hear that you got to try a delicious new variety of tomato. Your squash flowers look a lot like my cucumber flowers.

Don, your garden has me in awe, it's so pretty! How lucky you were to find a pepper plant already setting, too.

I need to get more recent photos of my garden up again...soon, I promise. Things are recovering nicely after the hail ten days ago, especially since I cut off most of the damaged leaves (which I discovered were being attacked by insects and disease, BTW). I'm waiting anxiously for my first cherry tomatoes to ripen. One of them is twice as large as I expected, but it's finally paling, which I hope means it will get ripe soon. Several squash have bloomed now, and I'm truly hoping they've been pollinated as they were all female.

The big box:
Yellow Squash:
The yellow bell pepper:
Baby green beans!!Sorry they are a little out of focus lol:

OOOH pretty. I am a little further North and my peppers and cukes started indoors are just starting to bloom. My squash I direct seeded and it is not that big yet.

Kay

So I plucked the striaghneck yellow squash I posted a pic of the other day. I also sorted through the red Norland potato box. The tops were starting to really yellow so I figured I might as well just dig it all up:

That looks great CarolinaGirl! Your garden looks to be coming along nicely, and what a nice harvest of new potatoes & squash.

I expect some of my squash will be ready pretty soon, but my rattlesnake beans are just now showing the first blossoms. Soon, I hope, my 1st cherry tomatoes should be ripening on the vine. I'll try to get updated pictures tomorrow.

Hand pollinated my first watermelon this morning! Also picked my first okra. Really need to get out there and harvest a bunch of eggplant (and probably process for the freezer) but it's going to be a very busy day with Kindergarten graduation for my oldest, a pool party, an eye appointment for the middle child (lazy eye), and dance class. Tomorrow, right?

elliephant wrote:

Quoting myself so you can see the side by side comparison between the squash when it first blossomed and today (one week later) when I picked it.



And here it is being held by my almost 5 year old.

WOW! 7 days from still having the flower on it until harvesting that giant. that is fast. That's a great harvest.

That's one crazy looking squash, Elliephant!!! I've never seen one like it. What do you do in cooking such a thing?

Here's my promised update of Toad Alley progress...I'm truly sorry some of the photos are out of focus, but it's HOT out there so I was in a rush...

My rattlesnake beans are blooming all over, new blossoms showing every day...I hadn't expected such lovely little magenta flowers as these :


My green bell peppers are about 1-1/2" now; they sure are taking a long time to grow:


Here's a photo of the whole veggie box; on the 2nd square from the left you can see my Malabar spinach, now recovering from some type of worms I sprayed several days ago, just beginning to grow up the trellis; to the right of that is my cucumber vine just blooming away with tiny yellow flowers (tiny in comparison to my squash anyway); on the right side of the trellis the four rattlesnake bean plants are taking over their allotted space and are now giving loads of magenta flowers daily (I can't wait to try them!); I also have four new cayenne pepper plants, not blooming yet; a square of holey Swiss chard (I think they were attacked by the same worms as the Malabar spinach); Rouge de Hiver lettuce in front of the chard; nasturtiums that show no sign whatsoever of blooming; the carrot box with tendersweet being the larger on the left and our Carrot Week scarlet nantes on the right; to the right of that is the bell peppers; and just behind that is a yellow cayenne that has four peppers that refuse to turn yellow despite their size not changing in over a week. :scratch: I'm new to this veggie growing thing, so maybe this is normal:


Here's my pumpkin box, with the Seminole pumpkins (planted April 16th) in the left two squares and the blossoming CT field pumpkins (planted April 6th) in the right two squares. The CT field pumpkins have taken two different approaches to growing; the one on the end is growing two separate vines split off from the main plant near the soil (one vine is longer than the other), and the one on the right has one long vine going right up to the top of the trellis, with another new vine branching off of it now. I see no developing fruit yet, but have had several blossoms so far, so I'm not certain but that all the blossoms have been male to date:


Here is my squash box, formerly the home to a few herbs as well, though one basil remains there which has yet to be moved to a pot. I'll be planting more here very soon, I hope. From left to right I have yellow crookneck squash (which has at least one squash ready to harvest); table queen acorn squash (you can barely see it as it's ten days younger and hidden behind it's huge neighbors); grey zucchini (with a monstrous zucchini on it which grew huge in three days, more on that later); and round zucchini (with two lovely squash just ready to harvest):


On to the zucchini; I posted this in another thread, but have to share again as I am so very shocked at it's growing so darn quickly! This particular grey zucchini was only 3" long and less than 1" wide just three days ago; for comparison's sake, it was only a little larger than it's neighbor above it last time I saw it :


Here is a shot of my two lovely round zucchini, which were less than 1" across just three days ago :


Now, as to tomatoes, I'm sorely disappointed to report that I have yet to harvest any, as they seem to be refusing to ripen on the vine. Anyway, here are my tomatoes, one planter/pot at a time...

First is my Heatmaster, which appears in need of tying up a bit. It has several tomatoes growing on it, though I'm uncertain how large they shall get because I've never grown this hybrid before. I bought it in hopes that it might continue to produce through our hot, hot summers here:


Next we have two Roma tomatoes sharing a large planter, which have multiple fruits giving me promise of a harvest sometime in the future. These, too, show a need for more tying up:


Beside that I have my indeterminate, but slow-recovering, Husky Cherry Red hybrid tomatoes; this plant got hit hardest of all my tomatoes by the hailstorm, then some sort of disease or critter (I'm not sure which). I have been waiting and waiting for the first tomatoes it produced to ripen, but it seems not to want to do so; I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the hailstorm & etc forcing me to cut most of the large leaves off it:


Then we have a single Roma, also showing fruit, but appearing to need a larger home to grow in as it's quite a bit smaller than the two sharing a large tub:


Finally, another Roma, showing fruit and also appearing to suffer from it's small quarters:


There's my update, a week later than promised. Things are moving along here, and I'm making plans for my next planting season (August to October is apparently the best time to plant the next round of veggies). I will be planting some corn in August, where the herbs used to be. When I get my herbs going again (several died in situ, most of the rest died after moving them) then I will begin to show them in my (hopefully) weekly updates from now on.

You've probably noted a lot of landscape timbers in the background of many photos; my dear husband is attempting to erect a frame on which he will nail chain link fencing with two gates (one in back and one at the side of the house) so we can keep the larger creatures out of the garden, and my children within our property when they want to play outdoors this summer.

We managed to sell our huge, ugly shed, and are hoping to get a load of fill dirt to fill the area it sat upon and another area I've marked off as the "playground" for my boys. We also hope to expand the garden toward the region which once held the shed, and eventually get a small greenhouse in which I would like to grow some things over the winter...though the greenhouse will likely have to wait for another year or more, based upon how things are going right now.

Great looking garden, givvmistamps. It looks like you will be haresting something every week for the next couple of months.

I spent the morning in my garden making sure I get every weed before it takes off good and making some tomato cages for the 4 bushes I have. I'll upload some pictures so all of you can see the progress in my new garden.

givvmistamps wrote:That's one crazy looking squash, Elliephant!!! I've never seen one like it. What do you do in cooking such a thing?

Just use it like a normal summer squash. It's firmer and less watery, and all the seeds are in the bulb end. You can also leave it on and it will turn a tan color and use it as a winter squash.

The end squares have cucumbers while the center two squares have sunflowers and bush beans. I am hoping the cukes will follow the string to he trellis, if not I will guide it.


The next 5 rows of squares have 4 corns in each of the center two squares and on the outside squares I have bush beans planted with 1 corn in each of the close squares. The far squares have 2 okra plants per square with the beans. The okra is a little behind but I hope it will catch up with the beans.


the next row has two, Sweet 100 tomato plants and 1 square with marigolds, and a White Star egg plant.



Looking south on the east end Thai Pepper, Black Beauty Egg Plant, two Cherry Tomatoes



More peppers and Egg Plants



Cajun Bell Peppers



From the end of the row Peppers, Egg Plants, Strawberries, Beans, Green Onions, Marigolds

Phoenix Hybrid, Cherokee Purple x2, Yellow Bell Pepper

I've been traveling for work for the last week, but it looks like the ox made it through all the SW Florida rainfall unscathed.



4x4 Box Layout (L2R, B2F)



Sweet 100 x4 (back row)
Phoenix Hybrid, Cherokee Purple x2, Yellow Bell Pepper
Phoenix Hybrid, Cherokee Purple x2, Yellow Bell Pepper
Green Bell Pepper x2, Red Bell Pepper x2

• Have first fruit on peppers and toms
  All the Tom's except the Phonix are throwing bloom
  Everything seems to be growing well so far

Great looking garden, acara.

Don, I can't even tell the geese were in your garden! It all looks so pretty, you should be very proud of that new garden, even if you did get a late start on it. I think as long as you water enough you'll get a nice harvest out of it. The marigolds add a nice pop of color among all the green. I need to get my marigolds going...forgot to plant any.

Acara, your garden looks great too! I love how you embedded the slide show; it saves space instead of creating huge posts like my previous one. BTW, have you any input on why my cherry tomatoes aren't turning red yet?

Its the heat, lack of nutrients or overcrowding.

The grape/spoon varieties are notorious for it, especially when you've got clusters with 25 or more.

Your cant do much about the heat (85+ will delay ripening), other than using the brown-paperbag/cardboard box trick (ethylene dioxide gas). Sometimes a couple of days inside (in the window ledge or in refridge) with force the to turn (75 is usually ideal)

Otherwise ..just leave it alone ...they will turn eventually ..... just have to remember that they ripen from inside, to outside, so you just may not have seen the progress yet.

If you've got a motherload cluster .. sometimes you can pick 10-20%, put those into bags inside & it will allow the others to vine ripen.

I don't like the fertilizer trick, but if you hit the plant with a 5-5-5, or other balance fertilizer, that usually gets them to start showing color.

Thanks acara, I think I'll leave them alone a bit longer then. They have gotten very pale over the past week, so maybe they're trying to ripen now. There aren't a lot of tomatoes on the vine, as the poor thing has been hit by one problem after another, so maybe I'm just being impatient...I didn't have this problem with the patio varieties I've grown in the past so it seemed like they were

I've been watching these babies grow for almost a month!

Well, I don't have a lot of hope for these guys......but my Cherokee Purples threw bloom yesterday.

It will be interesting to see if any of these set fruit in 88-90 degree temps .... but they get an "A" for effort

I've been pleasantly surprised that I'm getting tiny tomatoes setting from my blossoms despite the heat. It's been high 80s most days here. Who knows, perhaps my putting them where they get dappled sunlight during the worst of the heat helps them, along with the cool evenings (in the high 50s to low 60s). Unfortunately, they're suffering from the neglect they experienced while I was sick for a few days. My husband "thought" he'd watered, but I found the plants drooping because he just barely wet the surface and the lower soil level didn't get much. We haven't gotten more than a sprinkle of rain in well over a week, either.

I have blossoms on my cherry tomatoes but they haven't set any fruit yet. It should be soon now if they do. Starting to get a few flowers on my peppers. The Cajun BP has 3 1 1/2" BP's on it but it is a little bigger than the rest.

I saved some Bell Pepper seeds from some of the BP's at the picnic on Sunday. Some yellow, orange, and red peppers. I dried the seeds and planted a few just to see if they will germinate. Don't know if they are hybrid or not, but they tasted good so I wil give them a try.

Corn is almost 20" tall this morning. I noticed one of the stalks split and is growing a double stalk.

I was able to harvest these squash, first of the season, this week. They're awaiting our efforts this weekend at zucchini bread, stuffed round zucchini, and fried golden crookneck. Here's hoping my guys will try all three!

Here is a picture of my almost 5 yr old holding 3 eggplants (from the plant that survived the winter).

He is waiting for the carrots, but they will be a while longer.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f40/17/50/38/71/2012-015.jpg