PNW: June updates

Warbler - I didn't protect them from the frost. In fact a few days when it dipped below 50 I was a little worried but looked like the plants handled it well. Sorry being a beginner I can't tell you much except what I did. Mine were starts that I bought and are in the most sunny spot of our lawn. We haven't watered them manually till now - the rain seems to be sufficient. I guess that'll change in a few days.

not sure what to say on the plants above some of ours are turning yellow as well!....

one of our pumpkins.....our artichokes.....some of the tops of our tom's.....some of our beans too!.....yikes!!!....its the weather!!!

no fava beans yet....the flowers are all drying up...but no sign of a bean...

our cukes plants are small still but some have a true leaf on them....but...something has been munching on them too....i think slugs!

hubby did pick up hybrid cantaloupe starts.....they are a bit farther along then ours.....but...im going to plant ours and the new ones and see how they do...some will be grown in the green house and some out on the patio......

on a good note.....

hubby shared our first sugar snap pea with me tonight.....shhh...dont tell the kids!

with all this cool wet weather.....we were shocked to find.....red...yes...red almost perfect strawberries......what???.....almost picked them tonight .....thought to my self they look just like what we get from the store......red with a tad bit not ripe yet.... so...the taste shall be ok...but not real sweet just yet....should we wait...take a chance on the birds finding them.....well....we are waiting.... ...need to share the harvest with the kids you know...cant be to selfish...we already had the first sweet sugar snap pea.....

hope everyone is holding up with this cool weather and rain!!.....heard a rumor for our area.....we should see some sunshine by the weekend in the family garden

hugs

rose

Hi everyone, I have given up on finding other canadians to cavort with so I am back to the pacific northwest.
My early potatoes are looking great, so great, I dug one up and found there was nothing there, my neighbour told me to wait until July.
So I will.

these are some early cantilope I have 3 tires with 2 in each and for some reason two of the others just up and died.


My beans seemed to be thriving in the mels mix and then a week ago half of them started to turn yellow, so I have top dressed them with compost.

and 3 potimarron winter squash kindly given to me by Nonna

My peas FINALLY started to flower and are flowering like crazy now, and if only we could get some warm weather now

FamilyGardening - wow congratulations on your strawberries and peas! My strawberries, I think, have some way to go. I see the small berries but I'm hoping they'll get a bit bigger and of course, red! I was reading about yellowing of leaves in zucchini plants and some people said it could be due to some nutrient deficiency. Anybody think so? I'll try to do a soil test on my bed.

GWN - your plants look so good! Hope you get your beans soon! I like the plants in the tire - they look so cute! Yes we're all hoping for a little sunshine. Personally I like this weather more - a little bit of cold - but I guess I've to give it up for my plants

smriti, there's another thread currently going on with zucchine leaves turning yellow: https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t12821-can-i-pick-your-brain#126973

I've never grown zucchine or squash so have no experience there. Are you willing to call your local cooperative extension agent and see what advice they may have? I believe you are in King County: http://county.wsu.edu/king/gardening/Pages/default.aspx

warbler, the new growth on that watermelon transplant looks fine! Hang in there and see if it will continue to grow as the weather warms.

Rose, the U-pick strawberry farms have been open here for a couple of weeks. Quite a few of our strawberries in our little patio planter are red now, but we're also waiting for full ripeness and hoping the birds won't find them! Sorry I'm not very helpful with your cantalope problem. Glad your hubby picked up some starts - should help ease your mind at least.

Hi GWN! I did see a couple of canadians pop on to say hello at least, didn't I? Come hang with us anytime - it's a bit lonely here too. Thanks for sharing your pictures. You gave me a laugh about your potatoes! My early ones grew freaky tall - not sure if that's normal after looking at yours and Rose's. Not too much longer to wait though, they are flowering now and July is just around the corner! My beans were kinda yellow too, but having never grown them before I didn't know if that was thier normal leaf color or not! I did put some compost top dressing down last week, but not much because it's hard with all those plants in one square! But I guess looking at them today, they do seem more green. Now if I just could figure out what's eating them and my cucumber sprouts.

Whatever happened to LavenderDebs? Curio?

On another note, I've been going nuts trying to figure out how to add more squares to my backyard while still maintaining aisle spacing for traffic flow through the yard. No matter how I arrange things on my grid I keep getting 36 squares at the very most, and that's going to be tight. Well, since I dislike the layout of my backyard and the silly, useless patio, I couldn't help but think "What if"? As in, what if the door was where the window is, and a window where the door is? Then the patio gets moved around the corner and is no longer breaking up the middle of the yard. No more storm door needed. A cozy little planting alcove is created. And.... wait for it... I can fit 64 squares! Four matching 4'x4' beds. Oh how I love things to match.

Of course, my husband would insist on selling the house before he'd agree to a renovation project like that just so I could get more gardening space! But I can't help but wonder how much it would cost - maybe less than moving!

gwennifer - thanks for the pointer! I'll check with my local gardening extension too. Your renovation does sound good to me

the sun is out!!.....the sun is out!!......forcast for the rest of the week is SUN!

decided to check on the cauliflowers, broc's and cabbage today glad we did or we would not of been able to eat any of the cauliflowers.....some were starting to look like rice .....eek....not what you want your cauliflowers to look like.....i think they will be ok though.....hubby broke off a taste and it tasted great!.....we also cut off all of the broc's side shoots along with our very first head of cabbage!!

cauliflower



cabbages......which one to harvest first ?



decided to harvest this one







after cabbage was all cleaned up it weighed in at 2lbs 4oz......i think thats pretty good!



hugs

rose

On another note, I've been going nuts trying to figure out how to add more squares to my backyard while still maintaining aisle spacing for traffic flow through the yard. No matter how I arrange things on my grid I keep getting 36 squares at the very most, and that's going to be tight. Well, since I dislike the layout of my backyard and the silly, useless patio, I couldn't help but think "What if"? As in, what if the door was where the window is, and a window where the door is? Then the patio gets moved around the corner and is no longer breaking up the middle of the yard. No more storm door needed. A cozy little planting alcove is created. And.... wait for it... I can fit 64 squares! Four matching 4'x4' beds. Oh how I love things to match.

Of course, my husband would insist on selling the house before he'd agree to a renovation project like that just so I could get more gardening space! But I can't help but wonder how much it would cost - maybe less than movin

gwynifer don't you have a front yard?...cover your patio with SFG?
Rose your cabbages look wonderful, as do the broccoli and cauliflower, sure wish I could eat them,........ so I could grow them

Rose love your produce! You must be so excited!! Oh when will my cauliflower be ready?!?!

I got peas...



I also went the the Farmers Market and found Mealworm Castings for sale....I picked up a 2 pound bag to try...they also had 25 pound bags...but these castings a bit spendy like earthworm castings and I want to try out a small amount before I spend a ton of money on this stuff.



Unfortunately one of my potted plants was stolen off my apartment's porch again ...the thieves made off with a Lemon Basil and the pot it was in.

Hopefully though I think made have found a solution.....perusing the local yard sales this morning I was able to find a cheap weightlifting set.

I am gonna try to unpot all of my plants on the porch today and place some of the iron plates from the weight set into the bottom of the pots and fill them up back up and repot the plant.

Lets see some one try to make off with those heavy suckers!

Dan you peas look great!!!....congrats!

sorry to hear about someone taking off with your pots of plants .....that really stinks!....i hope the weights will take care of that problem

you better get out there and pick those peas!!.....they are my childrens favorite and when the kids that live next to you discover how great they taste those peas are gonna be goners....

hugs

rose

Daniel9999 - your peas look great! So sorry to hear about your lemon basil The weight plates sound like a great idea! You should put a webcam on your patio so that you can see the expressions on the thieve's face when he/she tries to lift those pots with the weight plates

smriti wrote:Daniel9999 - your peas look great! So sorry to hear about your lemon basil The weight plates sound like a great idea! You should put a webcam on your patio so that you can see the expressions on the thieve's face when he/she tries to lift those pots with the weight plates

+1!

GG

Hey everybody, I'm back! Had a lovely whirlwind visit with my mom, which included two mini road trips - the first of which to the Oregon Gardens in Silverton. They have a SFG in their demonstration gardens area. Other gardening methods on display included a hay bale garden and a few potting soil bag plantings. On the plus side, the SFG garden definitely looked to be producing the best. However, they were not using Mel's Mix, which is too bad since they also had a compost demonstration area they could use to cross-promote.


I liked this archway tunnel thingy. They were setting up for a wedding when we were there. Seems like I should be able to fit a smaller scale one in my yard using cattle panels and fence posts. I could grow grapes on it.



This was one of my favorite things in the children's garden area. It's a man-made hill covering a section of very large diameter Smooth Wall HDPE pipe (used for municipal storm drains). They call it the hobbit house. The pictures are from either end and the lawn area just goes right up over it. If my husband ever gets his wish to move onto some acreage some day, I'm totally doing this.



We were there on a freaky hot day with high humidity and the kiddos didn't handle it very well, so I didn't get to see all the areas. I loved the conifer garden, but don't have any pictures. We checked out the prices for the lodging there and it's completely reasonable - not any more than staying at the Best Western in Salem. And we ate lunch outside at the resort while we were there. Yummy.

Now let's see what's been up since I've been gone.

GWN wrote:gwennifer don't you have a front yard?...cover your patio with SFG?

Oh come on now, dream with me! Besides, the front yard=shade. And most of the patio is used for storm door, stairs, and traffic flow. That's why it's useless as a patio. The unused corner now houses my blue ceramic pot round foot garden pictured earlier on this thread. Herbs, strawberries, and a rose bush (not edible, but I couldn't resist one rose, being this close to the Rose City!). Oh, and I was wrong about my compost top dressing greening up my beans. The dark green ones were the replacements that had sprouted! So I guess I have anemic beans. They sure are growing quickly - it's like Jack and the Beanstalk. Love it.

Daniel, sorry to hear about the theft. I have a neighbor who has cement planters for that exact reason (lighter weight ones have a tendency to disappear). Sad. But yay for peas! Are they sugar pods? Mine (Oregon Sugar Pods) have been coming on like gangbusters. I believe they are more consistently large and flat then they were in the fall. Or it could just be that it's still early and they'll start growing curly when the plants are more spent. Time will tell. As is we're picking about two dozen every few days. Love it! They keep so well in the fridge it's been an excellent use of two squares.

My Belstar broccoli's started heads.

Most of the plants aren't even half the size as the ones I grew last fall that gave me 6"-7" heads. Those were a different variety though. We'll see what these will do.

Today is a nice overcast day that I think is perfect for strawberry picking! Time to get the kids out of the house and go get our berries at the U-pick farm for our traditional homemade strawberry ice cream and sorbet.

GWEN love the pictures!!

what a cool tunnel in the childrens garden area....love that door!

sounds like you had a good time

what is up with our weather.....we will have a couple nice days and then the rain is back....eeek.....

we had to get rid of one of our tomato plants....i posted pics on another thread and it turns out its blight......a few other tom's that is in the same area is acting a bit off too.....we are glad that we have tom's located in other area's ....they all seem to be doing good.....

we harvested a few new potatoes, cabbage and onion and had it for dinner last night!.....we browned some beef and tossed it all together.....as a side we had steamed cauliflower and broccoli all from the garden....it was a wonderful feast!

our sugar snap peas are over 8ft tall now and loaded with yummy treats!

not sure when to harvest the fava beans?

we ended up buying some squash starts as some of our seedlings just didnt do well after they had that fall from the wind storm that knocked over our small green house.....

everything else seems to be doing well.....we just need some heat!!

hugs

rose

hi debs....here is what our fava beans look like



hugs

rose

Rose your fava beans look so yummy and you seem to be having a nice harvest of veggies! Oh yes talk about the weather - I can't believe how much it rained over the weekend!

Hi all! Since I've never posted on these updates this isn't really an "update" but thought I'd get started :-)

So I have three 4'x8' beds that my husband very kindly made for me this spring. This is the first time I've had anything more than pots on my deck so it's been an adventure. I started everything from seed in my basement starting in Feb. I planted extra of everything just in case stuff didn't come up. Of course every single darn thing sprouted and grew like crazy. Except the acorn squash and the watermelon. So I had a TON of extra plants come transplanting time. Gave quite a few away but found spots for the rest!

So my first bed is my hoop house. I've put tomatoes - Juliette and Early Girl (three of each), cucumbers, acorn squash, watermelon (both of whom finally spouted WEEKS after planting them), pumpkin and basil. As you can see the tomatoes and pumpkin are going bonkers so I've finally lifted the plastic on that part of the hoop house. I've left part of it on to keep the basil, watermelon and squash a bit happier.

Here's the basil and cucumbers



Here's the monster tomatoes



And the were-pumpkin plant



And my rather slow growing acorn squash (in the back) and watermelon.



In my second bed I've got Yukon Gold potatoes who have also grown rampantly!!! I have to tie them back because they were literally taking over the ENTIRE bed. Now the rest of my plants have some breathing room. So there is also, catnip, greek oregano, flat leaf parsley, cilantro (which was totally choked by the taters so I'm going to have to replant), French breakfast radishes (I've already harvested the first run...the second is just sprouting), and a mixture of leaf lettuces. The lettuce had a little bit of a hard go...not really sure why but the new stuff I planted several weeks ago is finally coming up. Oh and how could I forget the chamomile which is also threatening to take things over.



My last bed has my beans, snap peas, broccoli, carrots, onions, leeks, jalapenos and one hot banana pepper, and sunflowers. I had a bit of a snafu when I planted the carrot seeds. I apparently didn't mark down correctly which squares I had put them in and then proceeded to plant a broccoli start in one of them. I'm leaving them for now. I figure the broccoli will probably win but maybe some of the carrots on the edges of the square will do okay. The leeks are VERY slow growing. I started them in the basement and everything I've read about them says they like cool weather so perhaps it's my soil. The banana pepper did NOT like leaving the green house but seems to be hanging on. The peas are just getting their first pods and are covered with flowers so that's exciting.



The jalapenos are quite happy!!



And I've got my first nice broccoli!



And last but not least I am still maintaining my deck pots. As you can see the extra broccoli and parsley got put in a pot because I couldn't bear to throw them out. I've got three different kinds of thyme, oregano, and sage in the wine barrel (hidden in the corner), then I've got rosemary, chives, and mint in separate containers. And finally nasturtium, lobelia, cosmos and some self-seeded chamomile from last year in the others.



So that's my garden for June!

Corinna

Great pixs Corrina! Your garden items are growing beautifully!

Continued happy gardening to you and all my regional garden buddies!

Corrina welcome to the PNW thread!

what a wonderful garden you have!.....thank you for sharing pictures with us....we love to see whats growing :drunken:

we started our garden all from seed as well....our acorn squash didnt do well either...but it suffered a fall when we had high winds that blew over or small green house.....we ended up pulling them out and transplanting some starts from the store.......the next morning we went out to the garden to find that the new starts we bought have powder mildew.....so....seems as though we may not end up having very much squash this year.....*sigh*....

this is our second year growing leeks and we started them indoors from seed.....they are small still....they look like little green onions.....now last year they did the same thing....and they were not ready to eat until the next spring....not sure if that is how leeks grow...but that is how they grew for us last year and it seems it will be the same this year.....

hugs and keep us updated on how things are growing

rose.....

Hey Rose, I didn't want to hijack the other thread where you wrote this:

FamilyGardening wrote: sending s.o.s....will trade rain for heat!

hugs

rose

Hang in there...the 10 day forecast says we'll have a high of 70° on three different days. I'm wondering if it's time to put heaters in our greenhouses!

Boffer.....ha ha ha......i just wrote a note to you on another thread asking if you think our corn will do better if we put up some hoops......

i wanted to know how high your hoops are on your tomato box's

hugs

rose.....who maybe a thread jacker ...or.....maybe she has ADD

oh...and for kicks....we replanted some spinach since the last planting bolted in MAY!

its in a pot so we can move it around the garden as the weather warms up and cools down.......hey....its just some seeds right??

hugs

rose

corinna lovely pictures of your garden and so good to see that all your veggies are doing great!

rose LOL I'm always afraid to make such trades lest we get so much heat that I can't bear! I guess our tomatoes are going to love it - I see so many flowers on them but no fruits I wonder if they're all waiting for the heat.

Our yellow squash seems to be doing pretty good. One of the plants has 2-3 of them and they're already 3-4 inches! I'll post the pictures soon!

Strawberries are taking some time to get red and looks like critters/birds are attacking them. Any ideas on how to protect them? We're planning to put some bird netting on them. That should help, right?