PNW: June updates

smriti great to hear that you are getting squash already!! congrats!

i know....i complained in MAY it was too hot because our cool weather veggies were bolting.....now...i want the heat back......

bird netting should work....we have never used it before...we tend to have our strawberris all over the place .....here and there.......in hanging baskets ....

what the birds dont eat..... the slugs do.....so...we try not to have all our eggs ...oops ....wish they were eggs :drunken: ...but all our strawberries not located all in the same area....so that we are able to have a treat now and then

hugs

rose.....who loves her berries sweet....but sour will do too as long as she gets some

we harvested some veggies tonight!!!

the last of our broccoli



first ever kol-a-robi (?)



second batch of french breakfast raddish



about 20 of our first fava beans



i think the fava beans look pretty good!



we had twice this many of strawberries today....but they didnt make it into the house



the kids pulled up some carrots....not huge...but yummy!...they are dinner tomorrow night



second harvest of cabbage..... this one weighed in at almost 4 pounds



these are seed pods from our bok choi....wondering how long we leave them on the plant before harvesting the seeds from them?



our onions are starting to bulb up



wondering when to blanch the celery?



our purple beans are getting some flowers!



hugs

rose.....who can not wait to cook those fava beans for dinner tomorrow night!

rose you're too funny! Wow! Look at your harvest! You must be having so much fun with all your homegrown veggies! Ok so that's how a onion is supposed to look in the ground when it grows up...we always keep wondering how would we know when to harvest onion. :scratch:

That's exactly what we were thinking yesterday...some veggies are not growing because of the weather and the ones that do get eaten by critters/slugs so end of the day we don't get any

Thankfully we've been able to have a good harvest of spinach every week so we don't feel bad about all the labor that we put in! Also I realized yesterday that I might've messed up the spacing on the tomatoes - I put them in 1 SF, aren't they supposed to be 4 or 9 SF? Probably we'll move some of them to pots. No wonder they're so crowded! My husband kept telling me that they need more space and I was adamant that the book said 1 SF so we should let it be

Hold on now, wait a minute... Rose, weren't you the one having a hard time getting carrots to sprout? And yet here you are harvesting them already?! I must have you confused with someone else...

Those fava beans look cool just because they are so large! I really appreciated LavendarDebs' video showing how to peel the skins off (and her telling how long it took her).

Corrinaq, I'm so glad you joined our update thread. Those are great pictures - wow! And going from just pots on the deck to 96 squares and starting everything from seed - another wow! I'm especially jealous of the cucumber, since mine keep getting eaten. Looking forward to seeing more from you as the season goes on!

So smriti, about the tomatoes - the book has indeterminates (Mel calls them vine type) placed 1 per s.f., but keep in mind that in order to space them that closely Mel has us train them to a single stem by pinching off the suckers (pg. 159). Determinates (bush type) are listed as needing 9 s.f., so it seems most people around here elect to grow them in buckets instead of using that much real estate up in their SFG's.

My garden is still growing. For those of you who don't know, this is my first spring and summer with a vegetable garden so I'm learning quite a lot. I'm finding June to be a funny month, not wanting my cool season things to bolt, but feeling bad for the warm season things. I hope to be able to have two separate boxes for warm and cool season things some day, so that I can *maybe* have a bit more control over the temperatures and help things thrive a bit more. We'll see.

gwen....this is our third year gardening and yes we are still having problems with our carrots....the ones shown above were planted the end of march....90 days and we only get small tiny carrots

the carrots we planted for carrot week we could not get them to germinate and once they did...they went *poof*...so we have no carrots for carrot week

we have more carrots growing that we did amend the soil with some ash from our wood stove and some bone meal in hopes to get a better carrot....

hugs

rose

Rose, carrots are unpredictable for me. Sometimes they just don't 'take'. That's why I stagger plant them, 4 or 5 times over a two month period starting in early March. They are really slow to grow this year. I've harvested some nice size carrots from my first planting on March 7, but my late March and carrot week plantings are still small.

But your broccoli's bigger than mine, and my cabbage is weeks behind yours. I still think you live in a banana belt!

It's hard to believe this growing season has been warmer than the last two.

gwennifer! You know what I dislike the most - the temperature being in 70s and still we get no sun! At 70+ we deserve sun! That's exactly the kind of day we have today.

I agree. I think my house AC has turned on 2 days so far this year, and I've yet to un-winterize my yard sprinkler system.

I let myself be fooled by April and May....took the bonnet off of the tomatos. They look SO sad.

gwennifer wrote:

GG

i thought i was going nuts today.....had to water some of my plants that are in pots.....i kept thinking they shouldnt need water....we havent had any sunshine....

we lost one of our tomato plants to blight......6 others in the same area are looking really sick....i gave them all trims today taking off everything that looked off/sick/yellow/curled up/damaged....coming in the house each time to wash my hands and garden tool between each plant.....kept telling myself they just need some sun.....i really think im waisting my time with these guys....but i just cant stomach the thought of tossing them all into the garbage.....not sure watching them die a slow death is any better either.... ....they even have fruit

so far our other tomato plants are doing fine.....

the rest of the garden's seem to be doing pretty good....the corn and pumpkins in our childrens wine barrels (3 sisters garden) is doing great!....really surprised by it.....the heirloom corn and pumpkins are really taking off!....its time to plant their beans

i know we havent really had our *summer* yet.....but i sure hope if and when everyone decides what they are going to plant for a fall garden we can start a thread on it......this is our first year of wanting to do a fall garden on a larger scale and we are just so confused with this years weather....we need help from those who have been doing this longer

hugs

rose

You are way ahead of me with your lovely garden, but UGH! I hate blight!
Hang in there.

wondering how everyone is doing....we go out and look at the garden....cant touch anything because the air is warm and damp....we have an issue with some of the tomato plants....so we dont want to spread it around.....other plants seem to be growing pretty good....going to harvest more fava beans tonight....we havent tried them yet....been having long busy days and i havent felt the greatest to want and cook much....so its been make your own dinner night which means sandwich, something frozen or from a can hoping to try the fava's tonight...been waiting for a chance for the kids to help shell them....they are excited to do that

wondering how everyones potatoes are doing?....ours are getting pretty ugly...so it maybe time pretty soon to dig up some more taters

i think we may also harvest the first pepper of the year :drunken:

hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!





this was me yesterday watering my containers.......we havent had much sunshine at all....but its been warm, with light drizzle here and there and my containers were dry



hugs

rose

I finally uploaded some pictures on how the garden has grown over the past month. It is still raining here but I think we will finally be getting daytime temps in the 70's and night temps should be in the 50's during this next week.
Here is a picture as of May 15th.

Here is June 27th

May 15th

June 27th

Scarlett Runner beans May 15th

The same beans on June 27th

The raspberry beds and strawberry beds are doing well and I will probably be making jam in about a week (I hope).

The tomatoes are in bloom and some have fruit. I ate my first tomato two days ago, I have a witness! It was the only tomato that has turned red this year. I am hoping for a good canning year for green beans and tomatoes.

happycamper the changes in your garden is amazing i can not believe how big and full your Scarlett Runner beans are....mine are way behind yours....glad to hear you are getting enough strawberries to make jam.....yummy!!....we are getting a hand full or two every day now....but they dont really make it into the house

Deb's ....sorry to hear about your peppers....i hope they perk up once we get some sunshine.....i heard a rumor that tomorrow we may start to see some summer heat.....well....we shall see....last night we had really bad wind and heavy rain.... glad to hear your snow peas are doing so well....we are finding that our sugar snap peas are really loving the weather we are having....hope you were able to get some help moving your green house!....let us know about the front yard garden.....we have been thinking the same thing....our front gets sun all day long....we have waaaay to much grass....and i think it would look really nice to build some 2x or 3x long box's to outline the edge of our lawn.....last year...hubby wouldnt think of the idea....funny how gardening grows on someone.....cause this year when we were able to get a couple loads of free wood chips....hubby said...*wouldnt it look nice to border our front lawn with these wood chips and expand our garden....

......... ...REALLY??..... ....... .........

hugs

rose

FamilyGardening wrote:last year...hubby wouldnt think of the idea....funny how gardening grows on someone.....cause this year when we were able to get a couple loads of free wood chips....hubby said...*wouldnt it look nice to border our front lawn with these wood chips and expand our garden....

......... ...REALLY??..... ....... .........

hugs

rose