Coastal & Tropical South: June Garden Updates!

My garden has grown very quickly. Started in May and in one month time I can see the beginning of harvest. I will follow up with pictures, I just wanted to get the June thread started.

Don

It's getting more exciting with most plants setting their fruit. The cukes are about a foot above the trellis and I am hand pollenating several female blossoms. The first didn't take but the second one did.


The Sweet 100 tomatoes are setting fruit very well in the heat.


Black Beauty Eggplant has blossoms and the White Star has one ready to open.


The Thai hot peppers are setting fruit but the Tobasco peppers are just getting buds.


The Goliath Jalapeño has one half grown pepper but many more to follow.


Still adding pictures

Hi everyone! I've been AWOL for a bit; some internet issues that are jury rigged until the new service can be installed. SO, I can't do photos at the moment, as we've had some storms lately, but I wanted to get everyone going on a JUNE progress thread. If you all have photos, please post them...I'll get some when I can so you can see all this...for now, here's what's going on in my garden...

I have SVB (Squash Vine Borers) in all my squash AND my cucumbers , and when weather permits I'll have to see if any of the plants can be slit, the bugs killed, and the plants saved, or if I have to pull them all. We've had a ton of storms during the times my husband can help me since we discovered this, so we have not been able to do anything at all, giving those guys a chance to do some pretty bad damage to several of the plants. I can try some things again in new beds in a couple months, but I'm VERY disappointed to lose most of my plants so early after they were planted.

My beans have a fungus, and again I'm not able to treat it until the rain stops. That problem isn't as bad as the SVB...yet...so I'm hoping we can get the sulfur on it before it does get really bad. I can't believe I'm complaining about stuff caused by rain when we've had such a horrible drought, but there you have it.

Tomato blight is not allowing the tomatoes to keep their leaves, and I may have to give up on a couple of them at least, as it's on the main stems, now, too. So, I'll be buying some seed and starting my own so we can have some for a fall harvest.

The 2nd planting of sunflowers never sprouted either. Not sure what the problem is, as these had plenty of water. Maybe it's just too hot.

My lettuce got too strong and bitter, then I found that it was bolting, so I had to cut that down. The chard is hardly growing at all in the heat, but what's there still tastes fine.

On the good side...

Our first batch of carrots are nearing harvest time, and are showing some orange shoulders where rain knocked the soil out of the way. The boys are so excited to have their own home-grown carrots at the end of this month!

The yellow cayenne peppers are starting to turn yellow one at a time, and I think my bell pepper is trying to come back from it's deer attack. The newer red cayenne plants are starting to bloom.

The nasturtiums started blooming, just after my older son started asking if we could pull them. I told him to wait, since we couldn't plant anything else right now anyway. Now he's glad I did.

Oh wow Don, I should've looked before I posted my thread. I'll merge your June topic with mine so we can have it all in one place.

Your garden looks GREAT! I hope you'll post a photo of the whole garden again soon.

It's finally stopped raining here (for now).

Boxes are in need of some recovery pruning, but the rain didn't knock all the blooms off & I got some tomatos, beans & peppers going

Week 5

Looks great acara! What's growing under your tomato plants?

RoOsTeR wrote:Looks great acara! What's growing under your tomato plants?

weeds ..

Thats what happens when it rains for a week straight & you cant get to yr box ...LOL

I got some bad manure a couple of weeks ago & it apppears to have some clover seed in it. I never had the problem with MM, but as a "recharge" the box with compost each year ... I sometimes get some "hitchhikers"

Lol. And here I thought you might have a lil sump'n sump'n up your sleeve

Acara, I know how you feel. We've had a ton of rain lately ourselves, and nobody knows how to behave since we haven't seen this many days of rain in quite a while. My husband is complaining that now he'll have to mow the lawn...er...weeds more often. In fact, he's out there doing that now, before the next set of storms roll in.

So, here's what the pumpkin plants looked like when we finally got a chance to go out and examine the damage after all the rain. The Connecticut field pumpkins (two on right) were so diseased from SVB that they began to rot and grow black fungus. The two on the left, my Seminole pumpkins, seem to be a lot better off, so hubby injected and sprayed them with BT, and we're hoping we can save them. The boys are disappointed they won't have home-grown carving pumpkins for Halloween, but we'll have to just try again next year.


Here's the golden crookneck, acorn, and both zucchini squash. I know they don't seem that bad from this point of view, but the vines of all but the acorn squash were horribly torn up at the base, showing a great deal of rot where rain water and mold were starting to take over, and there was no way we could have saved them. We think we can save the acorn squash with the same treatment as the Seminole pumpkins, but the other three are definite goners so hubby tore them out of the bed after I snapped this. Two of the plants quickly separated from the base/root structure as he began to tug at it to cut leaves out of the netting because they were so rotten.


Here's my cucumber plant; it still looks wonderfully healthy, but all the mature cucumbers were infested with multiple borers per cuke. You can barely see the red Malabar spinach a bit closer (it's just one skinny vine with tiny leaves and buds on it), and the very prolific beans in the back. The beans have a mildew problem, and we found a fat caterpillar on them when we sprayed. He made a juicy green squish! Now we know who was eating holes in the leaves!


I was straightening the storm-flattened leaves of the carrots when something startled me by moving...turns out this guy decided to make my garden Toad Alley in truth! He dug a nice little nest for himself in between the random carrots my son planted for carrot week. At least the carrots are going to be protected from insects.


I'll get photos of the peppers & tomatoes another day. The tomatoes are pretty sorry looking, but the peppers look great! My bell pepper plant is putting out new growth above where the deer (?) got it, and two peppers survived the munching process. I guess I'll have more blossoms on that one in the near future, and my yellow cayenne peppers are turning yellow one at a time now. I've harvested two so far, and will have a lot more in the coming weeks. I'm just trying to figure out how to dry them when I don't have a food dehydrator and can't hang them out in the sun because it's too humid.

It was 94*F today. The heat index got up to 102*F.

Wow! Those rains really messed up your nice garden. We have been getting a lot of rain here in Baton Rouge also. So far the soil has been draining very well thanks to Mel's Mix.

I now have an insect problem but I'll save that for the other thread.

I like the rain because I don't have to water anything... but it's reached the point of being beyond ridiculous!! Rain photos from today (from the barn where I ride):



BUT the garden is doing well... other than I fear how many tomatoes are going to burst from too much water (had two today). The big bed:
The sweet potatoes are flowering:
I have tons of jalapenos:
Cantaloupes are forming:
And of course bunches of sweet 100 cherry tomatoes!

Wow! Only the occasional afternoon downpour here in the south Texas, but we're thankful for that as last year we didn't get anything. This morning I decided to give up on zucchini for the year. I had 2 that I had replanted after the storm and I was controlling the PM fairly well once I gave up on organic, but it still wasn't producing. All the embryo squash would shrivel and die before the flower could open. Realizing I hadn't harvested anything from that bed since March I decided to pull them and let the butternut squash take over the bed, along with the beans that I planted mostly for nitrogen fixing. My beans are producing, but an inferior quality bean now that the real heat has settled in.

Have had 4 melons set, but one isn't growing, but at least that leaves 1 for each child. My hail-survivor cucumber plant continues to look awful, but grow and produce just fine. Have had Sungold and Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge tomatoes coming out my ears, but the end is in sight for 2 out of the 3 plants as they are diseased and I long since started pruning the new growth and just letting them concentrate on ripening the fruit that had already set.

Oh, and another factor in pulling the zukes was that I have 4 Tromboncino squash that have flowered in the past couple of days. Add to that the Tatume that gives me 3-4 a week, and I don't need anymore squash.

Eggplant going strong and okra steadily increasing. Peppers are great. Still waiting for bell peppers to change color.

Right now my main focus is pulling unproductive plants to give space and airflow to the survivors.

Our attempts to get rid of the SVB seem to be working so far. Crossing fingers it continues to work! We've had more 'normal' afternoon storms recently, but it looks like that trend has come to an end. The future forecast shows little to no chance of rain this week. Back to watering by hand! Oh well, at least the rain hit while I was sick; my guys aren't dependable about remembering to do it. My son and I will go out to take pictures, look at progress, and then discuss what we'll plant where in August...report to follow.

Lost the WiFi in the house so I am down to the IPhone. I am still around. Picked a cuke yesterday and a cherry tomato today. Corn is making tassels and about 6 feet tall. Peppers are coming along and I am waiting to make some pepper vinegar.

I am going to pick some bell peppers this week for a deer meat spaghetti. Beans are just starting so I am guessing two weeks before they start being ready to pick. Strawberries have made 4 new plants. Sunflowers have buds.

Sounds like things are coming along beautifully, Don!

Gotta love that technology. Our wifi router is dying, so it's pretty unreliable...we're limping through until we get U-verse installed Friday, and have to take turns connecting until then because the more things connected, the worse the problem.

Got the new WiFi working.

The garden:


Cherry Tomatoes are starting to ripen. We picked 5 so far.



Cucumbers are starting also. We have picked 2 of them. This is something I don't normally eat but I really enjoyed what little I got to eat out of these. You can see who got the lions share.


Yesterday I made some pepper vinegar. I picked two cajun bell peppers that were red, 1 Goliath Jalapeno, 1 Fooled You Jalapeno, and about 15 Thai peppers



For Father's Day my grandkids gave me some "Sweet Baby" Watermellon plants and Chives. So I planted those yesterday with their help.


Beans are starting but will break no records here.

Corn is thinning out at the bottom. all the bottom leaves are dying but the top leaves look fine. Tassels are starting to form at the tops. But they don't look very healthy to me. I planted them 4 to the square so that may be a little to tight or the may just need a little fertilizer for a boost.

That looks wonderful, Don! Hard to believe you were the last person (that I know of) to get started in our region. You win a prize for one of the most beautiful SF gardens this year! Your grandson is a real cutie. How great that you can share this time with your grandkids.

Thanks, I appreciate the compliments.

I'm picking something almost every day now. I can't wait for the next cuke to fill out. They taste so much better when you grow them yourself. (Probably a mental thing like cooking at the camp tastes so much better than at home.)

My corn has tassels on top most of the stalks but no appearance of any ears yet. I am beginning to wonder if any will appear due to the lower leaves turning yellow.

I am learning a lot about what I want to do with the garden. I believe I will make another garden similar to this one at the back of the house. This one will be for Tomatoes and corn and anything that I cannot keep the appearance very neat.

The present garden will be for peppers, egg plants, and the trellis of cucumbers of course. I will also plant a bunch of cucumbers on my land in Tunica, LA. I may lose half of them but I don't believe the deer will eat the plants. Corn and beans won't make it out there. I planted about an acre of it two years ago and it was just about time to break over the stalks to harden up the corn for the deer and the hogs moved in. Looked like a bull dozer leveled the plot.

Anyway, I am enjoying my garden every day.

Don T wrote: They taste so much better when you grow them yourself. (Probably a mental thing like cooking at the camp tastes so much better than at home.

Actually, I'm not at all surprised that you like home-grown cukes more than what you get at the store; the fresher the produce, the better it will taste. As soon as produce is picked, it begins to lose nutrients and flavor. Think about how long it takes to get those veggies from farm to distribution center to store to home. Especially if it's out of season, coming from CA or out of country! Additionally, what you buy at the store is genetically altered primarily for shelf-life and looks, while seed varieties for growing at home are selected primarily for flavor. So many reasons to have your own garden, and supplement that by eating local produce wherever possible.

Hello All,

This is my 1st or 2nd post since joining the forums. Reading, searching, learning and enjoying everyone's posts and experiences.
I had my first yellow straight neck squash harvested out of my little patch here just south of Houston. It was great to cook them up with a little butter.
Not sure I'll get a lot more from the squash as the fruit keeps rotting before its ready for harvest. Found here it maybe uneven watering etc.
I've also got cantalopes flowering but not sure if they will bear fruit before this infernal heat gets to them. They look so sad each evening when I come home. Bell peppers I understand I just have to be patient with.
My husband harvested his first couple of ears of corn he grew in his container garden.
He isn't a big one on the sfg thing but I am trying. I've got a bed that is about 2 x 8. He kept complaining about the 'wasted space' in front of my squash but I showed him today how that space is fill in with those giant squash leaves lol

Already planning and reading about what I can plant next and that he and I will eat. Am afraid that with the heat being so bad already that I may need to let the beds rest till late summer before planting anything new.

I'll post some pictures later.

This is my first garden. My mom would be proud and very surprised to see me gardening! (she did the "french intensive raised bed" garden thing in the 70's that whole digging down 3 feet and then building up 3feet left a very sour taste in my mouth for gardening...but not anymore with the SFG method

It seems like the heat is starting to take a toll on my garden. The snap beans are about 2" long but the plants are not looking very well. I have picked 5 large cucumbers (Yum!) and most of the female blossoms don't make it even after hand pollenation. My Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes (I didn't know they were cherry tomatoes when I bought them) are starting to ripen. The other Cherry tomatoes have been ripening for over a week now. The Tobasco peppers are starting to make peppers and the Thai Hot Peppers are making a second batch. Bell Peppers have been sparse and small but I have used them in what I have been cooking. Banana Peppers are ready to pick now so I will be looking for a recipe to use them. Jalapenos are getting big. I finally have eggplants setting fruit. One White Star and one Black Beauty. That is my favorite in the garden and the slowest to produce. Corn has tassells but not one ear has appeared. I believe this will be a total loss. I will give it a chance though. Okra is about 18" tall but shaded by the corn so probably won't produce until the corn is pulled up.

Hello All. It has been awhile since I posted but this years SFG has been the best producing so far. Cucumbers and Tomatoes have been great and plentiful. Bell peppers have been small but plentiful as well. The Heat is starting to kill the tomatoes and the Cucumbers are all gone now. Below is a picture of my last harvest of Cucumbers before they died. One started to turn yellow and bitter so I just took the seed for next year. I also did potatoes in a garbage can this year and I am waiting to see how they turn out.

Wow! Great harvest! It's great to see someone else in Baton Rouge. I'm just a beginner myself but learning fast.

Hey guys! We were near the center of Debby's track east, and got dumped on something fierce both as she moved north and as she headed east. Thank goodness we're at the top of a large hill! Several of my friends are either stranded or can't get to their house. One neighbor down the street had an oak fall on their mailbox (lucky that's all it hit). Several neighbors now have tarps over their roofs. The low end of our neighborhood was flooded. Many roads are closed due to flooding and/or sinkholes. The lake's level is higher than it's been in the 2 years we've owned this house.

My garden is showing definite signs of mildew, though I only actually lost a few tomato plants & another squash...the one weakened heavily by SVB. Not sure how my beans left to dry on the vine are; I'm afraid to check them.

Will be on more tomorrow, but wanted to drop a note to let you know we came through the storm unscathed.

Glad to hear all are ok. Too bad some of that water couldn't go to the fire areas.

Kay