JUNE 2013 New England

Well, we're having a heatwave here in Maine. Yesterday it hit 90 and today 93. Another hot one tomorrow. I stopped transplanting any more in the garden so I could more easily keep the seedlings out of the intense sunlight.



This is the early experimental tomatoes, Jet Star and New Girl between cheesecloth barriers. I think its helping.



A long view of my garden with cheesecloth protecting toms and insect barrier over brassicas.



Evidently the cucumber seeds are loving the heat. They are starting to germinate since yesterday.



And because I love them so, here's my first blooming Iris, white Immortality, this year (late due to cold spring) with many more forming in their calyxes.

If you're suffering this heat, I suggest shading your tomatoes so they don't get scalded or get set back from too much sun. Stick some bamboo poles on the east side and clip some cheesecloth or tulle across from pole to pole to prevent sunlight cooking your plants. Do the same for any newly=transplanted seedlings. I also mulched the toms and peppers with last year's straw.

Good advice on the shade cloth, QB.

I brought out my toms, peppers, eggplant & tomatillo seedlings to start hardening off so I can get them in the ground towards the end of next week/weekend.

I also weeded the rock wall around the front of the house and planted some hens & chicks.

Yea, it was HOT and sunny today...and I have a nice sunburn to show for it.

It's been wicked hot the past 3 days, 90s. It's a busy time of years for us beekeepers too. My garden was neglected for 3 weeks due to our terribly cold then wet weather. It's a mess right now.
These are the beds I still must dig out and redo.


This is the reason I have to redo all the beds, tree roots.



The garlic has been slow and I suspect tree roots in this bed as well.



The shallots are looking great in a redone, root free bed.



The new beds for aubergine, peppers, and tomatoes.





Peas started blooming yesterday.


Bok choy is almost done and I pulled the spinach this morning.



You can see the breakfast radishes poking up their red shoulders.



Now I'm off to the farm apiary.... It's going to be hot!

I missed yesterday. 10 yr old puter was acting up and I couldn't get to it til this morning. Opened her up, cleaned, moved a few things, and now I'm taking it for a test drive. She's working like a champ. Maybe I'll get another 10 yrs?

Ladies, your gardens look so nice!

QB, what are you covering your tomatoes against? Just the heat, or some kinda bugs, too?

Camp, lotta hard work you're doing refurbishing your boxes. What did you end up using on the bottom of your raised beds?

Got my MM made & added to the new box yesterday:

Unfortunately it killed my back doing all that compost sifting so the rest of the day was a bit of a bust. BUT the book, "Pain Free", recommended in that thread about pain, is WONDERFUL. Last nite I did only a couple of the many positions for back pain, and when I stood up it was gone! I've been using that book for my hip bursitis for the past month and it's gone now, too.

OK, off to put now the grids and plant seeds of collards, chard, kale, beets, melons that may turn out to be pumpkins, and heat tolerant lettuce.

CC

Camprn.....You could wait for the cool air to arrive on Monday and save yourself all the heated labor. I'm glad the heatwave isn't lasting any longer.

CapeC....Yes, the cheesecloth draping is just to prevent too much sun on the tomatoes and newly-transplanted peppers. Seems to be working. They are all lookin' good. I gave them all a compost tea drink this morning.

Sowed my corn this morning. Seems hot enough for them right now. I hope they germinate. Another variety last year didn't work out. They were stumpy and barely grew. Different seed company and the seeds were kept in an unheated farm market stand (freebies) so I think they were 'cooked' by the heat before I planted last year. These I bought from Pinetree and kept in the fridge crisper so they should be viable. The variety is Quickie and needs less space (8-12" on package) but I still only put in 2 seeds per square distanced diagonally in the 12 squares beside the sugar peas. I'm crossing my fingers.



My super sugar snap peas are blossoming.

Oiy...Tim Kelly just gave us low 40's Tue and Wed nights. Wonder if June is shaping up to be a weird as May was...

I planted so darn many seeds today it's a wonder that I have any left to refrigerate. Besides the ones listed above I put in acorn, zucchini, summer & patty pan squashes, more pole beans (all the previously planted ones have sprouted), Sugar Baby watermelon, scallions, parsnips (too late?) and yes, I broke down and planted more carrots in a very protected spot.

My spag squash needs thinning:


And I have a really hard time believing that 9/sq bush beans is going to work, they were so huge last year and I had 1/sq:


Oh, I wanted to share some important info for the spinach lovers in NE...those 2 spinach plants that I've been eating off of from a last August seeding are still going with no signs of bolting. So I looked them up in my records and they are called 'Big Ruffles' and I bought them at the $1 Store for 25cents.

I'll do it again this fall and we'll see if I get the same results.

CC

CC, the bush beans 9/sq.ft. works fine, but I had to build a corral for them. That worked pretty well, keeping them in their 'space'.

OK, thanks Camp. In my skepticism (kudos for spell check) I planted them where they can expand to their hearts content. The only other things in that 2 x 2 cupboard are tomatoes and they are way up against the opposite side.

Btw, your radishes look fab! Mine are horrible this year but were great last year. So weird.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:

Camp, lotta hard work you're doing refurbishing your boxes. What did you end up using on the bottom of your raised beds?


Unfortunately it killed my back doing all that compost sifting so the rest of the day was a bit of a bust. BUT the book, "Pain Free", recommended in that thread about pain, is WONDERFUL. Last nite I did only a couple of the many positions for back pain, and when I stood up it was gone! I've been using that book for my hip bursitis for the past month and it's gone now, too.


CC

I just used boxes with boards on the bottom and laid them onto 1x2s.

CC, I'll tell you a secret. I don't ever screen my compost because when I have done it in the past the activity hurts my back and I have ultimately found it unnecessary.

Glad you are feeling better.

Northeast June Garden chores, by Margaret Roach.
http://awaytogarden.com/june-garden-chores-2013

camprn wrote:
CC, I'll tell you a secret. I don't ever screen my compost ...

Yeah, neither does Rooster...which made me try it unscreened when I replenished my boxes this spring. I wasn't happy with the results coz I have a lot of small sticks. My theory is that the more sticks the more it aerates. But they don't decompose as quickly as everything else so I was nervous they they were taking up the nitrogen from my MM before the plants could have at it. However, while screening this time, once I could barely stand anymore, I finally set up a turned over bucket next to the wheel barrow and sat on it while screening. Too little too late but I think it'll be fine if I do that from the start next time.

camprn wrote:
I just used boxes with boards on the bottom and laid them onto 1x2s.

What kind of boards? Plywood?

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:

camprn wrote:
I just used boxes with boards on the bottom and laid them onto 1x2s.

What kind of boards? Plywood?

CC

Wood wood boards.

My tomatoes went in last Tuesday, giving them a rainy Wednesday to get settled in before the heat. They were hardened off before planting and do not seem bothered by the heat or sunshine.

I put my peppers in Sunday, figuring one hot day and then a break with the rain we got today. In the box below are four Aconcaqua peppers on the left, two Tiburon Ancho, two Jalapeno, and four Jimmy Nardellos on the right. My Copra onions are in the row behind them.



In the box below are three Padron and a mystery pepper which I am hoping is going to be another Padron (the 3/4 inch soil cubes have a tendency to get moved around in the tray). Then a Red Cherry in the front and a Fish pepper behind it. To their right are four Lipstick peppers. Those are Red Bull onions in the row behind.

Well, I'm glad I haven't put in any of the heat-loving plants yet because today it's COLD, DAMP and DARK. We just lit the woodstove to get the chill out of the house.

AND a friend just told me we may have another frost tonight, so I'm not taking any chances. My LFD is June 7th, so I guess it's all "normal" . At least these frosts seem to be keeping the ticks, blackflies & mosquitoes down.

On another note, the Asparagus beetles are having a field day on my patch. I've been going out and hand-picking every morning but they just keep on comin'. And I'm starting to see flea beetles, crickets & slugs, too.

Between the bugs and the cold it sure can get disheartening...

Gonna try to post pictures here. I must say, I am super impressed you all have blooming peas, and decent sized pepper plants I see. I must be in a microclimate zone colder than everyone else here......

Garlic:


Strawberries: (These started out last spring as 1 box and 1 row, and they've taken over 2.5 boxes plus the walkways between...) (the box in front is my designated compost box this summer)


4x8 box with half row of peas in back, and in the front are spinach and lettuce, a couple big celery transplants that we ate, some pepper plants, you can't really see the small stuff:


Another half row of peas


Cucumbers:


There are 3 1x8 tomato boxes, this is representative:


1/2 box of potatoes (the other half carrots that didn't materialize), many of which came from a bag of Maine potatoes from the grocery store that have been sprouting for months, I crossed my fingers they'd make it to planting time and they did:


Representative of the squash, watermelon, pumpkin, butternut squash that was banished to the field. There are lots of ferns popping up in the field too, which is an indicator of wet soils, which is why I started raised beds. The squashes are yellowed but I'm hoping they'll grow out of it, there is new leaf growth:


Experimental hugelkultur bed for the asparagus which is working well, except that the chickens keep jumping on it and scratching the plants all over, but most survived:


And this pretty flower, it comes back every year but I don't know its name:

The blue I think is Dutch Iris. I have a lot of it here and love it too!

NHGardener wrote:
And this pretty flower, it comes back every year but I don't know its name:

the electric blue ones are Siberian Iris.
The one on the left a bearded iris.

NHG....It looks like your garden is finally taking off and doing well. Don't you just love when spring really arrives. The purple flowers look to me like Siberian Iris, They are smaller than regular ones and like wetter feet and can be prolific in the spring.

I transplanted peppers, squash, zukes and 1 eggplant before I realized I should have waited another day or two. Temps here will drop down to around 42 tonite and tomorrow.

I'm trying that new technicque against squash vine borers which I saw on a video to deter them.....wrap a piece of panty hose around the stem and gather it together with a straight pin (common pin) so the creatures can't get to the stem. The hose will stretch as the stem grows wider. We'll see if that really works.



The Black Beauty zuke even has a male flower already. There are early spring spinach and turnip in the outer squares around the zuke for now.



I've got actual peas on the super sugar snaps I transplanted into a pot. There are also blossoms on the peas direct-seeded in the garden.



The New Girl tom on the right has some little green tomatoes. I've got green toms on 3 of my plants already, one of them being the ultra early experiment. Its a race to see what produces the first edible red fruits.

I hope the New Englanders are enjoying much better weather after than horrid heat wave. I love sleeping with my windows open nearly all summer long and into fall.

Almost feels like time to turn on the heat again........

Thank you for the plant ID! I'll have to upload more plant photos so you all can tell me what's growing here.

Thankfully, no frost last night, but it was definitely "sweater weather" yesterday.

Everyone's gardens look so lush and green! Have all of you put your heat-loving plants out yet? I see QB even has some little toms on hers.

At least I've got a few flowers on the peas...

You have flowers on your peas too, Molly? Wow. Maybe I have too much nitrogen in my soil - they're green and happy, too happy, no blossoms.

Well, I have flower buds, two to be exact. They still have a few days to go before they open, I'm guessing.

Have you had your soil tested? One of those cheap kits will tell you if you've got too much N.

now, now, just because your plant isn't doing the same thing as your neighbors plant at the same time doesn't meant there is anything wrong...

think about something else for a few days.... and then flowers will appear as if by magic!

I agree with Camprn. Every garden has its own particular microclimte. Some get hit with frosts more than others or get more heat than others as well as rain. We have to learn to deal with them and be prepared for the worst bits, with blankets or shade cloth or the hose.

I was surprised that my Packman broccolis both bolted, but my Munchkin to their left is still growing as is the Calabrese broccs in the upper row.



As you can see, yellow flowers on the Packman. I pulled those out. The Bubbles Brussels sprouts just above them are doing fine.



In front are my cabbages, 2 green Parel and in the middle a red Super Red 80 and all doing well against flea beetles. I cover this bed with insect barrier.



And here are the two quite big tomatoes on Jet Star that I've been watching closely. They are on one of the 3 extra early plants I protected with plastic coverings after transplanting early, on 4/16. The didn't get frost-bitten with that protection. Please cross your fingers that I have a nice red, ripe tomato on the Fourth of July.

The greens in the A-frame are all bolting, arugula, Mizuna and Tokyo bekana. I'll do this again in the fall when the season is longer and no sudden heatwave to contend with in fall. I harvested both Cherriette and French Breakfast rads today. I also found another spot for a pepper, so a Jalapeno was transplanted. I'm waiting for another day before the eggplants go in and the pots get potted with the mini plants and another couple of determinate toms.

I hope everyone is enjoying this lovely spring New England weather right now.

What?! Tomatoes? Already?

That's it. No more photos allowed.