JUNE 2013 New England

NHGardener wrote:It's one of those "summers" so far. The great thing about raised beds is the drainage. The field where I have the vine crops looks like it's about to float away. I'll have to hill it next time.

Oh, no...is it too late to move them? Are they still alive?

I don't have anywhere to move them to, considering this is NH and the entire lot is like that.

But they were put out as transplants and were past their most vulnerable stage. It will be interesting to see what happens as everything dries up (surely it will dry up). This was a newly tilled spot, so this is a first-timer.

     

CapeC....I couldn't reply to your PM for some reason.  Puter probs.  I wasn't the one that used tape on my tulle.  I rarely use tulle, mostly cheesecloth and light insect barrier.

This latest bout of weather, which is still cold (mid 50's), spitting & blowing like crazy here on Friday afternoon, took down more of my sugar snap peas and is turning all my summer plants yellow.  

C'mon sunshine!   Next year I'll consider waiting for July to plant them, which is about when I planted last year.

I looked for flea beetles and slugs on these pole beans but came up empty. 
Same for the bush beans.  Any ideas?


CC

Those look just like my pole beans! I'm pretty sure it's slugs on my end, but they only come out in the evenings usually. I've pulled a few small slugs off them that I found.

Sorry to hear your weather is still bad, CC! It's been bright sunshine and warm here. Interesting that you planted in July last year. Maybe your season runs later than ours too.

OK, I'll put out the wood blocks.  I have them in 2 other beds of kale and collards but haven't checked them yet coz of the rotten weather.

I think the Cape has a longer 'spring' and then a longer fall.  That's why I'm posting 2 zones in my avatar info - 6b for spring and 7a for fall.

How are you summer veggies doing?

CC

Everything is coming along on my end, but if we had some sun and some heat, it would really really help. Potatoes are really strong this year, tomatoes look good, peas good. The beans keep getting shredded like yours CC, and the peppers look really wimpy. There is still time to re-plant some things if needed.

C'mon sun! C'mon heat!

I'm glad I didn't plant most of my potatoes last week, they most likely would have rotted.

Glad to see everyone didn't fare too bad with this storm. Me, I'm thinking I live in Monsoon Alley. Thursday morning before this storm I noted in the UMass Extension newsletter that the Bolton Ag station had reported, not estimated, that Bolton had 10.7 inches of rain in the previous 7 days!! 



This storm, which started Thursday afternoon and went through the night into late morning Friday had to have dropped another 2-3 inches of rain. No wind, just a steady rain. Here's my garden this morning after the rain stopped.





For the most part, the plants are doing fine, although the spinach does not look happy. It's either light or nitrogen deprived. If the beds were not so soggy, I might hit it with a little fish emulsion. My four Lipstick peppers now have a fungal disease I have yet to diagnose (I'm thinking it is leaf mold).



Here's just one view of the rest of the flooded community garden. The soil is completely saturated since we are technically in a wetland and just got 15 inches of rain, so any standing water is going to have to evaporate, it won't soak in.



One other spot in the garden that is doing fine in this weather is the Girl Scout plot. Last year we gave a local troop of scouts a plot which they used to raise food for the local food pantry and senior housing complex. While coming for their work assignments to muck around and weed, they saw my SFG and wanted to do the same. So over the winter they planned, did fund raisers, studied my blog posts about building my SFG, bought materials for the beds and MM, and built their own SFG. While part of their plot is flooded, the plants are well above the water in their cozy SFG beds.

If that isn't a vote for SFG, I don't know what is.  The raised beds are so good when the rains come.  They are above the flooding. 
I'm glad you and the Girls Scouts didn't fare too badly thru this terrible rainstorm.

Wow, that is one soggy plot of land, mine is like that in places too. And like QB said, it's a poster for raised beds.

I'm rooting for dry out. C'mon, dry out!

wow, dvelton. That's amazing. It's so nice of you to teach the scouts about your SFG. They must be happy with the results after the rain. How are your raised beds fairing today? Are they dry enough?

When all was said and done with that storm I checked the next day and had lost most all the bush peas and a few more of the sugar snap peas to cracked stems. I strung them all back up hoping some might take but I see today a lot are starting to die. I also lost some tomato branches, and my onions are all toppled over so I don't know if it's because of the storm or I'm supposed to harvest them. Other than that everything is drying out nicely.

Today I attempted to divide the spag squash beds and transplant the extras. It probably won't work but then I'll know forever more.

I pulled out a grocery store garlic plant that I plopped in the garden during last winter due to sprouting. I didn't expect it to form anything but wanted to use the leaves, and lo and behold there's a really nice garlic on it! Color me surprised! So I'll hold off on pulling all the others until it's time.

Amazing!

What's happening in the rest of NE?
CC

My garden is looking good.  I had some browning leaves on the bottoms of some of my tomatoes, due to too much rain I hope.   Pulled those off.  Waiting on that red tomato to fully ripen so I can taste it and proclaim it the earliest tomato ever in my garden.   Reseeded a few Filet Beans and corn where some didn't pop up yet.  Waiting for the corn to be about 4-5" tall so I can sow some pole beans.
Picked my first strawberry of the season from a renegade plant growing outside the covered area but big and tasty.  I hope to get more of those soon.  The blueberries are still safe under their insect barrier tents.
I don't expect much from my eggplants again this year.  Our evenings get too darn cool for them to produce well, but I've put in several to make up for the low production.   They prefer minimum 60s nites but we mostly get temps in the 50s when the sun goes down until mid-July and Aug.
Those Calabrese broccolis I thought would produce, are starting to stretch and go to seed so the heat didn't do them any good, either, but the Brussels sprouts are doing fine.
I was told by a local organic farmer than planting broccoli and other brassicas do best here in the fall where there are no surprise heatwaves with the air getting cooler toward late fall.  I had this same prob last year with early heat and lost most of my brassicas.  I'm still babying that Violet Queen cauliflower, however, and hope to harvest at least one cauliflower this year.


Wishing all you Dads a Happy Father's Day today.

QB, is that why my eggplants aren't doing well? Cool nights? Maybe that's what happened to my pepper plants too. 

I have strawberries ripening every day now, love that. We had salad from the garden a few nights - spinach and lettuce, sliced strawberries, and (not from garden of course) walnuts. Put a few baby peas in the stir fry last night, as well as some celery leaves.

The poor drainage fields where I planted the vine crops have baby squash plants with blossoms! Surprising. 

I have some pole beans seedlings to transplant, I think along the edges of my garden fence, I'll let the fence be the trellis. The ones in the garden are about 70% growing.

All in all, things are progressing but slowly (except the strawberries, which are very happy). Everything seems to be waiting on warm weather and sunshine.

CC, so sorry about your broken plants! Grrr.

That cauliflower is beautiful, QB...and the leaves look good enuff to eat! Can you eat cauliflower leaves?

Congrats on your squash blossoms, NHG...way ahead of mine.

I forgot to mention previously that my tomatoes are...well, weird. The heirloom ones - Beefsteak, Pink & Red Brandywines - aren't doing so well. They are light green with a bit of yellow low down. And the 2 Beefsteaks have split into 2 main stems, I don't know how since I'm pinching suckers. Just looked yesterday and both are like that. Maybe it's a common characteristic of Beefsteaks, I dunno.

The hybrids, 2nd generation (Sungold & SuperSonic), are amazing - lush, thick trunks & dark green leaves with lots of flowers and baby toms! I'm not expecting the toms to be like the parent plants but these plants are nothing like the sickly stressed originals I picked up last year for a buck. It's amazing!

The Sweet 100's are beautiful but aren't flowering at all - just taking off and getting taller and taller.

So I composted the heirlooms when I did the peppers, hoping that might help them out. Any thoughts?

CC

So your hybrids are doing better than your heirlooms, CC? That's interesting. I like the hybrids because you never know what you're going to get. You could be creating the world's most amazing tomato.

My plants switch back and forth between various shades of green, yellow, whatever. I just let them do their thing. Hopefully your yellow will disappear, esp. as the weather improves.

My sweet 100s took a long time last year, tons of plant growth, and then BOOM! LOTS of fruit.

Wow, I feel for you guys that have been hit hard by the weather; even though it's been raining cats & dogs up my way, and windy, too, the garden hasn't suffered much. It probably helps that my house is built up on some 6' of sandy fill, and then the SFG is raised another foot or so on top of that.

That being said, it has been COLD here at night; DH said it was 38 one morning when he got up. I've been bringing the eggplants in every night, being in pots, but the toms & peppers are fending for themselves out in the SFG. I'm hopeful that they'll be somewhat productive despite what Mother Nature has been throwing our way.

I should probably get myself in gear & make some milk-jug cloches for the peppers at least but I keep telling myself that the weather *has* to improve at *some* point...

CapeC.....Yes, you can eat cauliflower leaves.

I harvested my FIRST tomato of the season today, June 18th.  New Girl is touted as being better than Early Girl.  She had a perfect shape, no blemishes, and delicious.   And, no, she wasn't from one of my early experimentals.

Red and perfect about 2 plus inches across.

Mmmmm, good.  
Now some info about it.  It wasn't from my plastic enclosed tomato plants, but it was started indoors the same date.
Started seed indoors 2-24
Up-potted to 6" air pruning pots 3-17
Kept under lights and then hardening off for nearly a month even after the experimentals went outdoors on 4-16.  She even had a couple green tomatoes by then.
Transplanted outdoors after last frost on 5-15 which is actually 2 weeks earlier than normal for our area but I was ready with blankets when it dropped down to less than 40 degrees.
She's an early variety, 62 days and a Hybrid so I won't save seeds.

Note of interest:  My early experimental Hybrid Jet Star (72 Days) still hasn't turned red nor has it even any blush.  I'm still hoping to get a red tomato by the Fourth of July as was the experiment.
In future, I'm sure I'll be planting a couple of New Girls each year to get really early tomatoes on my table and I won't even have to go to the trouble of plastic coverings.

Wow QB!

I have been harvesting greens for weeks but today is my first reportable harvest. 1 pound of peas from about 6 sf.



My beans are finally up. This is the first round and I hope to sow more this coming week, late, but not too late.


Plants are actually growing, which is quite nice.

Great, camprn! A lb. of peas. I've picked maybe 5 small peas so far.

2 things I can never have enough of, is green beans and peas, so I planted more yesterday - transplanted the green beans (they're about 4" high) and planted peas.

Strawberries keep coming in, which is beautiful.

Aha. Just realized why my acid reflux is acting up - I'll bet strawberries are acidic. Oh well, it'll have to hang in there til strawberry season is over.

Camp, your garden looks great, as always!  

Nice shots of the New Girl, QB...made my mouth water.  I'll be planting those next year fersure.

You planted more peas, NHG?  I think it's too late here...mine are winding down already (what's left of them after the last 2 storms) and a neighbor pulled hers out this week.  

What do you folks think about these spots on my cherry toms?  I can't find any info that it's drastic and am hoping it's just weather related:

Gadz...that new photo upload thing really stinks now.  It keeps disappearing everytime I try to type on the post or go to another website while I wait for the upload, then I had to start over again...4 times! (coz I kept forgetting it would do that since it didn't used to)

CC

I don't know what those dots are, but if you're nervous, I would pull them off and chuck them. Just in case it's a disease that can spread.

I heard you can keep planting peas, they just don't produce as much in hot weather. Since we haven't gotten hot here YET - except for the scorcher 3 days of +90 in mid-spring - I'm game.

Oh, just got sweet potato slips today, now I have to figure out how to plant those, I think they trellis.