PNW: June 2013

Gwen, I hope you have better luck with cukes and squash in your TTs than I did.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t297p15-building-a-table-top-sfgsome-ideas#163354

FG, are you going to start your broc and cauli earlier next year?  

My spinach is so erratic from planting to planting that I'm about ready to give up on it.  I'm going to try another planting of pole beans tomorrow.  I've never planted them this late, but their maturity time is 60 days, so there's plenty of growing season left, if the weather is decent. I think I'll wait a couple weeks before direct seeding more peas. (No particular reason.)

Every week, I plant a square or two of lettuce and rads, just to see what happens.  It sure feels odd to have a bunch of squares sitting empty, but in a month or so, they'll be getting filled with broccoli, cauliflower, and chard.

I've been fighting leaf miners in my beet leaves for several years.  I finally found some at work, doing their thing.  If I hold a leaf up to the sunlight, I can see them anywhere from pin head size, to almost 3/8 of an inch.  Squish!  I want beets to be one of my staples, so it's been a frustrating battle.  Covering them hasn't worked so far, so hopefully, catching them in the act will.

*Quote from boffer*

FG, are you going to start your broc and cauli earlier next year?

Boffer if you are talking about spring planting.....not sure what to do ....this year we started them indoors Feb 2nd and on march 15th we transplanted them out side and they didnt do any real growing until the 1st of May.....we only had a light weight row cover over them so Im wondering if next year we should have plastic on the hoops instead.....watcha think?...boc and cauli are one of our favorite veggies....

if you mean starts for fall harvesting then we already have them going inside and we just up potted them ....they already have thier true leaves

sorry to hear spinach is still giving you problems as I remember last year not being a good spinach year for either one of us.....

leaf miners.....glad you were able to squish some of them....im going to have to look them up because im not sure i know what they really look like and wonder if we have had them in our garden and just didnt know it.....maybe we even have eatin some......eeeeek......

hugs
rose

Huh!  

Yes, I meant spring planting for broc and cauli.    I transplanted some in late Feb, and  I'm getting tired of eating broccoli and cauliflower every day. I also stagger planted over several months, and the later plantings are giving me bigger size heads right now.  They were all under plastic hoop houses.  I wish I could I think of a reason yours are so slow.

I've been planting a little bit earlier each year, and I've reached my early limit.  Next year I won't transplant broccoli until later in March to see if I can get bigger heads.  

The leaf miners that like beets are flies about ¼ the size of house flies.  The larva get inbetween the layers of the leaves and make trails.  It took me a while to figure it out because some leaf miners, in pictures, leave very clear precise trails.  My trails look like a fountain pen written on an ink blotter.  (I wonder how old you have to be to understand that analogy?!)  So far, they haven't bothered any other plants.

Oh how wonderful to finally have something to read when I checked in on here! Thanks everyone for posting updates. So nice to hear from you.

Rose, I eat a lot of green onions and my little garden can't keep up with how often I cut them down so I still buy them often from the grocery store. I've had 100% success rate planting the bulbs in my SFG after I cut off and use the greens. That's something I stick in empty spaces all over the place. They start re-growing within the day and if I need to pull them later no biggy - it's not like I invested all this time and energy growing them from seeds. Also as others have mentioned: beans. Very prolific and fast growing they are a good thing to stick in now if you have squares waiting for fall plantings that can wait until September or later. I do think you should let your daughter plant some flowers if you have empty spaces. They can at least attract pollinators, even if she chooses non-edible ones. Maybe encourage her to try ones suitable for cuttings and making floral arrangements with. That's a whole different type of flower growing that takes a certain skill she could work at.

Oh and boffer, thanks for posting that link - I've been meaning to look that up again because I couldn't remember the conclusion you'd made. Well, I don't have any squash not in containers, so I won't know how much better they could have produced! It'll all be new to me. Mine aren't exactly the same, with the black plastic and having bottoms maybe they'll warm up better and stay warmer better? I know my black plastic faux wine barrels I used for potatoes last year and am doing a three sisters garden in this year dry out like crazy and make me nuts. I mulched them really thickly to see if that will help, but now the rain is back so I won't know just yet. Don't you use soil heating cables in some of your table tops?

boffer wrote:Huh!  

Yes, I meant spring planting for broc and cauli.    I transplanted some in late Feb, and  I'm getting tired of eating broccoli and cauliflower every day.

Shirley you're not serious. Tell you what - bring me ALL your Broccoli+Cauliflower. Why? I eat up to one pound of each, along with same of cabbage, etc. any day I can get some! For real. Along with a breadbowl-size full of Salad: kale, Cherry-maters, Sweet red+yellow peppers, scallions, English-cukes, Red-cabbage, croutons, & dressing. Yummy!

oh maaaan......just posted a long post and *poof* its gone....eerrrrr

trying this again....

I was hitting  Boffer on the head for saying he had to much broccoli and cauliflower

I thanked GWEN for the suggestions on the green onions (which by the way I do the same thing....squeeze them in here and there)....but...I was so glad she said something because I had left 2 trays of seedlings out of the green house because I had been working in there and the onion and leeks were getting hit hard by the rain....

drained the water off of them and I think they look fine ...so thank you GWEN!...the top container are our cucumbers...and by the way...the seedling tray with the onions and leeks....I love to use these...the starts do great when pulling them out....the roots just slide right out and stay in contact pretty well....



posted a pic for Boffer to show him how our our cole crops are doing



made a funny comment about how much lettuce is in that hoop bed



showed ya how I found this while taking a peak at the garden and how I wanted to wait until our son got home from the movies so he could pull it....



asked if anyone knew when it was time to pull up parsnips?



and if you knew when to pull up turnips?



showed off our celery that was moved from last year and over wintered in the green house and we let it go to flower



asked if you all thought these sweet potatoes look right?



showed how great our bird house gourds are doing



and was excited to show you a day early what we might be eating tomorrow



then ALL of my post was gone.....

happy gardening
rose.....who has more to share but afraid to lose it all again.....

FamilyGardening wrote:...I was hitting  Boffer on the head for saying he had to much broccoli and cauliflower

...and if you knew when to pull up turnips?...

...asked if you all thought these sweet potatoes look right? ...

Your cole crops look healthy.  I wish I had that much lettuce left.  My succession planting of lettuce hasn't jibed well with the weather this year.

Most of my turnips are getting nearly baseball size this year, so that's when I pull them.  But you can pull them at any size.

Sweet potatoes?  Bleh!  We had a house rule when my son was growing up, that he had to taste everything served.  He made sure we followed the rules too.  Sweet potatoes are the one veggie that I don't like, and creamed corn is the one veggie that my wife doesn't like, so we only had them on Thanksgiving.  He never caught on!

That carrot ought to put a big smile on your son's face!

Familygardening, my celery looks just like yours!  I am looking forward to harvesting celery seed.  Last year was my first attempt at celery and I had no idea how tall it would get.
I agree with Boffer on the Turnips, good at any stage.
With Parsnips, I dig down about 1 inch with my finger and see how big the top is. Two inches at the top usually makes a good sized parsnip.

well lookie what he pulled up after getting home from seeing Superman




and guess who ate that ripe tomato while I was posting a pic of it today......



Yep....that cute puppy seen me messing with the first ripe tomato of the season while taking the picture today....and when I went back out....it was GONE...GONE......now I don't know for sure....that she is the guilty party.....but...we have caught her before eating strawberries and sugar snap peas....right off the vine!!

happy gardening
rose

FamilyGardening wrote:
I was hitting  Boffer on the head for saying he had to much broccoli and cauliflower
...
asked if you all thought these sweet potatoes look right?


and was excited to show you a day early what we might be eating tomorrow

happy gardening
rose....

Hi Rose,
Wait!, everyone's been telling me 'No, you can't grow Sweet potatoes nor Yams in the PNWet. No no"
where's the pouty :(face? But here you are actually succeeding Really? Let's just have a whole FIELD of those two. LOL I love Sweet potatoes & Yams. Anything special you gotta do to grow them West of the cascades? and your garden is soo good...

littleG....this is the first time for us to try and grow us some sweet potatoes....we are growing them in the green house.....i hear they like the heat....just hope we have enough  for them to be happy!

Happycamper.....can the saved celery seeds be used like the spice celery seed?

Boffer....funny story about the sweet potatoes and cream corn ...we took a peek tonight and the parsnips are still skinny....we did find one of the turnips about the size of an egg.....we just hope we get something out of them both....non of us have tasted parsnips before....hubby said he tasted a turnip and didnt like them....but i told him that a turnip from the store is not the same as one you grew your self...so he is willing to give them a try with the kids and I....so I hope it gets big enough for us each to have a bite

hugs
rose

Rose, your "re-do" post, with your quick version summary of what you'd said really cracked me up!   It's nice seeing so many pictures - that must have been so frustrating for them to all go *poof*.  Thanks for taking the time to re-post!  This is my fave:

FamilyGardening wrote:

What a great pic!  (And he even has a superman shirt that he wore to the movie!).

All the pictures made me want to share mine, even though there's hardly anything yet to see.  Took some last night and will get to them later today I hope.  Crumb I wish I had more beds.  I'm regretting allowing the mini pumpkins.  No room for fall peas, which are my favorite and the most successful crop I can count on.  I'm going to have to figure that out.  

FG, when did you plant your carrots, and what kind are they?  Very impressive for this time of year.  

boffer wrote:FG, when did you plant your carrots, and what kind are they?  Very impressive for this time of year.  

the bigger carrots in the pic are Long Imperator
the others are Ingot Hybrid & Bolero Nates (which seem to be about the same size)

these were planted on 3-8-13 (6 different types of carrots) out in our back garden in Top Hats with spent MM..... squash was grown in these top hats last year....we amended with some pot ash from our wood stove and bone Meal....( just sprinkled it on top and mix in a bit) then mulch with wood chips......

Still waiting to pull up because the bottoms are still thin and small are

Kuroda
Eskimo Hybrid
King Midas

the Long Imperator was seed from last year that we didn't really get much of when planted in another area of the garden....the rest are all new types we are trying

all of the carrots we munched on during dinner last night and were really good!

happy gardening
rose

Okay here's the pictures I took last night.

I have 2 squares of broccoli, 2 weeks old, surrounded by grocery store green onions in various stages (quarter in the picture for size reference): 


I have 1 square with cucumbers, 2 weeks old, one sprouted a couple of days before the other: 


I pinched off the top of this pepper plant after transplanting it since it had flower buds already.  My hope was that it would save the energy of fruiting for getting settled in instead.  It hasn't enjoyed our cool, wet June, but is putting out tons of new growth along the stem and will get nice and bushy so I'm happy with that: 


Here's one of the mini pumpkin sprouts, with some extra flowers tucked in the corner that may eventually get overwhelmed by the leaves - we'll see: 


And this box makes me happy because of all the cute little rows.  The bottom two squares are each planted as half squares of radishes and carrots (carrots have been thinned to two per spot, waiting for true leaves before I pinch off the last one).  Then there's two full squares of dragon's tongue bush beans (with one replacement sproutling).  They have huge leaves!  Will I need to box these in at all to contain them?  And does anyone recognize a particular symptom with the leaves?  The tomato cages are in the last row behind the beans:



I didn't bother taking a picture of the lettuce I tried.  Only half of it sprouted and what did is just now barely visible.  I plopped the stump of a romaine head on one side last night.  I tried re-growing them in glasses of water inside and it worked, so we'll see if this way works too.

All in all I'm having lots of fun with my new little garden.  I'd forgotten how fun it is to have something to anticipate and look forward to, what with counting down succession plantings and watching for sprouts to show.  I'm glad to be up and running again.

It's not 'Big Stuff'  worthy, but there's a few meals here






It's hard to believe that it's worth $7.85 at today's Safeway price (3.9 lb @ $1.99/lb)

OMG! What a beauty! I am so jealous!

boffer wrote:

It's hard to believe that it's worth $7.85 at today's Safeway price (3.9 lb @ $1.99/lb)

That is so cool! Is that the price per pound of organic cauli?

Niiiiice! When I grow up I wanna try growing those. What variety is it, Boffer?

CC

That is one gorgeous cauli!

GG

gwennifer wrote:...Is that the price per pound of organic cauli?

Oops! No. Today's organic price is $2.29.  So it would be $8.93.

CapeCoddess wrote:Niiiiice!    When I grow up I wanna try growing those.  What variety is it, Boffer?
CC

Wouldn't you have time if you started now?

This is a Snow Crown from TSC.  Their catalog description says, 'May manifest a delicate pink blush when maturing in the hotter parts of summer.'

You may be able to see that the center part of the head has no color.  I had covered the head with a leaf when it was smaller to blanch it, but the head grew and the leaf shriveled!

TSC just got more busy that 'Snow Crown' is another Beauty

Ha! Snow Crown is already on my list, along with Early Snowball and White Sails. I just don't have the space....yet.



CC

Wow boffer! That's awesome I'm kind of that perfect looking tomato too.

Pass the ranch!!

hugs
rose..... who is still waiting for cole crops to head up!