July 2013 New England

Yup, those Juliets with their clusters looks like a great way to go! Productive.

And I didn't know Jimmy Nardellos were sweet. I always thought they were a hot pepper. Gonna have to look into those for next year now. I love sweet peppers, but I don't have much luck with bells, wonder if JNs are easier.

And the purple peacock broccoli sounds interesting! Why waste all the leaves? I like the thought of the leaves being edible. Are regular broccoli plant leaves edible?

AND - the color on those eggplants, wow. I'd probably be decorating the house with those. Food art.

The Juliet tomato is an F1 hybrid that was an AAS winner. My neighbor grows them every year because her husband loves them so I tried them. I find the flavor a little bland unless they are fully ripe, but other than that they are an amazing tomato. The size is bigger than a grape tomato but smaller than a roma, sort of a mini-roma. They are good for salads, salsa and sauce, and I know one gardener who dries them. I grew them last year and they were BER resistant, crack resistant, blight resistant and were the first tomato and last tomato out of the garden. It took a hard frost to kill them. They are indeterminate but you would think they are determinate the way they grow rampantly. It's a real challenge to tame this thing up a trellis cord.

NHG, yes Jimmy Nardellos are sweet and are supposed to have a great, tangy flavor. Will know soon when I fry up those puppies with my one and only eggplant and some of the Rosso Lungo onions I pulled last week. I swore off trying to grow bells and figured I would only grow small peppers this year. I have a couple or sweet red cherries that are loaded but not ripe, some Lipstick peppers that are just starting to set fruit, the JM and Padrons producing, a couple of Tiburon Anchos producing the occasional pepper, and some Aconcagua peppers thinking about it. So far I have gotten more peppers this year than the previous 2 years despite very tough weather conditions, so maybe it's working. Hope this keeps up because I like my peppers.

I love peppers, and I'm glad I'm not the only one frustrated with bells. Forget those. Last year I had a great pepper season but that must have been an anomaly. 

Let us know how you like the JNs when you fry them up! Another appealing thought about those, looking at them, is they would pack and freeze easily. Bells you have to cut up, with all that wasted air in the middle, these you could fit a bunch into a ziploc. 

I grew sweet cherry peppers last summer, and they were prolific (for a pepper) and delicious!

It sounds like you trade off a little flavor for all that productivity with the juliets, but for me that would be worth it, as long as the nutritional value is still there.

When you have shorter growing seasons like we do, you have to be a little more particular about your varieties, I find. We don't have the luxury of waiting until August for our produce to start to ripen, for the most part.

P.S. - The heat spell broke! Finally! NOAA says high of 79 today.

I love heat, but normal is a lot more comfortable.

I just saw this & thought I'd share:

http://extension.unh.edu/articles/LATE-BLIGHT-ALERT-0

Thank goodness the heatwave broke with only 70s this week.  I was hoping for that t-storm yesterday but it passed us by so this morning I was out watering my veggie garden with the hose.  Yesterday I picked the first of the Redskin sweet peppers.

which came from my two potted plants below:

There are many tiny fruits starting and lots of blossoms among the greenery.  Lush plants and the larger the pot, the larger the pepper plant so next year they'll go in the larger pots.

I'll be picking this Super Red 80 cabbage for supper tomorrow nite.  Its big enough.  Its a smaller variety and a good size for an SFG with one per square though the outer leaves can shade the surrounding squares so best to have it on a corner with greens growing in the side squares.

above:  My corn patch is doing fine and over 3 feet tall now and thick stalks.  The purple-podded pole beans are getting taller and will be winding around the stalks soon.   I hope to get some corn this year.  One year my efforts were drowned in heavy spring rains that ruined the whole patch.
Enjoy the great weather we're having in New England right now.

Potted peppers... huh. Do you think they work better in pots, QB? I may have to resort to that next year.

NHGardener.....I like some peppers in pots only because I can put the pots in the workshop the first of the season when there are some cool nites expected.  They go back out in the warmth of the days.  It seems it works better for me.  They are larger than those in the raised beds that had to take the cold hits early in the season.  Not freezing, but pretty near it sometimes.  The pots produced the first fruits.  My bedded ones are just beginning to show teeny fruits.
Its the same for the Alibi cuke and the Green Tiger zuke that are in pots.  Larger plants than in the raised beds.

That's what I'm thinking QB - that potting the peppers would lead to a better controlled environment for them. They pretty much have to be babied, is my experience.

mollyhespra wrote:I just saw this & thought I'd share:

http://extension.unh.edu/articles/LATE-BLIGHT-ALERT-0

Thanks Molly,good to know. That same notice was listed in the Blight thread.

dvelten wrote:We have had temps 100+ and no rain now for over a week. I find my peppers and tomatoes, even though they are in the 8" bed, need watering every day or they show signs of heat stress. Too bad, this morning was stage 20 of the Tour de France, then we went to Tower Hill for the AHA Day Lilly show. Sally King from Bolton was judging. So I didn't get to the garden until late afternoon, even though it was threatening to thunderstorm. I figured if I went to water the garden, it would surely rain. I did and it didn't. It's still hot.

A few of the peppers were indeed sagging when I got to the garden. Peppers really don't like extreme heat and they will not set fruit with temps in the 90s. I have lots of peppers on the plants but no pepper blossoms or even buds. Tonight's low is predicted to be 66 (no rain of course) and next week is in the mid-80s, which is fine with me and the peppers. Here are a few photos of the garden.

The Jimmy Nardello peppers are loaded and are starting to color up.



My Copra yellow onions are starting to fall over, meaning harvest is close.



This Purple Peacock broccoli is looking good and starting to form a head. Purple Peacock is a cross between kale and broccoli, so everything is edible.



The Juliet tomato is gonzo as usual. This photo shows a 9-tomato cluster starting to ripen, with a 15-tomato cluster above it. Above that is another 9-tomato cluster.



I harvested a few vegetables while there. This photo shows Jimmy Nardello peppers, Juliet and Sungold tomatoes, a Ping Tung eggplant, and some Pimiento de Padron peppers.

WOW! Those peppers and maters are fantastic! I just can't believe how far behind I am. I LOVE your purple peacock broccoli...what a great idea, especially for those of us who's broccoli bolts as soon as the head appears. Where did you get the seeds?

CC

CC, I got my PP seeds from Fedco. The variety is still extremely variable, with some green plants and some purple plants. I have yet to try the leaves, but that's next. Broccoli leaves are also edible but usually too tough to eat. These look pretty good right now.

For the peppers this year I tried a new growing strategy (last year was a disaster for me, pepper-wise), which I described on my blog. Given the wild weather this year, I'm not sure I can compare this year to last, but my pepper haul so far is fantastic compared to last year. Keys to the technique are: plant only vigorous, healthy transplants; do not plant early - wait until soil temps and night-time temps are warm because planting early stunts the plants even if they don't die; when planting, add nitrogen fertilizer to hole to encourage rapid foliage growth, since peppers need to be a big plant to produce a reasonable crop of peppers. So far it is working, and you have to realize these peppers almost died from a bacterial disease with the lousy weather and these are the recovered plants. If I didn't have the disease set-back, I would be much farther along. Thank goodness for copper sprays.

dv, FABULOUS! I think you're new strategy is key, planting when conditions are right... not too sure about the N when transplanting. What were your take away points from that intervention?

camprn,

I prepped the bed by adding a generous amount of compost and fluffed up the MM. Planting the peppers was delayed by the lousy weather, so when I decided the weather was settled and warm enough to plant, I added another large scoop of JoBarb Farms organic compost and a large scoop of worm castings. I also threw maybe a 1/4 cup of Tomato Tone in the hole.

I know this is heresy, but the rationale came from the Territorial seed catalog pepper growing guide. Yes, you only need compost for your SFG, and yes, conventional wisdom says you should avoid nitrogen fertilizer for peppers because you will get lots of foliage but no fruit. But how can you get a good yield of fruit from a small plant? I have done that year after year with poor results. So you get a pepper or two? Yay! Big deal. The Territorial advice is to encourage rapid growth of foliage for the first 6 weeks after transplant, then withhold the nitrogen. Now you have a large, robust pepper plant with the bones to support a big load of peppers. I figured I would give it a try, conventional wisdom was not working.

I can't say I followed the advice exactly. I guess I should have pinched off any flowers and let the peppers grow foliage for 6 weeks. But come on, 6 weeks is almost the whole NE growing season.

I find your rationale sound.

dvelten wrote:camprn,
... I know this is heresy, but the rationale came from the Territorial seed catalog pepper growing guide. Yes, you only need compost for your SFG, and yes, conventional wisdom says you should avoid nitrogen fertilizer for peppers because you will get lots of foliage but no fruit. But how can you get a good yield of fruit from a small plant? I have done that year after year with poor results. So you get a pepper or two? Yay! Big deal. The Territorial advice is to encourage rapid growth of foliage for the first 6 weeks after transplant, then withhold the nitrogen. Now you have a large, robust pepper plant with the bones to support a big load of peppers. I figured I would give it a try, conventional wisdom was not working.

That actually makes a lot of sense when you put it that way! My plants are small too, nice and green, since adding stuff, but they're small. I think you're on to something! Especially "how can you get good yield of fruit from a small plant".... 

I really try hard to build a well rounded compost so I don't need to add stuff, but if plants are clearly suffering and need a boost, well I try only one of the least intervention first and proceed from there.

More pickles.


Spicy Kosher dills.

Oh man! I love kosher dills! Would you please post the recipe in the recipe section? I have high hopes for many cucs...if the PM doesn't take them down first.

I'll be picking my first large mater, a Supersonic, tomorrow as well as pulling half the spring planted beets. Hope the Supersonic is as delicious as it's parent was. A pepper that's growing about 2 inches a day may be ready also if I want it green. I've been pulling onions as we need them but they are still smallish for Spanish onions. Better than nuttin' tho.  

My poor squash plants look like they've been snowed on from the PM. It's so awful. All it took was 2 days of putting off the bkg soda spray due to rain in the forecast and that was that.   So I finally sprayed and then it drizzled enough to wet the tops of everything but nothing underneath. I sparyed again today but it may be too late for most of them.

Due to the drought we're having, smaller than pea sized acorns have fallen from all the oak trees. They are everywhere. I've never seen this before. Don't know what the squirrels will do this fall.

The greens are still going gangbusters and I may have some carrots growing...finally. I put some broccoli seedlings in yesterday after hardening them off, and thought I'd direct plant some sugar snap peas, lettuce & more kale tomorrow for fall.

Anyone else planting for fall yet?

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Oh man!  I love kosher dills!  Would you please post the recipe in the recipe section?

CC

The recipe for the kosher dill pickles is in the Ball Blue Book, page 50.

Squash bugs! Darn. Anyone else have them besides me?

They wilt the leaves really quickly. I scraped/smashed the brown eggs, but the spider/bugs were yuck, I just brushed those off which won't do anything except spread them around. I didn't have a good squisher with me, but will next time I go out there.

Darn, I never have a good squash/zucchini crop. I may have to give in and next year put them under raised row cover like everyone else. Do they do that for squash bugs, or more for vine borers?

Simple wire hoops, agrabon, and clothespins.

I put light insect barrier over my squashes to prevent squash bug infestation.  
For the vine borer this year I wrapped my lower stem sections in panty hose to foil the vine borers.  Bury the hose a bit into the soil and up the stem about 4 inches and pin the looseness together with a straight pin.  The hose will expand as the stem gets fatter.  So far so good.

I've only seen two & they were in the middle of making more when I found them, so into the soapy water they went. I keep a jar of soapy water handy in the garden to deal with the pesties. I haven't seen any eggs, tho.

What I am struggling with is fungus &/or bacterial diseases on my cucurbits. The spots that I thought *I'd* caused by using dish detergent instead of dish soap turned out to be "angular leaf spot". I got suspicious when more spots kept appearing and it had been a few days since I'd sprayed. So this morning I made a new batch of extra-strength spray with 4 tsp baking soda, one tbs each of oil and castille soap and then all the above into one gallon of water. I sprayed everything with it, then went out and trimmed off all the damaged foliage, then sprayed some more. That was on the cukes.

The other thing I noticed this morning was that my 'Baby' watermelon had some funky spots in places, but I have yet to ID those. I did trim the affected foliage & sprayed them also.

Then, this evening I come home to find that my 'Costata Romanesca' zucchini has some serious leaf wilt. I can't find any evidence of SVB, but it rather looks like something is turning the leaves into mush. I hope it's not bacterial leaf wilt. OY. So I trimmed those leaves off but I don't want to spray this late in the evening, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. And this morning I'd pollinated the first little zucchini on that plant! I hope I don't end up having to pull that plant up. If it's systemic, I might have to.

So far, that's been the worse of it. My early spraying did seem to deal with the PM, though I'd rather have the PM than the nasties I'm seeing right now.

It's just been too darned wet & humid this season.

Molly, did you check the back of your wilted leaves for the squash bugs/eggs? That's what I had.
 
QB, I used to shrug at all the hoops we go thru to keep the bugs off, but I think I'll do your nylon and barrier next year. Why go thru all this trouble, just to have it ruined by bugs? I hate my garden looking like it's wrapped in all kinds of things (not to mention the labor to do it), but oh well.

Anyway, I went out there this evening with soapy water and a paper towel and I knocked all the squash bugs (nymphs) I could find into the water and crunched the eggs. It was just about dark when I was done, and wow are the mosquitoes out. We have 2 bats that come back every year, but I could use about 20 more. They're good because they come out after the bees go to bed, unlike the dragonflies who think a honey bee is just another bug.

One good thing is that most of our gardens are small enough that you have the manual option for bug removal. I haven't seen any hornworms yet, but when I do, then I'll spend way too much time on hornworm hunts. At least the chickens love those, they won't look at a squash bug.

One other point: last summer I had a terrible problem with slugs. This summer I didn't mulch with straw, and the slug population is manageable. They had especially gotten into the potatoes, I had used straw as part of the growing medium for them. This year, the potatoes look great (at least the foliage does, I haven't checked under ground yet).

NHG: I did look for eggs & found none on the wilted leaves. I similarly didn't see any on non-wilted leaves. I really think it's a bacteria or fungus, but that's just a hunch. I should have taken a pic, come to think of it, but I didn't; let's hope I don't get another chance to.

CC: I've been planning for fall in my head, but that's about it. I had wanted to try a fall-winter-spring garden under several layers of protection a la Eliott Coleman, but I think that will wait until next year. I've got too much going on right now to add that to my plate.