New England July 2014

Wow, It's July 1st already! 
The Japanese beetles are here and boy are they hungry! Wiped out 2 basil plants before I even realized it. 
On a brighter note we are eating green beans everyday and loving it. French filet green beans will be ready in a day or two and can't wait to try those. 

First of the pickling cukes will be ready shortly. 

Seeing a few tassles on the corn

Tomatoes are getting started.

Grapes are coming along.

Just wanted to check in with a Happy July.  Its lovely here, sunny and in the low 80s already.  Should hit 88 to 90 today and getting more humid with a weather front arriving tomorrow.  I don't care for the high humidity.

Picked more sugar snaps and watching some tomatoes forming.  Cute little green things. Last year by this time I was picking ripe red ones off my early tomatoes.  Not so this year since I didn't get any good starts this year with the horrid seed starter mix.  The seedlings that made it were stunted til they were transplanted in the ground.  Thankfully they perked up and started good growth, but way behind in getting red ones this year.  But at least they all look healthy.

Lyndeeloo, cukes already???   How you do dat?

All's well in my SFG even with the lack of rain.  Seems the winds have left everything standing for the most part this year, where as last year it broke most of my pea vines.
Sugar Snap peas just keep in giving!
Sugar Daddy peas, too:

Kentucky Wonder beans in with the peas waiting their turn at the trellis:


Bush beans in old school SFG - Contender & Blue Lake:


Onions surrounded by Romaine, Grand Rapids lettuce, peppers, cukes:

I used grass clippings for mulch as an experiment

Here's the questionable garlic bed:
The ones that had yellow leaves mid spring now have 'mold'?

& then there are these weird protrusions which makes me think of Egyptian Walking onions...from which I saved no 'seed'. Or is there a garlic that does this?

Beets, there are more in another box:

Tomatoes
Black Cherry - seeds from last years volunteer crop:

One of the other plants has blushing cherries already.    I may be able to eat them this weekend. Nothing like the first tomato!

Super Sonic that looks like a Roma to me - seed from crop 2 yrs ago:

Box Car Willy - seed from Ray via QB: 

There are lots of Romas, too, but no photos yet.

I've allowed the Mustard Spinach aka Tendergreen aka komatsuna to go to seed  because my packet is empty:
This is my 3rd year planting this cool season, easy growing, green leafy!  I will put more in for a fall crop.

And the greens and strawberries grow on and on and on:


All in all, I'm very pleased with this spring/summer SFG!

CC

CC your garden is so beautiful. It just goes on and on. How much space do you have there? It looks pretty big to me. What is the flavor like on the mustard spinach? Easy sounds like my kind of greens. My spinach did nothing this year. Last night we did a garlic and onion stir fry with all our greens. Turnip tops, kale, swiss chard, cabbage leaves and bok choy. Oh boy was it good. I want to grow some more greens this fall.

Cc, those bulges in the garlic stalk are bulbils. I had that happen quite a bit last year with some of my softneck reverting to hardneck, I think.
I saw one of those in my garlic bed this morning. It is all looking like its ripening and almost done, which is good as I want to plant more stuff in those beds.

Don't worry about the mildew. When you harvest the garlic just strip off the outer skin that was affected.

Beautiful gardens!

I've only eaten mustard greens from frozen, in quiche. Never fresh. I've got to try them sometime soon.

CapeC....Your garden looks divine.  Great pictures.
Your Boxcar Willy is lookin' good.  I actually only got one seedling from my stash of seeds due to the bad starting mix I used.  One stunted seedling survived.   Its doing well in the flower garden and has lots of blossoms, but I haven't seen any green yet.  It was behind so that's expected.  The Cherokee Purple and the Patio tomatoes all have a few green fruits growing now.

Lyndeeloo, Your grapes look so healthy. It must be your weather.

CC, Thank you for that lovely tour of your garden.

I forgot to add that the C Purple and Patio tomatoes were store bought plants I needed to fill in for the lost ones I started.

I planted my peas (in a pot) late and they keeled over in the heat yesterday.  So I took off the peas and pulled the plants.  Have no idea what to do with one cup of peas (and that is IN the pods, not shelled!).  

Can we replant these later for a fall crop?  If so, when and when are they harvested?  It would have to ripen enough to be picked my mid October due to travel conflicts.

I do have little tomatoes on my Super 100, Fourth of July and Early Girl plant.  So far, no green tomatoes on my Abe Lincoln tomatoe.  (Planted one plant each, in pots.)  They have been very thirsty in the heat which I thought might be the case because they are fruiting.

camprn wrote:Cc, those bulges in the garlic stalk are bulbils. I had that happen quite a bit last year with some of my softneck reverting to hardneck, I think.
I saw one of those in my garlic bed this morning. It is all looking like its ripening and almost done, which is good as I want to plant more stuff in those beds.

Don't worry about the mildew. When you harvest the garlic just strip off the outer skin that was affected.

Thanks for this, Camp.  I don't have to feel crazy anymore wondering how the walking onions got in there.    My bulging garlic are the same ones that you plant, California softneck.  It's weird how they are the only ones doing that.

Lyndeeloo, my garden is only about 100 sq ft.  It's on the side of the house, which is on a 1/4 acre lot.  Not big at all actually.  Which is why my pole beans need to share a trellis with the peas, and in spot some toms are also- I didn't point that out in the photos coz I didn't want you guys to think I was nutz.
 
The Tendergreen/mustard spinach isn't actually a spinach.  It's  in the Brassica family. The earlier and younger they are picked, the less the 'spice'. If the seed sitch works out I'll have lots to share with anyone who wants to try it.

cpl, I eat my peas, pods & all.  YUM!  So one cup of peas is a great breakfast with some strawberries & coffee.  I will plant more for fall.

QB, I'll save seeds from Boxcar Willy so if yours doesn't make it let me know.

Please please, dear Mother Nature, please let me grow a zucchini, or a bunch of zucchinis, to term this year...


CC

I planted my squash seeds today.
  

Hee-hee!  I playz wit mummyz furst tomatoz wen she looks awayz!

Molly   

molly....Is that a Sun Gold?  Perfect size for a cat's interest.

We got t-storms around supper time last nite.  Only 3/4 inch of rain but high winds.  In fact I found 2 of my tomato pots knocked over from the wind.  No damage, tho, so that was lucky, but I had to put a stake in the pot for the Patio tomato to stand straight again.  It was a bit bent.

mollyhespra wrote:Hee-hee!  I playz wit mummyz furst tomatoz wen she looks awayz!

Caught in the act - silly cat.    What a great photo!

I'd better watch Lilly around this Black Cherry:

AND the baby pea sized peppers!

CC

Looks like  NHG is getting womped right now. Lots of rain, hail, lightning, thunder and tornado warnings.

QB, I have some wind coming tomorrow night. If you had known you're high winds were coming what would you have done to your tomatoes beforehand to protect them? I'm not worried about the trellised tomatoes but I have some free standing ones, some on stakes and some with flimsy cages.

Camp, the garlics with the bulges have all keeled over at the bulge point, some even lower at the base.. do you remember if yours did that last year? If so did you pull them out?
CC

CapeC....I could have brought mine inside for the nite to be safer.  Thank goodness the winds didn't really hurt anything.   Some branches down on the driveway under the archway of trees as one enters the property but only small ones.

Small tornado from Exeter to Rye NH before it blew out to sea.  No reports of any big damage, thank goodness.   The worst was the 5 to 6" of rain in the Rumford Maine area that washed out a few roads.  We only got 3/4 inch, thankfully.

Arthur is supposed to blow out to sea after it hits Cape Hatteras in the Carolinas and our Sat and Sunday should be bright and sunny and in the 70s to 80s those days.  The fireworks everywhere have been changed to Sat nite since we're going to get rain, rain, rain Friday nite with more t-storms.  The edge of Arthur.

I hope the Cape fares pretty well from the storm as it blows out further East.

Glorious rain the past 2 days! It's been refreshing, and I think the vine plants doubled in size.

We had a lightning strike yesterday afternoon that took out the well pump. Thankfully didn't have to water the garden! Fixed today but they added bleach to the well which takes up to a week to clear out, so I don't want to water the garden for several days yet - it would be nice if the rain held up! Looks like it might.

The duckies are no more. Two of them died from eating slugs! Apparently the slug slime suffocated them. One in the garden one night, one just in the yard the next night! It was devastating. The 3rd lonely duckling went to live with a friend who already has 2 of the same kind of duckling. Looks like it's back to hand-picking the slugs. What I suspect is that we have mutant alien slugs.

The strawberries are on the down slope, but I'm still picking them, and everyone here is sick of them once again, so I'm freezing them. Cut many garlic scapes today and will finish tomorrow, I baggied those and put them in the freezer. The peas are really coming in, and there are green bean blossoms. Haven't seen any june bugs yet! The raspberries are also ripening.

Hard to remember what winter is like.

Oh! I'm so sorry to hear about your ducklings, NHG!!    who would have thought the slugs would end up being *their* demise? How sad...

Wow what a shame! They were so cute!

Are there any poisonous plants anywhere near your garden? I know that people have died from eating snails that ate poisonous plants, which some snails easily handle without getting sick.

  So sorry.

CapeCoddess wrote:Camp, the garlics with the bulges have all keeled over at the bulge point, some even lower at the base.. do you remember if yours did that last year? If so did you pull them out?
CC

I have a few doing the same thing. I'm just going to leave them there until the rest of the garlic is ready to lift.

NHGardener wrote:Glorious rain the past 2 days! It's been refreshing, and I think the vine plants doubled in size.

We had a lightning strike yesterday afternoon that took out the well pump. Thankfully didn't have to water the garden! Fixed today but they added bleach to the well which takes up to a week to clear out, so I don't want to water the garden for several days yet - it would be nice if the rain held up! Looks like it might.

The duckies are no more. Two of them died from eating slugs! Apparently the slug slime suffocated them. One in the garden one night, one just in the yard the next night! It was devastating. The 3rd lonely duckling went to live with a friend who already has 2 of the same kind of duckling. Looks like it's back to hand-picking the slugs. What I suspect is that we have mutant alien slugs.

The strawberries are on the down slope, but I'm still picking them, and everyone here is sick of them once again, so I'm freezing them. Cut many garlic scapes today and will finish tomorrow, I baggied those and put them in the freezer. The peas are really coming in, and there are green bean blossoms. Haven't seen any june bugs yet! The raspberries are also ripening.

Hard to remember what winter is like.

Do you just freeze your scapes 'as is', blanch them or ????
Thanks.

quiltbea wrote:molly....Is that a Sun Gold?  Perfect size for a cat's interest.

We got t-storms around supper time last nite.  Only 3/4 inch of rain but high winds.  In fact I found 2 of my tomato pots knocked over from the wind.  No damage, tho, so that was lucky, but I had to put a stake in the pot for the Patio tomato to stand straight again.  It was a bit bent.

Yes, first one to ripen this year.  I bought the start at the grocery store sometime in May, I think.  Could even have been late April.  It was waaaaaaaay too soon to think about planting outside, so I just put it in a gallon sized container and brought it inside when frost threatened.  I only bought the plant because I couldn't find sungold seeds, and I figured what do I have to loose?  I was going to clip the flowers off but I remembered your experiments last year & kept them on to see what would happen, and I got a ripe tomato on July 2nd!

It's a good thing I brought that little tom inside, though, because later that day we had a serious hail-storm/micro-burst come through that knocked over the 5-gallon pot it was in and broke one of the stem's growing tip clean off (I was training it to have two main stems) and bent but did not break the other stem.  I tried to doctor it the best I could, but I'm afraid it might take a bit to recover the head start it had.

That same micro-burst knocked down my 6' peas trellis, but we were able to pick them up and re-stake the supports without much apparent damage.  All the onions, strawberries and potatoes are now facing opposide the direction the wind came in from (East-ish) but they're starting to recover a bit.   Thankfully, the hail didn't cause much damage to the other plants which are only a few inches tall (beans, squash, etc.)

I lost a few trees, as did probably most of the town.  The power went out, it was pretty bad.  We were fortunate not to have any damage to our property.  One of the neighbors wasn't so fortunate: a big pine came down right onto his truck, but appears to have spared his house.  DH took a video of the storm with some seriously horizontal winds.  I'll see how I can go about posting a video, it's pretty cool and at the same time scary to watch.  Mother Nature can sure pack a wallop when she wants to.

I hope everyone safely weathers the upcoming stormy days ahead.