New England August 2014

Cloudy with some fog this morning.

In the soil of my hibiscus:

ANTS!

My buddy, in Rochester NY, is having a T-storm! I can hear it on Skype! LOOOOOOOOL!  

Some rain  , a couple of cukes a day from my 4 Spacemasters, an increasing number of orange cherry tomatoes (which I just can't wait to get to red so they pay the gardener's tax at orange while I am out there) and 1 pepper plant has a number of potential blossoms FINALLY.  They better get on to their business fast at this point. 

Earlier this week I had a pruning frenzy on the tomatoes. I let them get too many side shoots and axial stems.  I might have been a little over exuberant in some cases but the ending result has made the existing green tomatoes bigger and a little less green quickly enough so I know that while I should have kept a better control earlier, I did help them now.  The thinning also allowed me to catch 3 huge yucky-but-would-have-been-pretty-if-they-weren't-eating-my-tomato-plants caterpillars.  I think they were hornworms. 

They did quite a bit of damage in a day.  I wonder if the previously too bushy nature of my plants hid them from me when they were smaller. They were HUGE and still tough to see.  Yuck.    I couldn't bear to squish the fuzzy green monsters.   I drown them in the pool filter intake. They really were kind of cute but they were doing the unforgiveable thing of destroying my tomatoes.   

I just finished operating on another zucchini plant that was hit by SVB. I opened up a hole in the top, put in a dropper full of Ivory soap and the worm jumped right out. I cut wormy in half then side dressed zuke with almost finished compost since that's all I have.

We're supposed to get rain today. Hahahahaha! So I guess I'd better get moving and plant some seeds of collards, lettuces, mustard, etc. for fall.

CC

Just finished planting and watering these in and now it's gently raining out!
How perfect!
  
 Now, if August will just stay cool I won't have to plant them again.  Either way I'll probably shade cover the lettuces and spinaches anyway.

Whatcha'll up to?
CC

Ooh, CC, I wonder if it has to be ivory soap or can be any liquid soap. I think I have market basket brand liquid soap refill here. What I would give to see a SVB jump out of a vine... heh heh.

I was reading on the web somewhere (I read so much it just all blurs together) where Lee Reich was talking about SVB. He was saying how they love squash/zucchini the best, and those plants don't send out vines so they can't keep rooting themselves like, say, pumpkin or cucumber. But in final, he said by the time the SVB causes its trouble the gardener is almost relieved, because how many squash/zucchini can you eat anyway... HA. I have a pile of squash/zucchini on the counter so I can relate, I'm hiding it in every recipe I can at this point but still can't keep up...

He also mentioned they don't like butternut squash so much, it doesn't have the hollow stem but is solid so they can't get in there. So one option: grow butternut squash.

And still from what I read, burying the vines is the best recourse. I'm worried about my pumpkin vines because I have these half-grown beautiful but still VERY green pie pumpkins on there that I can't wait to get into a pumpkin pie. I just hope they're re-rooting because I took the knife to 2 of them and probably did more damage than the SVB.

We're getting our spring rains! Finally! Damp, cool, humid, drizzly spring in August.

I'm noticing a lot of large white moths flittering all over the place here - anyone else seeing that? I assume those are cabbage worm moths, I did see the black spot on each wing, I think that's cabbage worm signs.

Oh, made a baked ziti last night with a whole squash chopped up, a bunch of kale leaves torn into pieces, tomatoes from the freezer from last year, potato onion, and garlic, and basil from the garden... Trying to pack it all in there, if I hide it, the kids are more likely to eat it.

I need to pull garlic before it splits into cloves down there, but it's been so murky out there. Doesn't it need to be a dry day?

Mips - you found hormworms! I haven't found any yet this year, which is weird. I wonder if it could have something to do with the multiple yellow jacket nests that are hanging around this year - I saw a yellow jacket tackle a cabbage worm once, maybe they like baby hornworms too, I don't know. They're so funny looking! You can go blind looking for them, they'll do a ton of damage in a short amount of time, chickens think they are filet mignon.

NHG, I pulled the last of my garlic today. Probably should have pulled them all about a week or two earlier, though, since a number of them have split. I'm saving them all to grow again next year so I don't think it matters much if I left them in too long. It would matter if I were planning on storing them, I think, but since I'm not, it's OK.

Better check on yours just to make sure, since I'm usually behind everyone else.

I finally braided and weighed my garlic. I harvested about 5 pounds from a 4x6 bed.

Thanks for the gentle nudge Molly, I pulled them today, should be 128 heads, most of them are beautiful, a few are cracked but not many. After I pulled them I threw some oat seed in that bed, if nothing eats it it will be fun to watch it germinate. I put a little straw over the seed.

How are you all drying your garlic? Does braiding dry it, or does braiding come after it's dried? I'll have to look this up again.

What was I thinking, 128 heads. Well, don't have to buy seed garlic for next year anyway.

NHGardener wrote:Thanks for the gentle nudge Molly, I pulled them today, should be 128 heads, most of them are beautiful, a few are cracked but not many. After I pulled them I threw some oat seed in that bed, if nothing eats it it will be fun to watch it germinate. I put a little straw over the seed.

How are you all drying your garlic? Does braiding dry it, or does braiding come after it's dried? I'll have to look this up again.

What was I thinking, 128 heads. Well, don't have to buy seed garlic for next year anyway.

you have to let it cure and dry before braiding it together. I waited 3 weeks before mine was ready to braid. Softnecks can braid easily. There is no braiding of hardnecks.

The cucumber fairy visited last night: I took 6 cukes off of 4 spacemasters, including one off 1 of my 2 (former) baby plants...these 2 plants  were so late & tiny compared to the others which just took off growing I didn't think they would survive but they did!  They are still a lot smaller than the other 4 but obviously starting to produce.

I had been measuring the cukes for the past week trying to optimize their size. I knew I had a few there but I hadn't been counting them.  I finally took them at just over 6 inches.   They were certainly fat enough.  Is it always a guessing game to pick them at the best size?  Is it always subjective or are there more quidelines to it.

You can tell I'm more than abit ocd.   

My garlic are all hardnecks. I thought softnecks were more for milder climates?

I see, looking online, that softnecks store longer, are milder, and mature more quickly. But I can't live without scapes.

"cucumber fairy" - LOL. Those cucumbers are so good at hiding, sometimes I don't find one until it's huge. Mine are prickly too, so not easy to root around to look for them. I would think regarding size that the bigger cucumbers probably have larger seeds and aren't as easy to work with as the small to mid-size ones. Then again, I don't like them too skinny and unripe either. I'm OCD about many things, but not cucumber size, I just pick em when I see em.

NHGardener wrote:
How are you all drying your garlic? Does braiding dry it, or does braiding come after it's dried? I'll have to look this up again.

mine is hanging in the basement from the clothes line with an oscillating fan blowing on it. I won't do anything else to it as I don't need the clothes line this time of year. It will just stay there until I need some.

Mips, I was told by an Asian coworkers that we should never let the cucumbers have a hint of yellow on them. Once they have the slightest change of yellow they do not have optimal flavor any longer. So pick them when they're solid green.

By the way folks, I've had two cucumbers and 2 zucchini and some yellow summer squash so far. I'm almost afraid to say it out loud. I hope it continues but the humidity level is certainly on the rise. It's the powdery mildew that eventually takes my cukes down but I'm growing resistant varieties this year and I think it's working. So far anyway..

August Garden Chores

NHG
My garlic is also in the basement. It's laying across a bakers rack with a fan on it for the past few weeks.  It's probably time to cut the stalks and clean them off.

CC, I like how those are hung. You tied them by the stems?

This is how I spread out my garlic yesterday:



From the back:

There will be no vampires visiting me anytime soon. We have a crawl space, so can't put it there, and no good rain-proof and sun-proof eaves/porch to hang it under, so in the spare room it goes.

What a great harvest.  At my house I dry them in the workshop leaving the door open to the fresh air.  I know they have to dry in the shade.  I don't pull them till half or more of the top leaves have turned brown.  There's nothing like a fresh-grown garlic come winter.
Good job.


Ooops, so excited about that harvest I forgot to post that I picked 1 Pink Mountain Pride tomato today.  That means only about 4 larger ones this year so far.  The blight is steadily advancing, I'm sorry to report.
There's more cukes forming on the potted plants and the back raised bed garden so I'm happy about that.  Checked the cherry tree and only a few J. Beetles this afternoon.  I hope they are deciding to go elsewhere.  They don't bother the peach and apple trees at all. The Glads are starting to bloom and looking lovely with all their colors.  I adore Glads.

The bees are so busy in the Monarda that they intrude on the hummer feeders nearby so I had to move them (the feeders).  Now the hummers are happy again.  I have no shortage of bees, that's for sure. 

I have one Dunja zuke in the raised garden looking ready to pick so will do that for tomorrow nite to have with supper.  No bugs on the zuke and squash vines to date so I'm crossing my fingers.  I know it can't last forever.

Have a good weekend everyone.

QB, there is a lot of bee activity here too. Those bumblebees make honeybees look lazy. It's nice to hear the constant buzzing.

I don't see carrots mentioned by anyone. Did anyone have luck with carrots this summer? I sowed carrots 3 times, and not a single sprout, I'm figuring something must have eaten the seeds. This is pretty much an annual occurrence for me. I'm so tired of not having carrots. The farmers markets always have such big, beautiful, orange carrots, I wonder how they do it.

NHGardener wrote:
I don't see carrots mentioned by anyone. Did anyone have luck with carrots this summer?

Surprisingly I'm doing well with carrots this year. Only planted once back in April because my heart just wasn't in it since I've had so many failures over the past two years. But I ended up posting a photo in the carrot week thread a week or so ago. I need to harvest the rest shortly along with a ton of lettuce for my weekly lettuce box. I'll put up photo of those ones here later.

this week's lettuce box harvest:

  
Time to get a'washin and a'choppin...

CC

Ooh, so pretty CC!

So now. Did you plant your carrots in an SFG box, and how deep was the soil in the box? And did you cover the box after you planted carrot seeds?

Is it just me? The purple hostas are still blooming! And still a lot of purple hosta flowers, too!

RJARPCGP wrote:Is it just me? The purple hostas are still blooming! And still a lot of purple hosta flowers, too!

mine are almost done.