Just the right amount of rain helps

Some pics taken within the last couple of weeks. 

These first two were taken about 2 weeks ago: (notice I still haven't caught up with the weeds and mulch. 



The next one was taken from the balcony overlooking the garden which I took today.  Quite a difference when one has had the time and energy to do some serious house cleaning.

Everything looks great greatgranny, nice!

Thanks.  I did go overboard with the Cabbage, Brussels Sprouts and Kohlrabi. Am going to do lots of cultured veggies this year and also give some to kids who can't have a garden. 


Next year I have to do some serious rearranging.  I have another area - no pictures - that has strawberries, and a couple of boxes that have peas, lima beans and melons.  The area needs to be excavated due to the retaining walls falling apart.  So, in the fall will need to move all of them.  Might just get a couple of table tops and use the MM from the old boxes.  Would do my back a favor. 

Hey, its looking really good.  Nice work.

greatgranny wrote: Might just get a couple of table tops and use the MM from the old boxes.  Would do my back a favor. 

My lady is a couple years older than I and she is wondering what took us so long to have our first table top. So much nicer and in our case, pretty easy to build.

All the Best...
Brad

MackerelSky wrote:

greatgranny wrote: Might just get a couple of table tops and use the MM from the old boxes.  Would do my back a favor. 

My lady is a couple years older than I and she is wondering what took us so long to have our first table top. So much nicer and in our case, pretty easy to build.

All the Best...
Brad

Believe me, my body will welcome it.  I have found that I can purchase a couple of them and still come out ahead because I won't have to see the chiropractor as often.

greatgranny wrote:

MackerelSky wrote:

greatgranny wrote: Might just get a couple of table tops and use the MM from the old boxes.  Would do my back a favor. 

My lady is a couple years older than I and she is wondering what took us so long to have our first table top. So much nicer and in our case, pretty easy to build.

All the Best...
Brad

Believe me, my body will welcome it.  I have found that I can purchase a couple of them and still come out ahead because I won't have to see the chiropractor as often.

GreatGranny, That's a great way to rationalize the extra dollars. I love my TTs. Tall vining things are still in elevated boxes but closer to the ground so I don't need an extension ladder to reach the top of the trellises.

Sanderson, I agree.

What is this right amount of rain that you speak of?

Here in the Devil's playground, it is either 100+ degrees with high humidity but no rain, or it is 80 degrees with enough rain to give Noah ideas.

All you have to do is look at our cucumbers.  So many are fat at one end and skinny at the other, because they got too much rain and then no rain.  Even hand-watering doesn't seem to keep most of them uniform.

RazedBeds, Sometimes incomplete pollination can cause uneven fruit. I will be watching this to see if someone else comments on the watering issue as a cause.

Razed Bed wrote:What is this right amount of rain that you speak of?

Here in the Devil's playground, it is either 100+ degrees with high humidity but no rain, or it is 80 degrees with enough rain to give Noah ideas.

All you have to do is look at our cucumbers.  So many are fat at one end and skinny at the other, because they got too much rain and then no rain.  Even hand-watering doesn't seem to keep most of them uniform.

At least 1 inch or more of rain each week.

I do agree with sanderson.  The pollination issue can make some strange looking veggies.

That is what I would have concluded as well knowing that the cucumbers were developing halfway and then not the other half.

But, there are two other factors that make me believe it is a water issue and not a pollination issue.

1. My cucumbers in the self-watering containers are normal, beautiful pickle-sized, pretty enough to use in a pickle commercial.  The long cucumbers in the ground are also fine.  It's just the 14 non self-watering containers that are having this issue.

2. We have a lot of bees here this year, as well as wasps and hornets.  In addition, I use my old script liner brush from my Bob Ross Joy of Painting set to help the bees pollinate.

We received no rain for 18 days, followed by hard rain for six consecutive days with a flooded yard, and now it is back above 100 on the heat index and soon to be above 100 on actual temperature with the heat index north of 110. 

Even watering every day, the non-self-watering containers dry out during the day.  I placed chipped ice in the containers after watering this morning, but with the thermostat here saying it is 98, there is no sign that any watering was done this morning.  My wife is watering some of the containers again, as the leaves look like they are becoming tea leaves.

I don't buy into global warming.  I think there is selective warming due to population growth.  When you have a city growing by about 150 people every day, and you have buildings going up  where there was once vacant land, and with lots more concrete where it was once green, you get the extra 5 degrees added on to the May through September months.  Yet, if you go another 50 miles southwest of here, the little towns that do not gain in population are colder on average than they were 20 years ago.

One of my neighbors told me that I had to be crazy to try to grow a large garden (small farm) in the urban jungle.  He has a real farm two counties outside of Nashville, and he says his growing season has shrunk by about a week in the last 20 years.

It really does hurt to go outside and see all your work crumbling in front of you, and you have little choice but to water away or let the stuff fry.

There is one caveat to this:  Our original SFG plot of 60 x 2 and about 15-18 inch compost depth is doing just fine.  Even during the 18-day heat wave and drought, there was some moisture in the compost.  Watering every third day kept our pole beans, zucchini, squash, and long cucumbers thriving.

One more thing