Turan in the Western Mountains

A friend put 1000 starts of mixed winter squashes into her field last Friday. It frosted lightly on Saturday. Some are done and some look fine. Risky business. I only have 6 and they are in Wall-o-waters for now.

Best of luck with the cuke planting. Can you put jugs of water next to them? It does help, and creates a tiny wind break...

While taking pics of leaf lesions today I could not help but take photos of developing fruit

Pickling cuke. I bought the plant and pickling is all its label said.



Big Beef tomatoes getting big

FUN!!!!

I went out on the Solstice and took garden pictures. It seemed right to record where the garden is on the first day of summer.

The eggplant have set 4 fruits, none yet on the Fairy Tale. They look a bit bedraggled. I am hoping they make a big rebound as the summer proceeds, but I already have more eggplant fruits developing than i ever had before! The varieties with fruit are Black King, Diamond, and Black Egg.


Next door to the eggplant are the potatoes. They have just had their first hilling with pine needles and a bucket of peat and a sprinkle of bone meal. A week later and they have grown almost another foot. I should hill them soon one more time and then call it good.



Here is my U shaped bed with tomatillos along one side and 3 winter squash (Kuri, Aust. Butter pumpkin, Buttercup) at the far end and 3 zukes (Black Beauty, Green Machine, Cocozella) along the nearer leg. They had a rough transfer from W-o-W to open garden because it immediately went to 90*. Even with shade cloth I couldn't keep them cool enough until I pulled the black plastic off. Now they are recovering and growing fast.



The peas were flowering. Today I picked the first handful of snow peas, and the first scapes, and a thinning of basil. Pesto and peas and noodles for dinner!


Weeding the carrot bed of the campion has been tedious this year. Next year I will seed the carrots later and keep the bed covered so the weed seeds sprout early. I am some what bemused by this development. The flower is something I planted in that bed a couple years ago and has been reseeding.


There are lots of flowers blooming, late lilacs, peonies, hardy geranium, etc. The baby robins are learning to fly. First strawberries are ripe. There are lots of flowers on the raspberries. A good start to full summer

Looking good, Turan!  What do you like to do with your eggplant?  I have tried making it and have found it to be bitter and tough, but they were larger fruits....at the store.

Nice Pictures Turan ! 

SC, We love to grill eggplant with just a sprinkle of lemon pepper on the slices. We also love it in stir fry and in curry and moussaka, etc. I think the trick with eggplant is to broil/ grill it first, and then make sure to pair the spicing with a splash of lemon/ lime/ orange or rice vinegar. But I am speaking as someone who already loves eggplant and buys lots of it. This is my first time to maybe to actually grow some.

Thanks, Llama momma

Looking good, Turan. Is the blue flowered plant a columbine?

Thank, sanderson.  That flower is a linarea, related to snap dragons and penstemon.  
Here is in 2015 when I first scattered the seeds.

Turan wrote:SC, We love to grill eggplant with just a sprinkle of lemon pepper on the slices.  We also love it in stir fry and in curry and moussaka, etc.  I think the trick with eggplant is to broil/ grill it first, and then make sure to pair the spicing with a splash of lemon/ lime/ orange or rice vinegar.  But I am speaking as someone who already loves eggplant and buys lots of it.  This is my first time to maybe to actually grow some.

Thanks, Llama momma

Oh wow, then you will definitely enjoy this!  I think honestly if I grew it, I would like it better....like everything!

Last night was the real start of summer bounty. I picked a half gallon bucket of peas, and of beans, and of peppers, and 4 zucchini, and 5 small eggplant. Today I need to pick 2 heads of broccoli. There are 2 big tomatoes ripening fast.

I probably should freeze most of the broccoli and beans.

Happy dances

Here are some pictures a month after the last set of pictures.  What enough heat (it has been around 90 every day for a month) and watering does.

The greenhouse~ I have picked 4 large tomatoes this week and a lot of peppers and beans.  I am getting pickling cucumbers for salads but the Diva cukes are just growing and not setting fruit.  They are supposed to be good for greenhouses because they do not need to be pollinated, so what gives when its neighbor has no such problem? You can not tell in the picture but the winter squash is sending out vines and I am trying to get them to grow to the roof. The flower is alyssum and it hums with bees and hover flies etc.





Here are the eggplant.  I have picked several small fruits but so far I can't call this a rousing success.



Deep mulched (like a BTE but with partially done compost) cole bed.  Those that were planted early enough before it got hot are happy the rest,,,, less so.



The biggest broccoli head right before it got cut off. It was over 10 inches across and weighed 2.75 pounds.



The U bed has grown a great deal in a month.  The tomattillos are covered with ripening fruit and we are picking plenty of zucchini. The winter squash are running vines over the lilac bushes.



Corn is just starting to think about tassels.


A poppy among the peas.

Very nice Turan!

Robbomb116 wrote:Very nice Turan!

+1

Love your beans.  Just hanging down waiting for you to harvest.

"Here are some pictures a month after the last set of pictures.  What enough heat (it has been around 90 every day for a month) and watering does.

The greenhouse~ I have picked 4 large tomatoes this week and a lot of peppers and beans."

Green with ENVY !  I see the wisdom of the greenhouse in our climate.  Hot days caused my Cool season plants to bolt. Cool nights are causing my heat lovers to stunt!  Definitely need a way to regulate temperature.  I have had pretty good luck with fava beans and peas so far.  A few cukes, beets and root crops.  But my corn, tomatoes and peppers are woefully lagging!

Great pictures!

Wow ,Turan, looking GREAT!!!

The broc is so huge, and  I also tried to grow a Romanesco this year, actually 3, but no go.  No head developed, it was hugely shading everything out around it.  1/SF?  Does not seem right....2 of mine got eaten....the other is composting

Plus where I had mine are 18" x 12" repurposed window boxes...still too huge for the general population.

Thanks all.
The greenhouse has certainly broadened my gardening and I would not mind if it was double this size. I would like to have the room to grow a 3 way rotation of; tomatoes with relatives, beans and cucurbits, corn. But the size that it is is fantastic and its lee protects part of the garden from wind. Wind and cool nights and short season are our difficulties. In balance we have a lot fewer pests and diseases.

SR, I give broccoli a 18" x 18" square. The plants are huge and I get a lot of side shoots from now till past frost.

A couple evenings ago we heard water running in the evening. My NEW automatic watering timer has a valve stuck and can not turn off. So I have a sprinkler again. Well, that makes it easier to avoid watering the garlic now.

I gave the potats a final mulching of the remainder in a peat bag. They are now about 3 feet tall and are mulched about 1 foot deep. It is time for them to flower (if they want sometimes they don't) and make tubers till I dig them after frost.

Turan, Wonderful garden!

Thanks sanderson It is a bit of a jungle now, but a happy productive jungle.

I picked 2 Black Egg eggplants, they were, indeed, the size and shape of large eggs. There are FOUR (insert excited squeal here) fruits growing on the Diamond eggplant! Even the FairyTale has a flower.

I found a couple winter squash fruits set, they are blooming now in the lilac bushes. In the greenhouse there is at least one vining acorn squash set (the vines have reached the roof, I guess I will weave them along the peak of the roof soon). I hand pollinated a butternut.

A couple of the Diva cucumber appear to be elongating, so hopefully it is starting to fruit? The pickler next to it just keeps chugging out cukes, not fast but a steady amount.
We had a howling wind storm last night. The corn is still standing!

Two leaves dried on the garlic, almost time to dig 'em up.

Your garden looks great Turan!  How did the garlic turn out ???

Llama Momma, I have kept your post up on my web browser as a reminder to NOT PUT OFF digging the garlic this year

I just dug them and they are looking good and healthy, no mushy bottoms or sign of onion maggots. 32 large bulbs from about 8 squares and a handful of small bulbs from the scape bubils I scattered last fall.



Clematis blooming on the porch railing.

Turan, I hope you post the garlic photo and info to the Garlic thread. August sounds awfully late to me in California, but information for your Region would be nice to share. When did you plant them?

You know how squash are all cucurbits but of many different species? Well I was reminded that different species of the same Genus do not fertilize each other. I planted a butternut squash and a Thelma Saunders acorn squash together in the back corner of the greenhouse. They have similar growth patterns, the vines are similarly dense as well. I assumed they were of the same species because of this. They aren't. I noticed no fruit was setting so I started helping out. Continued non fruit setting. A little research and I corrected my error and now have some fruits. There are plenty of bees working these blossoms but with two vines that do not fertilize each other tangled in the same space they were not having too much luck. Next year I will check ahead of time. In the main garden this is not a problem because they are all C. maxima except the zucchini which is all C. pepo.