Turan in the Western Mountains

Turan wrote:It is that time of year, levitating and hovering and split directional eyes  

I just finished checking out the soaker hose system, fixed a few spots.  That opened the way to plant potatoes.  Because the soaker hose is at the bottom of the mulch I needed to check it before planting.  Now the potatoes are planted. 12 sf, 14 French fingerling chunks barely covered with soil and then 6 inches of hay stack sweepings.

It is indeed that time of year. 

I just got 4 soaker hoses at Sam's Club! Two to a bundle for 12 bucks.  I'm trying to bring myself to cutting them and making a header at each bed head (again with the crazy maniac gardener visuals) and running a length down the middle of each 4 foot section.

Great score!

I use those plastic Ys. A 25' soaker hose spirals around a 3' X 8' bed nicely. Now-a-days I only do the greenhouse and garden near it that way. THe rest of the garden I use a snip-drip set up using old bits of working 1/2" soaker hose and the new stuff in the kit plus some extra joins. https://raisedbeds.com/custom-row-garden-watering-system/

When I was gone this weekend my son says they woke up to snow. Everything in the greenhouse looks ok. Right now it is dipping down to frost again. I have not looked to see how the broccoli is doing under its blanket, I left it on since I planted them. The peas and radishes and carrots are all fine getting down to 30, especially if it snows on them.

I transplanted the eggplants into bigger pots. I think they are going to have to wait awhile yet before I can plant them into their cold frame.

I distinctly remember planting seeds in the greenhouse of Thelma saunder's acorn squash (that is a vining acorn for sure). I noted on my plan that I planted the seeds 5/5. I put a WoW around the spot in hopes to have as early as possible a start on that squash. Nothing. A few days ago I started a pot inside on a heat pad. Today I planted a cuke and moved the WoW around it instead and I poked around where I had planted that squash. There are no seeds. I seem to have done everything but poke the seed in the ground.

I have been busy these last few days getting one little 3x8 bed ready to plant corn. It was in carrots last year, that usually means it is pretty weed free for planting the following spring. Not this time That bed has a mint problem. I ended up sifting the soil and digging down about a foot on one half the bed. I finished with two square cat litter buckets (4 gallons @?) full of mint roots. I found some metal roof flashing and made an edging around one end of the bed. I love the mint in the lawn there, but not in the garden bed! A job I thought would take 15 minutes of turning under the cilantro green mulch and then planting turned into 3 days of plugging away at it.
At last I got the seed out and found I did not have enough and it is something I have to order (Ira Hooker's Sweet Indian corn). I decided to fill in the last squares with some of my Painted Mountain seed. For your entertainment here is a picture of the bed with a GRID! That is about as close to doing a grid as I get. Naturally when I lay the soaker hose over it I saw it has developed a crack. O well, that piece of hose was on the replace-soon list and does not owe me anything anymore.



This is one end of the pea arch. The Johnny-Jump-Ups self seed there. The grass like things are wild tulips that went to seed in my garden last year so I sprinkled some there to see if anything would come up. Those are snow peas in the back.

Turan, are Johnny Jump Ups the same as violas?

countrynaturals wrote:Turan, are Johnny Jump Ups the same as violas?

Yeah, apparently they are the wild variety. I just found out they are also called Hearts ease

I love Johnny Jump Ups!  They make spring so much prettier!

I put 2 cells in of Acorn squash but neither germinated....grrrr, I love it.  I did try for the first time this year Delicata.  One from Krogers, and one from Beetles....study.

I am also having germination problems with that acorn squash for the greenhouse. I just dug into the pots worrying I planted too deep. Out of 4 seeds one is developing tail. I just planted more seed. I just looked through my notes and that seed is about 4 years old and its package says 'seed life 3-4 years'.

Looking through my squash seeds I see that a lot of the seed is pretty old. It is time for me to start squash seeds. I guess I better heavily over plant them.

The New Seed-Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel mentions that curcubit (aka the squash family) seeds are very sensitive to (low) oxygen concentrations, and this can inhibit germination.
Try soaking the seeds in 3% hydrogen peroxide for 1-3 hours, then in shallow warm water (not quite covering the seed) overnight before sowing. This was what I did this year for my squash, cukes, and melons, and will do again. I didn't get 100% germination, but pretty good, and the first seeds were up in a record 3 days.
(Does anyone else 'horse race announcer' in their head when they check on their germinating seeds? Hidatsa squash is in the lead followed by Burpee's Butterbush! Yellow crookneck seems to be struggling and is still at the starting gate. The Marketmore wasn't expected to perform well this year due to the age of the seeds, but is in a respectable 4th place. The rest of the cucumbers are coming up fast from behind, Armenian Metki is leading by a seed hat!)

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:The New Seed-Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel mentions that curcubit (aka the squash family) seeds are very sensitive to (low) oxygen concentrations, and this can inhibit germination.
Try soaking the seeds in 3% hydrogen peroxide for 1-3 hours, then in shallow warm water (not quite covering the seed) overnight before sowing. This was what I did this year for my squash, cukes, and melons, and will do again. I didn't get 100% germination, but pretty good, and the first seeds were up in a record 3 days.
(Does anyone else 'horse race announcer' in their head when they check on their germinating seeds? Hidatsa squash is in the lead followed by Burpee's Butterbush! Yellow crookneck seems to be struggling and is still at the starting gate. The Marketmore wasn't expected to perform well this year due to the age of the seeds, but is in a respectable 4th place. The rest of the cucumbers are coming up fast from behind, Armenian Metki is leading by a seed hat!)

Love that horse announcer thing. I need to try the hydrogen peroxide soaking as well.

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:
(Does anyone else 'horse race announcer' in their head when they check on their germinating seeds? Hidatsa squash is in the lead followed by Burpee's Butterbush! Yellow crookneck seems to be struggling and is still at the starting gate. The Marketmore wasn't expected to perform well this year due to the age of the seeds, but is in a respectable 4th place. The rest of the cucumbers are coming up fast from behind, Armenian Metki is leading by a seed hat!)

No....not until now....lol!

I am sure I will from know on

And have you grown the Hidatsa squash before? I am very curious about them because that is a native variety to this area.

Turan wrote:I am sure I will from know on

And have you grown the Hidatsa squash before?  I am very curious about them because that is a native variety to this area.

I have not. Last year I tried Lakota but it seemed like it wasn't great fit for my garden/conditions, so I decided to try something different this year. I liked that it was native, and possibly smaller than Lakota - but really I needed a pollinator for my Tetsukabuto squash. It's a hybrid that won't self - it needs a C. maxima or C. moschata squash to provide pollen. I don't give my squash enough space, and garden is a bit light on sunlight hours for them, so I wouldn't use my future results to fairly judge the Hidatsa variety.

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:The New Seed-Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel mentions that curcubit (aka the squash family) seeds are very sensitive to (low) oxygen concentrations, and this can inhibit germination.

Besides the seed being old I suspect I planted too deep and into too solid a mix. I used stuff I have made soil blocks from and some where in the back of my mind I wondered if it was not too heavy for squash seed. Yesterday I planted squash seeds for the regular planting and used a mix with lots of perlite in it. I don't seem to have any hydrogen peroxide to try soaking in it first.

I just read what I could find about Lakota squash. It sounds like a really large plant that dislikes humid conditions. That makes sense, in the summer it does not rain much on the High Plains except in thunderstorms.

Jumping out of the starting gate into a lead by a seed coat is the zucchini Black Beauty, followed closely by the zucchini Green Machine. Dueling for third, all showing seed coverings but started to push up from the soil, are Cocozelle and Australian Butter pumpkin. Trailing behind is Kuri and there is no sign yet that Butter cup is participating at all.


I planted a Butternut winter squash from the nursery in the greenhouse where I had hoped to plant the acorn squash. Today I see one sprout of the acorn also. Maybe I will have a taste off between them!

I think the greenhouse is fully planted now. The beans are well up. There is a baby tomato on Big Beef and flowers on Cherokee purple. I wonder why Cherokee purple's first flowers/fruits are doubles? The basil is tiny but settled in. The cucumbers so far seem happy and growing. The Anahiem pepper has a baby pepper. I found a clump of marigolds, it was a seed head and all were sprouting. I gingerly separated them and planted them along the garden edges. So far they seem to all be growing.

In the outer garden I transplanted the tomatillos, well protected by W-o-W. The potatoes are starting to appear through the mulch. The big chore is weeding the carrots, it looks like someone (me???) dumped bladder campion seed on part of the bed.

Wow, it is almost June!

Turan wrote:Jumping out of the starting gate into a lead by a seed coat is the zucchini Black Beauty, followed closely by the zucchini Green Machine.  Dueling for third, all showing seed coverings but started to push up from the soil, are Cocozelle and Australian Butter pumpkin. Trailing behind is Kuri and there is no sign yet that Butter cup is participating at all.


In the outer garden I transplanted the tomatillos, well protected by W-o-W. The potatoes are starting to appear through the mulch. The big chore is weeding the carrots, it looks like someone (me???) dumped bladder campion seed on part of the bed.

Yup, that's how seed racing is done!

Might you have planted the campion on purpose? It is edible:
http://www.motherearthliving.com/Cooking-Methods/Wake-Up-Call

The squash are now in the greenhouse getting used to that level of light.  In the end I had good seed germination of everything but the acorn.  The oldest seed was Buttercup (2009) it took a couple days longer but all seed germinated.

Here are some start of June pictures.

The tomato- pepper side of the greenhouse.  The tub is the squash hardening.  I got the tomatoes strung up.  This year in a vain hope for tidiness I laid weed cloth behind the plants against the wall where it is so hard to reach.


First tomato set is by Big Beef.


And on the bean side of the greenhouse the Helda Romano beans are racing up their strings.  I laid cages sideways in hopes to help the bush beans stay somewhat contained. Note the cukes and butternut and acorn squash at the far end.


Can you see the cuke blossoms?  I think there is one even set.


The tomatillos are taking off and out growing their W-o-Ws.  Problem is I suspect there will be one more frost.


A happy strawberry/ asparagus bed.  We have been getting plenty of asparagus and have high hopes for strawberries.


I got to get the weed wacker out to trim the path ways before I take an over all picture.

I think I see the little cuke. Is that it wanting to shake hands with the flower?

Nice!

CC, the spent flower in the center that is peeking out from under a leaf is developing into a fruit.
Last year I got a total of 1 cuke all season. I am full of hope....

I see this morning that one more acorn squash seed has germinated! I transplanted it a bit further from the butternut. Fingers crossed.

The weather is gloomy and 30 degrees colder than yesterday.  Tomorrow should be colder yet and they predict snow in the mountains.  But the squash roots are hitting the walls in their pots so I planted them.  They are in my U shaped bed where earlier this spring I heaped up the unfinished compost and laid a soaker hose along the berm created and then covered with black plastic.  One arm of the U has 3 tomatillos in W-o-Ws.  It is a garden of 9 W-o-Ws.



I put the squash where they can run out over a lilac and eventually into pasture.  The hard part will be getting them to only run in that direction and not try to swamp the tomatillos and neighboring deep mulch patch. I keep contemplating a squash arch and worrying that the wind would shred those big leaves.

Nice!  I thought about the arch thing too, but we get wicked thunderstorms, and I really am not so sure about that as far as survivability.

Scorpio Rising wrote:Nice!  I thought about the arch thing too, but we get wicked thunderstorms, and I really am not so sure about that as far as survivability.

Thanks.
It seems like every summer, right when the squash is in full bloom, there is a wicked hail storm that smashes them to pulp. A lot of tall weeds are truly saviors and the lee of the greenhouse and the lilac bush also give some protection. Then they bounce back and bloom again and make fruit. I also doubt anything much would survive if on an arch.
I wish they made an "ion sheild" to repel incoming hail.
Would netting maybe break up hail?

Turan wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote:Nice!  I thought about the arch thing too, but we get wicked thunderstorms, and I really am not so sure about that as far as survivability.

Thanks.
It seems like every summer, right when the squash is in full bloom, there is a wicked hail storm that smashes them to pulp.   A lot of tall weeds are truly saviors and the lee of the greenhouse and the lilac bush also give some protection.  Then they bounce back and bloom again and make fruit.  I also doubt anything much would survive if on an arch.  
I wish they made an "ion sheild" to repel incoming hail.
Would netting maybe break up hail?  

I feel your pain!  Over here on my side of the mountains it's been windy, gloomy and just darned anti-gardening weather. I got tomatoes, peppers, squash and cukes in then it turned cold again. didn't frost but did a number on the cukes n zukes. They rallied and then came the wind! Thrashed the little plants breaking most, even the ones I staked up.  I have a six pack of cukes left I'm thinking of braving it and putting them in the ground tomorrow.

Greenhouse is a must, if the wind will quit blowing long enough to get the darn thing up!