N & C Midwest: June 2016!

landarch wrote:This year I decided to focus on growing only the veggies we like to eat...I got bored and decided to grow a couple new items; Tuscan Kale and Trombone Squash.  Kale was so-so...ripped it out and probably won't do it again (waste of space)...hoping the squash will be worth it...it's a vining squash that needs a trellis.

I did mess up and missed getting radish seeds in the ground this year...wife and kids like them...me not so much.

I just did a new post with a few garden update pics...chance of needed rain tonight through tomorrow.

I had intentions to do that. Still have way too much of everything coming on simultaneously . Suck at succession planting, sounds like a good idea!

Will be interested in hearing about your squash! And fall radishes etc. are much milder! I just really suck at timing! Earlier than you think!

I came up short in my plans this year, too.  Never did get around to planting any cukes, squashes, or green beans.  We've been doing a lot of home repairs this year, with contractors coming and going a lot, including some very messy foundation work.  Now that all that's behind us, we can get to work on the landscaping.  

Anyway - here's an update on what we do have going here...

The rabbits:  The babies have grown and left their nest in the garden bed.  Almost zero damage to any of the plants.  They only slightly damaged one carrot that they dug next to.  The rest, they have left completely alone.  In fact, they have left everything alone in that bed.  Isn't that amazing?  It seems they prefer dandelions over carrots.  They're still hanging out nearby in little hideaway spots around the yard, but so far, they've been perfect little guests.

So we're now harvesting some of the carrots, and this is my first successful year growing them.

Here are some Danver's Half-long carrots that turned out very nice.  I probably could have left them in a little longer, but I was dying to see how they turned out.


And here are some Short 'N Sweet that turned out... interesting.

I think "Fat 'N Ugly" would be a better name for them.  

Also my first year to try potatoes - these are the first of my Goldrush taters, one square, harvested a bit early... meh.  What I got was nice, but not much of it.

Picked a bunch of salad greens last night and the last of the 'Zlata' radishes, pulled up the bolting spinach and planted another square each of carrots and radishes.  Tomatoes all have blooms on them.

HAHA! Kate, if you hold it like this it looks like some some old guy trying to make a muscle:
GRRRRRR....
heehee
CC

Wow, Kate! Nice haul! And glad the little bun buns moved out and without much mayhem in their wake...kind of amazing.

Landscaping makes my back hurt just typing the word!

You will be amazed at your carrots' taste and texture! Even Fat N Ugly! (LOL)

Herb, my maters are blooming also. I would like to put a couple more potatoes in. We eat them year round. Or carrots....hmmm. I have 2 open squares.

CC: IT TOTALLY DOES look like that! LOL! Tryin' really hard Grrrrr....Only you, dearie!

As for me, we got a spot of rain, much needed today. Sugar snaps coming on fast. Need to pull beets, test out carrots, might be ready! Then get my hands on some Yukon Gold seed potatoes, I think they have them at New Leaf Nursery....here in town. Harvest sugar snaps also, tie up maters as they grow. Will get some pics this weekend for sure. And my "side garden" in the large containers is melons and the unknown gifted tomatoes! They look like determinate, not so unruly as my others! FUN!

CapeCoddess wrote:HAHA!  Kate, if you hold it like this it looks like some some old guy trying to make a muscle: [image snipped]
GRRRRRR....
heehee
CC

Ya know, it does. I'm not going to ask how you might have noticed that...

Scorpio Rising wrote:Wow, Kate!  Nice haul!  And glad the little bun buns moved out and without much mayhem in their wake...kind of amazing.

I was glad I decided to just leave them alone. One day last week, when I checked on them, it was starting to get pretty warm and they were out of the nest just sitting on top of the mix. The three of them were just sitting side-by-side in a perfect row, wide awake, and just looking up at me. They are so. darn. cute. I think mom came around later and gave them all a lesson on doing a better job of hiding themselves, because they were almost impossible to find next time I came out, even though they were still right there in the bed.

Scorpio Rising wrote:
You will be amazed at your carrots' taste and texture!  Even Fat N Ugly!  (LOL)

They are very tasty. The ugly ones went into some potato onion soup, but they were delicious. Now that I've figured out some basics of growing them, I'm planning to do a lot more of them next year.

Scorpio Rising wrote:
As for me, we got a spot of rain, much needed today.  Sugar snaps coming on fast.  Need to pull beets, test out carrots, might be ready!  Then get my hands on some Yukon Gold seed potatoes, I think they have them at New Leaf Nursery....here in town.  Harvest sugar snaps also, tie up maters as they grow.  Will get some pics this weekend for sure.  And my "side garden" in the large containers is melons and the unknown gifted tomatoes!  They look like determinate, not so unruly as my others!  FUN!

I always thought potatoes were an early spring thing, but I see in the planting calendar we get from our local extension service that late June is the time to do a fall planting of potatoes. They sure are easy to grow, or they have been, so far. Don't seem to have to worry so much about the condition of the plant as you do with, say, tomatoes.

I'm starting to really like determinate tomato plants. They are so much more manageable in small spaces and most of them do great in containers. And I have a couple of new ones this year that are just going all out, even in the early summer heat we're getting now.

I have never tried potatoes; a coworker tells me they are easy.  Do you have them in a 6 inch deep square or something else?  Carrots are one of my faves; I have 5 squares of them in varying stages right now.

Potatoes freak me out. I'm growing Yukon Gold from seed potatoes for the first time ever this year. Dug a trench to the bottom of my 8 or so inches of MM, planted, covered with some MM, they grew up, covered again and now I'm out of MM, they grew up, covered with pine needles, they grew up, covered again with pine needles, they grew up. Now I can't cover anymore or the pine needles will fall on to the onions and lettuce next to the taters. So the taters are now about 2 ft above the last pine needles and I'm thinking how nice it would be if I could have covered ALL of those stems and grow even more taters. So next year the trench will be alone and at least a ft deep. That way I can cover maybe 3 ft of stems.

CC

Top Hat for the potatoes?? Are Yukon gold the type that produce at each layer that you cover? Indeterminates?

Oh... don't know, Sanderson....  

Just found this:  

My favorite potato is “Yukon Gold”, an early variety. It is a determinate type. You can hill it up all you want all summer long, but it will only produce one early set of potato tubers at the bottom of the “tower”.

https://abundantminigardens.com/choosing-and-planting-potatoes/

See how freaky they are??? Ya just never know...

Potatoes are super easy. I will replace my beets and carrots with Yukon Gold, my fave.

CC, my YG didn't quite do what you are describing, but I did need to cover the tubers several times so they wouldn't get sun. You have mutants...lol! Mine were in about 8" of MM.

Kate, I am glad you let them be and they were well mannered tenants. Glad they didn't get into your carrots! Bet they would have had they not been weaned! They are soooooo adorable!

It will be interesting with the (what appear to be) determinant tomatoes in the "side garden" (containers). Never have grown them! Excited! My one Sungold has broken free of it's moorings and fallen over...it will be unruly I am sure. Will re-secure tomorrow.

Had to water flowers in pots tonight.

The goldrush taters I grew this year are determinates, so I felt okay with just planting them in a normal (6-8" deep) square. In late May, the tubers were starting to bulge up through the mix, so I piled on enough to keep them covered. The one square I already harvested was early. I still have yet to harvest the other two squares I planted, and the plants are starting to dry out and die, which is a sign that the mature potatoes will be ready to harvest soon. So we'll see how much difference a few more weeks in the mix makes.

I'd like to find a good indeterminate type and try some in grow bags, maybe for this fall.

The plants I'm testing in grow bags this year are doing way, way better than the plants I have in the sub-irrigating buckets. We're in the middle of a nasty June heat wave that is punishing the plants in the buckets, but the plants in the grow bags seem impervious to the heat and still thriving. They're also larger, and have more than double the amount of fruit. I'm just amazed at the difference.

Oh - and of course, everything in the SFG beds are also doing great.

Hot and dry here (for Ohio in June).

Kate, funny that you say that about your potato plants starting to yellow. My lone tater was a compost pile rescue. I plucked it out, stuck it in MM and thought it would take off like the ones that I planted from seed potatoes did last year. It didn't. It is a runt, and is starting to yellow. Granted, it was between the sugar snaps, but it still got plenty of room and sun. Oh well, we will see when I pull them!

There are baby squirrels in my front yard. They too are so dang cute! As long as they stay where they belong and out of my plants! So far, so good. So playful!

I have got to get out there tomorrow AM and see if I need to water, pick sugar snaps, kale, lettuce (done!) and test the beets & carrots. While it is cool!

It should be interesting to see what your runt tater plant ends up producing. It seems that taking some of my grocery store russets that have chitted and see how they do in the garden could be a great way of keeping them from going to waste. The gift that keeps on giving... but for now, just experimenting with them.

I agree about the freebie taters....we will see!

Picked some cylindra beets early this morning...then found a shade tree and relaxed for a while with a paring knife and garden hose.  Picked about half of a 4x4 box.

First cuke

Onions...I recently read about topping off onions, letting them grow back a little, topping again as a way to grow bigger bulbs.  We'll see.

first good tomato set

Nice veggies landarch.

Very nice!  I enjoy your photos, so Artsy!  

I spent 2 hours doing tomato brutality, watering, picking mostly sugar snaps and whole heads of Matchless lettuce, and tying up maters, weeding....sweating.  




Side view of the South Annex!  Containers



Left to right; Minnesota Midget muskmelons, Blacktail Mountain Watermelons, and 2 determinate tomatoes, a gift from my son's dad who did not know what he started!  In cool red cages from Walmart!



Newly planted Egyptian Walking Onion patch...thanks, Judy!

I have a cool setting on my camera...then I crop to keep file size down.

My neighbor has a tiny garden plot adjacent to our driveway and I noticed it quickly became a weed patch this spring...she said she was going to skip any garden this year and gave me the go ahead to plant any leftover tomatoes, eggplant, and a few trombone squash seeds...like I didn't have enough to take care of.  It's full of about 15 different types of weeds (clumping and vining) so I've mowed her front lawn a couple times and covered with grass clipping mulch (she does not use chemicals).  Tempted to build a few boxes for her....like I don't have enough to do.

The Mels mix in my home SFG mix has contracted and expanded at my box edges so much I think all my Popsicle stick labels fell down the gap over time.  In terms of tomatoes I know I have Health Kick, Sunrise Bumblebee, Indigo Cherry Drops, Juliet, and Black Cherry.  May have to wait a bit to tell which is which.

Funny that you say that, Landarch, because I have missing stick labels, just was wondering yesterday what this or that pepper and tomato was!  Your neighbor made more work for you for sure!  Hope you can get the weeds under control.  Looking to plant transplants?  You had extras?

Cool setting...need to check that out.  They are really pretty, I enjoy them, Landarch!

Some of my tomatoes, I had clearly missed some suckers.  So I had to get heavy handed with them to preserve the sun and air circulation inthe 4x4.  Much tidier, now.  It was hard though to cut entire chunks off plants!  I need to tie up my 2 Sakatas Sweet melons in the 4x4, I cannot control their rambling, and they are getting onto the other plants.  Will try to get some pics, heading out there shortly, before it heats up too much!

Hot one here today.  Nothing like the southwest will be experiencing!  Stay safe out there, all!  Too hot to do anything out west.  

landarch wrote:
Onions...I recently read about topping off onions, letting them grow back a little, topping again as a way to grow bigger bulbs.  We'll see.

I tried that this year, and it seems to be good for them. The stalks are stouter and the green onions I've harvested so far are nice and beefy on the ends, just the way I like them. When I prune the stalks, I keep the healthy ones that I cut off and use them in my cooking. So it also ends up being a way of getting more food out of the plants.

Scorpio Rising wrote:Some of my tomatoes, I had clearly missed some suckers.  So I had to get heavy handed with them to preserve the sun and air circulation inthe 4x4.  Much tidier, now.  It was hard though to cut entire chunks off plants!  I need to tie up my 2 Sakatas Sweet melons in the 4x4, I cannot control their rambling, and they are getting onto the other plants.  Will try to get some pics, heading out there shortly, before it heats up too much!

My tomatoes in the SFG bed are still growing fast, despite the heat.  They definitely like the SFG method.  I had to top them today, because they were all getting over the trellis I built for them.  (Already!  Wow!)  Next year, I'm going to try the string trellis method with them, so they can just keep going as far as they want.  Only thing is, I'm not sure I want to grow them so close together again next year.  The plants are doing fine, so far, but it is a bit of a challenge to give them attention where there is so much foliage it's almost impossible to get in there for pruning or worm pickin'.  But SFG for tomatoes in the future - definite yes.

Scorpio Rising wrote:
Side view of the South Annex!  Containers



Left to right; Minnesota Midget muskmelons, Blacktail Mountain Watermelons, and 2 determinate tomatoes, a gift from my son's dad who did not know what he started!  In cool red cages from Walmart!

Nice - love the containers!

Kate, I know what you mean about the crowding.  My maters and melons are going to compete...may need to deal with the tomato plant....



My very first ANSFG 4x4!  Tomatoes, peppers and 2 muskmelons!  Everything is doing well, it has been so fun!



Old Reliable!  My repurposed window boxes year 2;  this is the patty pans on either end, and CC's ground cherries in the middle!



Root veggies here:  Carrots and beets...and an empty for taters!  Yay



This is the sugar snaps, runty tater, and monster kale! Someone help me with what to do with all this kale! I didn't even harvest it today because 1. don't know what to do with it, and 2. It is large and storage is an issue!



Another angle on the trellis.  Cukes on the left, my 3 onions, and purple pole beans with room in front for fall radishes, turnips, etc.

Saw my first Japanese beetles today...got me some peppermint soap, gonna go out there now and squirt those jerks!