Mid-Atl - Jul 2016 - Wwwwaaaaahhhhh!

Hubby and I went on two weeks vacation. We hired the same gal that took care of our dogs and garden last year. She was recommended by a friend of mine who is a garden writer so I KNOW she knew how to water a garden.

It looks like she barely watered and then realized we were on our way home.

Sooooo what was different this year?

She graduated high school, turned 18 years old and got a boyfriend!

What do YOU do if you go on vacation during growing season?

I pray for rain.  It worked last summer when we were away.

Oh, the dreaded boyfriend syndrome. Actually, she needs to be told she failed at her job. A life lesson young people don't get anymore. You have always done great at watering my garden, but this year something went wrong . . .

I'm on drip and set it for every day when we have to leave, City regs or not. At 106*F like today, with a hot breeze, everything is suffering. My "see America" vacation time is Sept or Oct when the weather is more reasonable and there is a chance most plants will survive. I'm sorry it happened, Kim.

Yeah, cross-my-fingers and hope for rain. My friends don't know gardening, or/and don't listen to directions... or forget. They want to help, but I don't want them trying to take short-cuts or 'helping' without understanding. I could totally see something like this happening: "I know you said don't do any weeding but it looked like you needed some help!"  I don't make it easy, because I do intentionally grow edible weeds, and some more unusual plants... and even *I've* nearly pulled out two of my herbs. (Vietnamese coriander is closely related to, and looks like smartweed; and my little lemon basil looks like something I know is a weed but don't know the identity of... you'd think having them be in squares would do the trick, but sometimes the dirt gardener in me still assumes the big plants must be the weeds!)

I've got a new friend this year that I think will be available during vacation time... so I'll cross my fingers and hope for availability and competency!

Pray. There is no one who is responsible enough to do the little that needs to be done.  Maybe one of my daughters friends ...dang it....

What is a vacation?

bigdogrock wrote:What is a vacation?

+1

On our day off we went to Shackelford Island to see the wild horses.



On trash patrol along the beach.

Kim, that sounds really nice! Even if you DID have to work!

This year I finally convinced hubby that we need to put in soaker hoses on a timer for our veg and flower gardens since we were going on vacation to Punta Cana for a wedding.
Came back and the all the gardens and vases are doing well. If we relied on others to water or not water, the gardens would have been dead.

Well worth the trouble.

yolos wrote:

bigdogrock wrote:What is a vacation?

+1

I haven't been away for some time.  I would also try not to go until September/October. 
The vacations I have taken have been big ones, when I did not have a garden.  Six weeks in Europe (from England).  Three weeks in Canada (from England). Six weeks in England (from Canada).  I have never had a cruise and do not think I would like to be shut up in a ship with two/three/six thousand people and have to dress up every day for Dinner.

Sorry you were let down, Kim.  It would break my heart now if that happened to me
Now that my Jazz has gone, I will probably take a few two/three day trips.

Came back from my 5-day vacation to Cape May, NJ and overall everything looks great! My garden is currently water-by-hand (no hose to the garden right now... long story), so I had my friend water just the EarthBoxes/other containers/pots, tomatoes, potatoes, curcubits, peas, and celeriac... which is still quite a chore.

I lost my turnip and rutabega seedlings, and some bean seedlings -- but those weren't on the list of things to water, so that's on me. There's still time to replant, but I may start the turnips and rutabegas indoors this time so they all get off to a good start. It would be nice to have full squares of 4 of those instead of 2s and 3s.

There was some Japanese beetle damage, but it's pretty minor. Based on the amount of damage for the number off beetles, it looks like they were only there after my friend's last scheduled watering, and I told her only to bother with them if she wanted to anyhow. The eggplant flea beetles showed up. I see they like potatoes and tomatillos, too - haven't grown those before, but it makes sense since they're nightshades, too. I picked off a few dozen of them. I'm grateful they are so much easier to catch than the stripey flea beetles that like my arugula.

The brassica seedlings that were indoors, I watered and threw into plastic bags before I left. They are a little lanky, but alive, and ready to be hardened off. 

I think it's time to harvest the garlic! The test square I pulled looks about right, so I'll do the rest soon. The soup peas are starting to die back and the pods are drying out. I'm starting to see a little color on a few tomato fruits. There are tiny cucumbers forming, 3 cue ball sized watermelons, a zucchini for me to harvest (I had my friend grab the first one and enjoy it), and lots of tiny yellow summer squash growing up. I had to do some careful tendril unwinding and vine moving -- the trellis is that way, not this way! How did you squash get so far astray in five days?

It sounds like you are pleased at what survived, what with being away for 5 days and having someone else water. Actually, it sounds like you got use a hose bibb/spiget out there!

This year I asked a neighbor to water my SFG beds while we were away on vacation...I mentioned not getting the leaves wet...came back after 10 days to find the hose and lawn sprinkler set up right next to the boxes.  (sigh)

Beetles, sounds like you did pretty well!

Landarch, any PM or DM visible?  Maybe it drowned....

sanderson wrote:It sounds like you are pleased at what survived, what with being away for 5 days and having someone else water.  Actually, it sounds like you got use a hose bibb/spiget out there!

Yup, I'm pleased. I'm pretty sure the watermelons in the Earthbox would have died without someone to water them - I didn't set the box up quite right, so it needs more frequent watering than it should, but even so, 5 days is a lot with big plants transpiring away in the heat with no access to any water besides that in their planter. The ANSFG and SFG garden areas all would have survived without watering...and pretty much did since I was only having my friend water selected areas, but the tomatoes would have been sad and would have been set back by the experience. It's just been too hot and windy for tall, leafy tomatoes to go without water, even with the wondrous water holding properties of MM.

There is a spigot fairly close to the garden, but I can't currently use it with a hose because something is broken inside the spigot. So I've been filling one of those big 30 gallon round buckets (the thick plastic ones they used to make... I'd buy more if I could find them...) right underneath, and dipping a pair of ~2.5gallon water cans into it to fill them, toting them to the garden, water squares, repeat. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't have a hose set up... the friend might have been tempted to do something like landarch's neighbor. It's a farther 'trek' to the planters in the front yard, but only about 23yds. So not that bad.  I'm sure the exercise is good for me, but it's time consumptive, and it eats into the limited "time outside before it gets too hot." There's a spigot in the front yard, too... but it's decorative. It goes into the house, but it's not connected to a pipe!

And that's another reason I go to the Phlippines during the winter months.  This year is Dec, Jan , and Feb.after I plant mustard greens for soil cleaning during the late fall.   Back in time to get a spring garden going.

I will say that when I lived in Elizabeth City I set up overhead sprinklers on a timer and still got good results.  I sprinkled for 15 minutes at 5am and 5pm to allow for drying before the sun could scald and so the plants could dry before nightfall.  

Kay

After the poor spring and early summer weather, my garden has finally really taken off.  Even after moving my beds from one house to another in March, my MM has been really productive this year.  This is the first year I have made and used compost tea.  I use the vermicompost available on Amazon and brew the tea according to Teaming with Microbes.  I have the biggest plants I have ever grown and this is with only 4-5 hours of direct sun because of poor location. I have beautiful watermelon, squash, beans, lettuce, onions, radishes, eggplant, various peppers, and cucumbers.  The Brandywine tomatoes are enormous.  I cannot believe how much I have harvested this year.  I have never been successful growing eggplant but this year I have harvested 5 of the best eggplant I have ever seen, homegrown or farm grown. Also, I used MM and compost tea in all my cedar boxes and pots that I have for flowers all over my deck.  It looks like Longwood Gardens set up a display on my deck.  I will take pictures of everything and post them.

Excellent zackshea!  Always good to hear success stories.

BTW a couple of years ago Mrs TD and I visited Longwood Gardens after spending in the Lancaster area. What a beautiful place.

Any chance you can post some photos of your garden and deck?

Wanted to give you an update.

The tomatoes still look like crap, but I'm getting a few fruits on each of the 16 varieties. The plants look bad but I'm getting a LOT of large fruits on my Cosmic Eclipse tomatoes.

SOOOOO as the fruits ripen, I'm saving seeds using the fermentation method. Six varieties down ten to go.

Hope the rest of the Cosmic Eclipse fruits ripen quickly -- we're having fencing installed in a week and I'm going to have to move the 2' x 23' SFG. It's going to be a pain, but since the garden is so crappy this year it really doesn't matter.

We also had a LOT of wind and I've got more weeds than usual. I'm going to take this opportunity to throw the Mel's Mix into dark contractor bags and solarize it since it's so hot.

trolleydriver wrote:Excellent zackshea!  ...

Any chance you can post some photos of your garden and deck?

Yes, please zackshea! I need to see some success photos right about now. My garden is behaving...very thirstily.

CC

zackshea wrote:After the poor spring and early summer weather, my garden has finally really taken off.  Even after moving my beds from one house to another in March, my MM has been really productive this year.  This is the first year I have made and used compost tea.  I use the vermicompost available on Amazon and brew the tea according to Teaming with Microbes.  I have the biggest plants I have ever grown and this is with only 4-5 hours of direct sun because of poor location. I have beautiful watermelon, squash, beans, lettuce, onions, radishes, eggplant, various peppers, and cucumbers.  The Brandywine tomatoes are enormous.  I cannot believe how much I have harvested this year.  I have never been successful growing eggplant but this year I have harvested 5 of the best eggplant I have ever seen, homegrown or farm grown. Also, I used MM and compost tea in all my cedar boxes and pots that I have for flowers all over my deck.  It looks like Longwood Gardens set up a display on my deck.  I will take pictures of everything and post them.

WOW! I am so jealous I might have to go outside and kick something.

Beautiful, Zack!  It does look like a garden show at your house!  Love the pics, thanks for sharing!

Everything is so green there...brown here, except the crabgrass and weeds....