2017: First full year of SFGing in ND

Like you I worry about the sides hitting the leaves.
Quilt bea once planted her tomatoes out very early. She put a cage around them and wrapped some plastic wrap (like from the kitchen) around the sides.  That would be adjustable to your plant sizes (instead of the plants adjusting to the container) and keep the wind off and be some what protective.

I opted not to use the milk jug.  But haven't decided on how I would implement the plastic wrap idea with what I have on hand.  It's not that windy right now and it's not supposed to be terribly windy tomorrow and it's gonna to be from the right direction for the house to offer protection. So i have tonight and tomorrow to brain storm and figure it out.

Here is the promised garden update.

Below we have a picture of some of my lettuce.  I have a few other squares and other varieties, but this one is doing the best so far. It was a buttercrunch blend, and the red variety is doing the best. 


The strawberry bed.  All but one of the plants survived after I planted the bare roots.  I have already pinched off a few flowers.  These are an ever-bearing variety so I will probably stop pinching flowers sometime in July and get a small harvest this year.


Here is a picture of my peas, which the vines are growing like crazy, the tallest 2.5 to 3 ft tall at this point, but still no sign of flowers!


Parsnip Seedlings. They were planted 5 or 6 weeks ago.  Trying a pretty intensive planting, with 13 per square.  The normal 9 per square, plus on on each "interesction" if you drew the 9 sub-squares while sowing.  Might harvest the 4 fairly small to make room for the other 9.


Carrot seedlings planted 4 weeks ago! Getting some true leaves!  Varieties are mokum and purplesnax.


Here is how my spring plantings from one bed are doing.  4 squares of spinach.  Top left and 1 square above it (under the cage) i have some swiss chard.  Bottom right are 2 squares of Avalanche beets, that seem to be growing quite slowly.


Here is my little cage that I used last fall to protect some things from frost. So far this year it was used to protect freshly planted squares from squirrels and birds.  Now I put plastic on 3 sides to provide some wide protection for newly planted transplants.  Here is one of my adopted pepper plants.  It was planted in the same square as some struggling "little gem" lettuce.  The lettuce wasn't really big enough to be worth harvesting right now and I wanted to get my pepper plant in. In a best case scenario the lettuce will continue to grow with the pepper providing some shade when the warmer months get here pretty soon.  



All and all I think my garden is growing pretty slowly... I haven't harvested a single thing yet.  The reason, I suspect, is over watering.  As every week or so I was direct sowing a square or two over the last 2 months.  And in an attempt to keep the soil moist for the seeds, I watered quite often.  Well, I always watered everything when I watered instead of just the squares with seeds waiting to germinate.  Since I only have a garden hose to water with right now, the water was always pretty chilly.  I think my overzealous watering with cold water led to my soil temp staying pretty darn low, slowing down everything's growth.  Trying the "bucket of sun warmed water" method in the book now for my hotties at very least.  Pretty soon though the broccolini and other cool weather crops are probably going to actually appreciate the cool water as we'll be getting into the 80s in a weeks or so and not long after the 90s, possibly 100s by the end of July (Just my prediction from living in ND all my life, no meteorology degree here).

Well I'm super upset with myself.  That is the nicest way of putting it.  Pretty much killed my pepper under my "cage".  I moved the cage to water it. And when I put it back, I broke off the main stem of the pepper... It's probably dead.

Sometimes they put out branches right below the break and grow into extra bushy plants. I have a tomato recovering like that.....

Yeah I could look at it like an unintentional topping off.  But my friend who gave it to me had already topped this one off twice, so it was quite bushy anyway.  We'll see what happens. What worries me is it wasn't a very clean break, so there's a decent sized wound left on the plant too...

Your SFG looks great, Rob. Here's hoping for a really bushy pepper plant.

sanderson wrote:Your SFG looks great, Rob.  Here's hoping for a really bushy pepper plant.

A really bushy pepper plant would be strongly preferred over a dead pepper plant!

A lot of my spinach plants are TINY.  They have numerous sets of true leaves, and by the number of leaves I'm tempted to harvest some but they are so small.  Any body else have this issue / Any ideas what could cause it?  My hand for size reference.

My eyes might deceive me,  but I think this is my first pea flower about to open up!

And apparently my phone isn't uploading pictures this morning.  Pic to follow soon hopefully?

You are going to be a pea father, Rob!  LOL!!!

Some growers advocate topping off of peppers....it will be fine!

Did see some new flower buds on the pepper, so there's some new growth after the "topping off".  Also got like 2 or 3 flowers on all the pea plants!  The bad news is the tulle must not have been tight enough as I have cabbage butterfly larva eating my kale and radishes. Picked them all off that I could see and I'll be redoing the tulle tomorrow.  It's too hot out to do it yet today... it got to 95 today! And last Tuesday night we had a frost advisory.   Gotta love North Dakota weather.

As I had said in my spinach problem post,  my spinach has bolted even though it's tiny.  I harvested what I could.  Which didn't add up to much since it was all so small.  And it's a little bitter, but should be fine in a smoothie with enough fruit to cover up the bitterness.

My spinach was bolting under the lights??!!!!  I don't know.  I think I need to be farmer I should and put it in direct sow in March as soon as thaw.....

Hmmm, my tulle is just tucked under the containers themselves.  Have to check!

I wasn't really expecting to have to try to provide shade. I never see people really doing it around here.  Yet yesterday a few of my carrots and Swiss chard seedlings succumbed to the heat.  It probably could have been prevented with a morning watering but my mind wasn't on the garden at that moment.  Now I am going to try to provide at least SOME (read: slightly more than none) shade for the garden.  About the only thing I have on hand at the moment is tulle (and my garden budget is on a freeze for the time being haha)  so I am thinking of doubling that up and then it should have some sort of effect. Better than nothing at least I hope, for I am planting my transplants this evening,  and the forecast says 90s the 4 days this next week.

  Also, broke records for this time of year yesterday, it got up to 98.  Less than a week from a frost advisory.

And now, some pictures!
Here is a picture of the tomatoes I transplanted today.  From left to right we have a Park's whopper,  sunsugar, and two Amish Paste. In th background are the peppers I planted today as well as the fairy tale eghplant.


Here is an update on the carrots and parsnips.  I think they are doing well.



And lastly here is my attempt at providing "some" (very little) shade with tulle.  I wanted to make it a double layer to provide more shade, but I ran out.  Will buy more soon.  Or maybe just something more appropriate for shade haha.  Anyway, A for effort at least?

Rob, Got an old sheet to put on the west side of the cages?

I might be able to find some old sheets somewhere. But now I am debating with myself again if I will need more shade. I was particularly worried about the newly planted tranplants, with it being in the 90s this week.   But in general, I'm not 100% sure I will need them. My garden has direct sun on it generally I believe from around 10:30ish til 5:30 ish.  The rest of the time it is shaded by my neighbor's trees on either side of me.  So it already has some shade, but the direct sun is during the hottest part of the day.

We do have some days that will get possibly 110 degrees in the end of July.

Pictures from this morning

A. Tomatoes




B. Peppers.  The one of the top left was the one that was accidentally topped off.  Top center was the other adopted pepper that I just moved to be by it's friends.  Bottom left is fairy tale eggplant.   Bottom center is Swiss chard.

C.Peas.  A wide shot to see how tall they are getting, plus a close up if my first pod 

Nice!

The proud Papa of a pea pod!
I took photos of my first pea also. Showed it to everyone.

Ate 5 peas from the garden yesterday, even the 2 year old had 1! Lots more to come. The snow.peas are.going to go into a stir fry tomorrow. 

Question on my garlic... it has fallen over now, even though it's still a month or 2 before most people around here harvest it. I suspect over watering.  Should I leave it and see if it recovers or harvest whatever bulbs there are now?

Hard to tell. Pull one up and take a look at it, then you may know what to do with the rest of them.

It looks like they do not have enough green tops and the stem is not very thick.  This makes me think that they will be awfully small.  If it were me, I would wait a while.  I don't remember what is the trigger to use to pull them but don't think you are there yet based on the number of green shoots vs yellow shoots.  Suggest you wait a bit and see if they straighten up.  It also depends on whether the neck is soft or if they are just leaning over.

yolos wrote:It looks like they do not have enough green tops and the stem is not very thick.  This makes me think that they will be awfully small.  If it were me, I would wait a while.  I don't remember what is the trigger to use to pull them but don't think you are there yet based on the number of green shoots vs yellow shoots.  Suggest you wait a bit and see if they straighten up.  It also depends on whether the neck is soft or if they are just leaning over.

 
The neck feels pretty soft =/

Garlic issues aside; here are some other pics of the garden.

A. Peas again, cause I'm so proud of them surviving the 98F weather.  Hard to see, but they are pretty loaded with pods!

B. Wide shot of the bed with the tomatoes,  peppers, eggplant,  beets, chard, lettuce, and newly sprouted bush beans.

C.First tomatoes and eggplant blossoms!


D. Brassica bed seems to still be doing alright in spite of the heat.  And the pic is also sideways? Pretty sure I had my camera the same direction as the rest of the pics 

E. Lastly,  my deep bed with the carrots and parsnips. The carrots in the back rows were planted 2 weeks after the ones in the front rows.