2017: First full year of SFGing in ND

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.

Looks great! Parsnip plants get really big. I use to plant mine outside the box so not sure about how many per square.

I was thinking about your garlic while looking at mine this morning. My transplants look similar to yours but not fallen over...yet. Were yours transplanted? When were they originally planted?

CC

They were originally planted 2nd or 3rd week of September last fall.  Normal first frost is Sept 26th, but we were still in the 70s in November last year... So they got too big before the snow came and only 3 out of the 9 made it through the winter.

As far as the parsnip spacing, I was planning on 9 per square but got ambitious like my beets and tried 13 by putting 4 in the "intersections" if you draw a grid for 9 like Mel mentions in the book.  I'm thinking I'm going to have to harvest the 4 pretty early and they'll be small.  And probably not great tasting since they wouldn't have been touched by frost yet at that point but oh well.

Hurt my back yesterday and can barely move,  so not much happened garden wise this weekend.   But I did take a few pictures. 

A.  This picture is actually a few days old,  just forgot to post it.  My container delicata squash had finally germinated!  Took about 2.5 weeks.   At least a week longer than the zucchini and pattypan planted at the same time. 

B.Pictures of my eggplant.  Im concernes as the leaves are turning yellow. The bottom leaf is the 3rd one to turn completely yellow. I've taken the other two off as they turned and seemed to shrivel a little.  Two of the 3 flowers also fell off today when I barely touched them.  Close ups of the flowers that fell off and what remained on the plant.  It seems there might be a tiny eggplant developing on the part still attached to the plant. Is this normal?

Important to note, this variety of eggplant is not dark purple/black.  It is light purple with white stripes.  So I think that little white thing in the remnants of the flower is the start of a fruit.

The good news is we got some more much needed rain today.  Showers on and off all day!

Found a mushroom in my MM.  Is that a good thing? Should I leave it? Or remove it like a weed? 

Also, the fallen over garlic is turning more brown.  Still wondering if I should pull it...

I think mushrooms in the MM are a good thing because they indicate soil diversity. I would leave it. The mushroom is just the "fruit" of the mushroom "plant" (they aren't actually plants, of course). You could pick it, but there's no reason to, as you'll still have the fungus in your MM whether you pick the mushroom off the top or not.

For garlic, I think I waited until 4-5 leaves went brown last year, but that's just what I decided after reading too much. There's a range of time that works:
http://awaytogarden.com/the-tricky-matter-of-when-to-harvest-garlic/

I too would leave the fungus.  I am a  newb to garlic!

Any opinions on the eggplant? Will those flower buds produce fruit?  I know it's a wait and see kind of deal but I'm anxious.  If they fell off and aren't making fruit I'd like to try to correct the problem that might have caused that.

Caveat - I've only had some success with eggplants. I get a few nice fruits, but the plants aren't the best they could be. The flowers look okay to me, the petals often fall off as part of the process - though I obviously can't promise that they were pollinated. It really is a wait and see. I had yellow leaves on my eggplant last year, and finally figured out that they were yellow and wilting because I was OVERwatering them. They are doing it again this year, but this time it's not my fault. Way too much rain. Not sure that's the same thing wrong with yours because eggplants have a limited vocabulary. But it doesn't look like the insect damage or viruses I'm familiar with for eggplant, FWIW.

Over watering is a distinct possibility.  I'll try with holding some water and see what happens.

Last few years, I lost lower leaves as they turned yellow. I thought it was normal. This year my one surviving Japanese Millionaire is dark green with dark purple flowers, producing the largest millionaire I have ever had, and no yellow leaves. ?? I predict yours will set fruit and send laterals where the leaves are falling.

Keeping my fingers crossed for the eggplant. It is honestly one of the things I'm most looking forward to right now. That and the broccolini, as you can't buy them locally here. Well, you can't buy Japanese or baby eggplant around here... and this variety is basically a baby Japanese vareity so.. double rare?

My Fairy Tale eggplant just dropped a yellow older bottom leaf as have the other varieties as well. The rest of their leaves do not have any yellowing. I suspect yours need a nitrogen pick me upper~ fish emulsion or compost tea or bloodmeal perhaps. Not much though. Over watering, by us or too much rain, washes nitrogen out of the soil.

I am looking forward to pictures of your first fruits, and eating mine. I can not tell yet when a flower is successfully fertilized. It doesn't seem as obvious as it is with a tomato. They do respond to being buzzed by the back of an electric toothbrush like a tomato or pepper does. I am not sure the bees have found mine yet so I am helping out.

The more I read, the more I think my eggplant yellowing issues are also partly mild nutrient deficiency due to pH (and this would in turn be leading to the minor pest/disease problems.) I think my MM pH is somewhere between 7.3 and 7.5. I've got one of those inexpensive two prong meters that does light, moisture and pH. I know they aren't supposed to be reliable, but it seems give consistent though not precise results, and ones that agree with data I have. Eggplants prefer a lower pH 5.5 to 6.5. Looking at a chart of preferred ranges for different plants, I'd even say that what does best for me, ok for me, and poorly for me, in my ANSFG beds is lining up reasonably with a minor pH issue. I don't need or want to treat all my beds to change the pH, a lot of plants seem fine) but I do think I should do something to my eggplants and pepper squares.

I have been using some liquid fish fertilizer for a few weeks. Given 2 doses. Seemed to really help my lettuce and peppers, but the eggplant still showed more yellowing. So last week I gave it some blood meal... and as it was shortly after that the flowers fell off, I panicked that I gave them too much nitrogen and proceeded to water generously in hopes of washing some of the nitrogen away... and then more yellowing... probably due too overwatering now.  Possibly a pH problem.   

Long story short I'm having knee jerk reactions and need to calm down a bit.  

I DID top dress my tomatoes with worm castings following the directions for established plants.  They also looked slightly anemic and are about half the size of some I put in just regular potting soil at work.  (We have a nice little atrium at work and a few of us are using it to garden in containers that someone bought years ago).

3 victories today! I can confirm the little white balls remaining in the eggplant blossoms are indeed the fruits. They are growing and gaining a little purple color! 

Also, have my first teeny tiny tomatoes on my sun sugar.  And a tiny little pepper on my Hungarian wax! This was the pepper plant that was moved a week after transplanting.

The tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers all have plenty of blossoms, or buds waiting to open.  Pollination is happening!

The peas really seem to be slowing down now though.  Which is probably about right since I've been harvesting for almost 2 weeks now.  I'm ok with them being done, as it makes room for my cukes.  A week or two ago  (ok I NEED to start keeping a journal) I direct seeded cukes in 2 squares behind my peas,  and they have germinated and just barely show signs of their first set of true leaves.  Also direct seeded another delicata squash behind the other 2 squares of peas at the same time as the cukes.  No sign of germination of that yet, but when I planted that one in the pot it took 2.5 almost 3 weeks to germinate.  So I'm not worried yet.

Peas will be out soon, making way for the cukes and delicata squash.

Yes, get thee a journal!

I use my Notes on my iPad.

Rob, never worry about over Nitrogen with blood meal, super slow release.  If you need a quick boost, use fish emulsion.  But yeah, might wanna chill and see what happens.  and write it down!  LOL!

You have got it goin' on!

Pics!
A. Squash in the 1.5x1.5 boxes and pot.  Top to bottom,  black beauty zucchini , delicata,  and sunburst pattypan 



B. The tiny Hungarian wax pepper,  with many more blossoms. 

C. Eggplant sending out side shoots. 

D. Sunsugar cherry tomatoes 

E. Broccolini looking good (I think) still waiting for some heads to form.   The radishes around them are almost ready to harvest. 

F. Premier kale recovering well from the damage caused by a few cabbage worms. 

They are looking good!

My project for this weekend that I hope to get done is weeding the area around my boxes,  putting down weed cloth, then cover it with wood chips.  Getting tired of how it looks.

Alright! Got it done. I'm exhausted but it looks SO much better!

A. Before


B. After

Good job, Robb!

Wow! What a difference, it looks great!