Mid-Atl - June & a Half 2018

I was locked out of the Forum for a bit and was too busy to rectify it. Just wanted you to know I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

Heavy rains have plagued my central Maryland garden, but the Mel's Mix has performed like a champ. Here's a little video I did for the SFG Foundation: KIM'S VIDEO

How's the weather been for you? What have you done to protect your SFG?

I'm about 5 miles from Ellicott City, and the weather has been crazy this year.    Spring lasted about one week, then it turned hot, and now it seems like we have been in monsoon season!     I could probably grow cocoa beans this year!

Mikesgardn wrote:I'm about 5 miles from Ellicott City, and the weather has been crazy this year.    Spring lasted about one week, then it turned hot, and now it seems like we have been in monsoon season!     I could probably grow cocoa beans this year!

Or rice?

Hi Everyone!
I am located in central NJ and we had the same weather as Maryland.....ugh....The weather has also fluctuated from high 80's to low 60's. But as Kim's video shows, my SFG gardens are not flooded and my plants are doing great. This is the 1st yr my lettuce has grown and grown! My cabbage is growing strong and I even have flowers on some of my tomatoes and one of them has tiny little tomatoes....

Wacky weather in central Pennsylvania as well -- basically no 'spring.' My garden experience was insufficient to cope with the unexpected weather, and I'm way behind. It was too cold for some things to go from inside to outside, and/but they took up the space under the lights that the next things needed to get started, so my progress stalled. ...And then it was too hot to start the spring plants outside. Heavy rain and other obligations conspired against getting transplants hardened off and in the ground. BI only just transplanted (most of) my tomatoes.

The volunteers and few things I did start bolted quickly (no spring arugula for me ), so I guess I'm glad I didn't spend much effort trying. I've been trying to eat down my spring volunteers to substitute for what I didn't sow, so half my beds look like a weedy mess and I haven't taken pictures. It's pretty fast and easy to clean them up (MM!), but it's been getting too sunny and hot to be outside fast, too.

The peas look good. The strawberries have produced a nice yield but the leaves have a fungal disease. The lettuce I did manage to start is doing okay. The zucchini transplants I bought look beautiful (in containers rather than the SFG.) The garlic isn't anywhere near as nice as the past two years. A few of my carrots came up. I'm having no luck getting my (freshly purchased!) parsnip seeds to germinate. The pak choy and tatsoi look nice, and thanks to tulle the napa cabbage might head this year. I need to get my trellises up in the OSFG so I can plant beans - it's been too wet; the OSFG drains better than the native clay-heavy soil...but it's not quite monsoon-proof.

The compost in my tumbler got hot, so I've switched from adding to letting it finish. I plan to mulch the tomatoes with it (if only the parsnips would come up so I don't bury them!)

I just got back from my 7-day California vacation.  What an incredible state.  I have not traveled much in my 56 years, so this was a treat.   My son was accepted into a research program at Caltech, and my wife and I just celebrated our 25th anniversary, so we decided to finally see the west coast.     We flew into San Francisco and drove slowly down to LA.  What a drive.  Highs were in the 60's and 70's.  Beautiful.

Then we flew back to Baltimore...hot, humid, and thunderstorms.  

Wish I could afford to live in California.

Thank you for the nice review of CA. Yes, that drive is great. I sometimes get disappointed in how the State has changed so much, but for a first timer, it can be interesting. Congrats on your son's acceptance, and Happy Anniversary!

Thanks!   Due to the landslide repairs, we had to take a detour along route 101 between Monterey and Santa Cruz.  Even the detour was beautiful.  That road was bordered by farmland on both sides, full of grape vineyards, strawberries, lettuce, etc. , with mountains in the distance.  Very impressive. 

One thing I noticed is that I did not see any corn being grown, whereas here in Maryland you will see corn growing all over the state.  Any idea why that is?

Highway 101 even impressed me last October. All of the agriculture left and right. Different parts of the State produce different major crops. A lot of corn, cotton, alfalfa and wheat, stone fruits and nuts, olives, tomatoes, peppers, and table grapes are produced in the Central Valley with its hot weather. The coastal areas produce a lot of medium to cool to medium weather crops that would fry in the Valley.

"California grows over 200 different crops, some grown nowhere else in the nation. Crops include grapes, almonds, strawberries, oranges and walnuts. California produces almost all of the country's almonds, apricots, dates, figs, kiwi fruit, nectarines, olives, pistachios, prunes, and walnuts."

"California’s agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. California’s top-10 valued commodities for the 2016 crop year1 are:

Dairy Products, Milk — $6.07 billion
Grapes — $5.58 billion
Almonds — $5.16 billion
Cattle and Calves — $2.53 billion
Lettuce — $1.96 billion
Strawberries — $1.83 billion
Pistachios — $1.5 billion
Tomatoes — $1.33 billion
Walnuts — $1.24 billion
Oranges — $826 million
"
http://ajed.assembly.ca.gov/sites/ajed.assembly.ca.gov/files/Fast%20Facts%20on%20California%27s%20Agricultural%20Economy.pdf