Zone 5A Hows it going?

I am so excited my boxes are about 90% planted!

NOW IF I JUST DON"T KILL THEM...

It's going pretty well here so far. I've got all my boxes planted--4 2X6 and 1 4x4. I've got sprouts on my spinach, red romaine, kale, green beans, pumpkin, crookneck squash, yellow onions, carrots & pickles. I've got my tomatoes and peppers planted and they're enclosed in a cold frame at night until it warms up a bit more. Today the darn wind was kicking my plastic frames' butt though! Man the wind was just wipping! Gonna have to go out in a minute and do some damage control and get the plastic tightened back up. I'm still waiting for my patty pan squash, red onions, and wax beans to make an appearance. And I'd give almost anything for nice warm, sunny, & NOT windy day.

I have been harvesting spinach and chard 3 weeks. Yesterday got my first blooms on the sugar snap peas. Beets and carrots are up and doing well. Shallots & white onions are going to town, fabulous. Brussles sprouts are growing well and seem quite happy. I am planning to get the beans into the ground in another day or 2. Compost is ready as I have another box to put together, bust the sod and add mix before I can plant my tomato, eggplant, peppers cukes and squash.

Wow, camprn, you're doing so well!!!!

My boxes are all planted, but I think maybe my stuff isn't getting enough sun, and or my mix ratio is off. My radishes are growing more greeniery, spinach is FINALLY starting to act like it's gonna grow, peas are being allowed to grow and latch on to the trellis, now that I've fenced the box to keep the stupid, destructive squirrels out, uh, the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants are all in. My pumpkin seedlings....stupid, destructive squirrel went and busted off one of three plants in my pot. It's just a pot standing against a trellis which is mounted to my kid's swing/playset. I'm concerned that since it's a squirrel highway, that they're just going to reek havoc on my pumpkins if they even allow them to grow. I have told myself that I have to stop. I cannot do anymore gardening for a while. (buying plants and digging things up) I have two flats of impatiens coming from my daughter's school, and then, that's gotta be it.

Paintedlady wrote:It's going pretty well here so far. I've got all my boxes planted--4 2X6 and 1 4x4. I've got sprouts on my spinach, red romaine, kale, green beans, pumpkin, crookneck squash, yellow onions, carrots & pickles. I've got my tomatoes and peppers planted and they're enclosed in a cold frame at night until it warms up a bit more. Today the darn wind was kicking my plastic frames' butt though! Man the wind was just wipping! Gonna have to go out in a minute and do some damage control and get the plastic tightened back up. I'm still waiting for my patty pan squash, red onions, and wax beans to make an appearance. And I'd give almost anything for nice warm, sunny, & NOT windy day.

How was damage control?

My cosmos sprouted today! I was giving them until Sat, then I was going to throw the tray out.


Through out my tray of peppers seedlings today, they never sprouted.

My peppers were extremely slow to sprout, both indoors and out. I am still waiting for the watermelon and the rest of my nasturtiums (and peas) to put in an appearance. There is something growing in my amaranth squares... I have no idea if it's a weed or not, though ;-)

Dietryin wrote:

Paintedlady wrote:It's going pretty well here so far. I've got all my boxes planted--4 2X6 and 1 4x4. I've got sprouts on my spinach, red romaine, kale, green beans, pumpkin, crookneck squash, yellow onions, carrots & pickles. I've got my tomatoes and peppers planted and they're enclosed in a cold frame at night until it warms up a bit more. Today the darn wind was kicking my plastic frames' butt though! Man the wind was just wipping! Gonna have to go out in a minute and do some damage control and get the plastic tightened back up. I'm still waiting for my patty pan squash, red onions, and wax beans to make an appearance. And I'd give almost anything for nice warm, sunny, & NOT windy day.

How was damage control?

Thanks for asking. No matter how many times I tried to tighten them up, they just kept getting blown around/down. I finally gave up and uncovered them. They've been uncovered since with no problem. If I know it's going to get too cold again, I'll go back out and cover them. Everything's coming up so nice--I'm excited!

I've harvested two squares of radishes and transplanted in cukes and peas to finish out all my trellis growers. Trellises built for 2 of three boxes. One more to go for my summer box.

Lettuce, spinach seem to finally be getting a kick-start. Three of four cabbage plants bolted, with one still looking good. Two broccoli looking good, two look slow with only small heads. Tomatoes, peas looking okay and my peppers and brussel sprouts look to be doing fine as well.

Beets and carrots still look pretty straggly. I'll have to see how they do. I'm afraid they all (about 5 squares between the different beets and carrots) may be strugglers with low/small yield.

Sweet Corn hasn't come out of the ground yet, so we'll see on that. I have it in a landscape box and didn't soak the seed, so who knows!

You're supposed to soak the corn?? :suspect: Uhoh. Well, mine seems to have forgiven me, thank goodness!

some good....some bad....
I've never posted photos before in this forum, so here's a visual attempt so you can see what's up in our garden.

overall....(2) 2'x4' gardens, raised up about 32"


Sweet peppers on the right, the one in front was purchased. The one in back is from seed (all seeds started April 11th indoors and transplanted two weeks ago). Cucumbers (from seed) in the back on the left. The "tasty greens" on the left are toast. The "streamliners" on the right are barely hanging on. Front left square is a jalepeno and pepperochini, both from seed.


Zucchini back left, barely hanging on. Yellow squash back right, barely hanging on (both from seed and transplanted). Cilantro (purchased) front right, doing great with already one harvest. Another sweet pepper (kaleidescope mix) front left.



Spinach in the back right, killin' it! All from seed about a month ago. Lost all the transplants. Front right (blank square) is now snow peas and green beans. I pulled up all the carrots cause they looked terrible. But now look at the carrots in the front left! They look great! Such is life. The carrots have okra seeds in the middle of the square that will hopefully work out in terms of timing. Honestly I planned to rip-out all the carrots, but then they took a turn for the better. All the carrots were transplants from the April 11th indoor seeds. Back left is ruby red lettuce. Again lost all the transplants from 4/11. New seeds started in the garden and are about a month old.



Front right is broccoli. The big plant is a 4/11 transplant. The other two were "backup" started in the garden in case the transplant bit the dust. They're all hangin' on. Front left is swiss chard. The wind has beat the snot out of these. They all have bent stems but seem to be growing. Seedlings coming up in the middle were backup. The blank spot has seeds too. Back left is black-seeded simpson lettuce. Back right is arugula. Yet again, lost all transplants and started over with seeds in the garden. Next year....no lettuce starting indoors.


And I forgot to mention, the overall pic shows our hanging tomato plant. It's a patio tomato. And we have a grape tomato in a pot. And finally another pot with dill, more cilantro, parsley and basil. The herbs are not doing that great. The tomatoes are growing fast and already have blooms.

So overall...some notes from a first time SFGer:
1. definitely no lettuce or broccoli indoor starting next year....it's all going straight in the garden.
2. probably would skip carrots all together
3. if I can't get zucchini and squash to hang on...will probably buy plants next year. We REALLY want the squash and zucchini...so I hope we can get it to grow. I think it's just still too cold. I put seeds in the garden, next to the plants, so we'll see what happens.
4. Glad I had a decent contingency plan. If I absorb/use up all my contingency, I'll be making a trip to the nursery for some plants.
5. My initial mix used three types of compost. I top-dressed the beds two weeks ago with another 1-1/2" of straight compost. I was able to find two additional types. So now I'm up to five.
6. Been using leftover coffee grounds around the plants.
7. Should have staked the swiss chard earlier. Like I said, the wind tore it up. I hope it hangs on.
8. Probably would just buy pepper plants altogether next year, but we'll see how the little ones do.

that's enough for now....I hope to be harvesting for some salads before too long. The arugula is growing VERY fast!

thanks!

Here in Northern IL. the temp Sunday (May23) was in the 80's, today the temp is 90 and my plants are loving it!

Todays update: ACK! The pressure... :suspect: too much to do!

My first harvest, May 23! I harvested some lettuce, green onions, and radishes this weekend!

L&K-IL

Great pictures!!!!!

Be prepared to tame those squash plants though...

I see some folks are having harvests already and some are throwing out unsprouted seed pellets!

Well, I'm in the middle, I guess.

I planted onion sets and direct planted spinach, arugula and radishes. (even kids can grow radishes! Right? Maybe kids but what about senior citizens?)

My onions look great although nowhere near harvesting, of course. I think my spinach is bolting and I haven't even eaten any except one lone leaf that I picked this morning. The arugula is just sitting there -- that's ok 'cause I don't even know what arugula is!!!

The radishes were supposed to be ready May 22 but... NOT -- nowhere near.

Maybe there's not enough sun???

My three tomatoes are looking ok and finally starting to show some growth. I bought these transplants at HD.

My peas -- well, from the first planting of nine, one is up about three inches and sitting. Many came up from second planting but not growing like I thought they should. The first one is yellowing a bit so I put some fish oil on it and on a lot of other stuff. Didn't seem to make a difference.

I think I have too much peat in my early mixes this year. After carefully reading the ingredients on the composts I bought this year I find that most of them have more peat than compost! So as I make new Mel's Mix I'm putting in a whole lot less peat.

I'm considering putting blood meal on some of the squares. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I finished filling my 4x4 with Mel's Mix this morning. Watered it down well. Will measure out the grid and get my broccoli transplant in. The broccoli from seed is the ONLY plant that is growing like I would expect.

My flowers are beautiful, except for the calendula which I planted from seed. They're up but just sitting. Why is everything stalling?

HELP!

Oh, I forgot -- my carrots and mesculun. I guess I forgot to mention them because I can hardly see them! I planted them on April 22. They all should be bigger by now. Hmmm.

mckr3441 wrote:Oh, I forgot -- my carrots and mesculun. I guess I forgot to mention them because I can hardly see them! I planted them on April 22. They all should be bigger by now. Hmmm.

I planted some of that around the same time. The carrots are all still technically "alive" but I'm not sure how much they're growing. The mesclun is slowly growing!

Things are going well here also! Here are some recent pics
4/16/10= lettuce table


5/27/10



4/16/10-cole crop


5/27/10


It was a lot bushier but we'll have this for dinner with smoke neck bones tonight


5/19/10-onions, root crops, peas


5/27/10


4/16/10-oregano


5/27/10


Recent pictures

CP, how are you liking your table top? It looks like it has legs and storage underneath. Weren't you going to set it on an old cab?

I love it boff. I plan on making another one once the bottom of my strawberry box dies, and a small one for herbs, maybe one for root veggies. Basically the plants that are the most "tasty" to the surrounding critters.

There were shelving but we removed them (the table was part of an old college bed loft), but i am considering putting them back on

Here are a few updated pictures of my garden at the end of May.

My TT SFG. The bush beans are getting big. The broccoli is coming along but still quite small. The 2 lettuces and spinach are getting to the point where I may start harvesting some baby leaves for sandwiches. My beet seeds have sprouted and are growing a lot quicker than I thought they would. I apologize for not having any close-up shots today.


The tomato plant suddenly had a growth spurt this week. It is growing up and is now in the shape of a U.


I got rid of the yucky brown strawberry plants that came in the little baggies and replaced them with beautiful green plants that are already blooming. Some even have little bitty berries on them.

Mckr3441.....Stalled...or just waiting..hahaha....I felt like this until this week. I was so busy at the first of the year trying to learn all I could, building boxes, filling them, and then planting. The last couple of weeks was like I was on vacation....UNTIL NOW! Now I have to learn all about bugs!

[quote="mckr3441

"]that's ok 'cause I don't even know what arugula is!!!

Hahaha...I didn't know what arugula was either but I bought some seeds of it..My boxes were getting full and I had to deiced which seed pack to sacrifice....so I went to the story and bought some arugula to try. It had a peppery taste...My kids wouldn't eat it in their salad. It was sacrificed!


The radishes were supposed to be ready May 22 but... NOT -- nowhere near.

My radishes are acting the same way?


I'm considering putting blood meal on some of the squares. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I was at the story yesterday looking at plant food to add to my boxes. My broccoli plants bottom leaves keep turning yellow...I was thinking maybe I'm missing something.......I left the story empty handed.


Sorry I not any help

I planted around 12 different varieties of radishes this year and all of them took longer than the package stated especially the earliest ones I planted. Some that I planted in mid march that were suppose to take around 25 days took more like 40-50. Some varieties didn't produce well at all. They had nice tops but really small radishes. From reading this happens when you over fertilize so I don't know if my mix was too strong with compost.

As far as my garden, I've pretty much harvested all my radishes and the ones that produced were great. I'm starting to get peas and my broccoli looks like it might be ready. My arugula is also not doing much but like you I'm not sure I like it either. I've been getting lots of lettuce and I'm going to start picking my spinach tomorrow.

I think I'm going to make another video tomorrow or Monday.

Prior to the big harvest tonight....(see harvest thread)....