Vegetable Gardening

[skhill]

After a dry and extremely hot 2 weeks, the garden was looking a bit crunchy. But thanks to the miracle of a wet weekend, everything's looking up!! Right now, I'm getting lots of green beans-- the bush beans are tapering off, but the pole beans are ramping up. Still have some swiss chard going. Lots of ripe cherry tomatoes, the romas are just starting to ripen, and a couple different varieties of slicing tomatoes are showing signs of pink. And I'm planning on eating my first zucchini tonight (many more to follow), maybe with the first bell pepper.

Herbs: my cats are loving the fresh catnip, and I have basil for me. The cilantro didn't make it, tho...

Yet to come: the sweet corn's looking a lot better after the rain (but I never get much). Pumpkin and butternut squash are looking promising. And I planted some more stuff recently, looking towards the fall (beets, carrots, cabbage).

One of these years the garden will take over the yard!

[smilingcat]

Southern California and you would think we would have perfect weather. Well, we live by the coast, can see the ocean. With it, we get marine layer/fog and the cold.

It's been cloudy, foggy and its very humid in the morning and on some days, sun would come out. It's been like that since April. Three days ago, we were wearing our jackets out at 3:00pm. you would think you were living in pacific northwest.

The marine layer has caused powdery mildew to go crazy and managed to destroy half of my cucumber, more than half of my tomato, and all of my zucchini and squash. The upside for us is that our growing season goes well into November and December. We already have replacement seedlings going so hopefully we can salvage our season.

Even with the poor weather, we managed to pickle full years worth of bread and butter pickle of zucchini. have had home made tomato sauce for our pasta...tomato and cucmber salad... Okra a total loss, bell pepper nada. tomatillo is growing crazy don't know why... Jalepeno, serrano, shishito are fairing okay 2 varieties of eggplants are managed to avoid the mildew... only one mellon plant survived the "June gloom".

no canned tomato yet.

Corn got a late start so they are only waist high.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

My vegetable garden has been hugely successful this year-

Here's a pic from June 1st.

And here is from the end of June:

One view,

and the other side

We have been drowning in lettuces and salad greens of all kinds for the past 6 weeks, with no end in sight. (i am heavy into succession planting)
Lots of baby cukes and string beans, and lots of green tomatoes.
Everything except the tomatoes is direct-seeded right into the garden.

[GLC1968]

Lisa - your garden is beautiful! Is that borage there in the front of one of those photos? Do you eat it or is it just there for insect protection and visual interest?

I have a bunch of photos on my camera, but I'm missing my cable so I can't download them. Our garden is growing like gangbusters. Both the boxes and the row garden area...it's unreal! We are so pleased at the success we've had with things that we failed at last year. I've harvested so much broccoli that I haven't had to buy it in months and I eat a lot of broccoli! The peas and kale are still going nuts and while the first planting of spinach did really well, I need to get more in the ground. We've had a cold wet spring, but it suits my tastes just fine as the spring veggies are my favorites anyway.

We did fail miserably at growing sweet potatoes once again. Maybe I'll just have to accept that three strikes and I'm out? Oy. I think it's too cold here.

[tulip]

Lisa, your garden takes my breath away! How beautiful!

GLC, sweet potatoes like it hot hot hot! I can't imagine they'll do much in the PNW. I did have luck growing them in Maryland a few years ago. Get a new cable already! We want to see pics of your Eden!

I've expanded my garden this year. I'll take some photos and post them.

Oak, from your May question:

I rotate my raised beds just by rotating them. I have 7 beds that are roughly 6'x3', and one long one that is 13'x3'. I just plant different things in each bed. I have two wire bins for potatoes, and those rotate around year-to-year. No corn; not worth it for me when there's a corn field 2 miles away with a farm stand. The only thing that I don't rotate is my herb garden, which is a half-circle. It's new, so it's kindof bare this year, but I'll post a picture soon.

[GLC1968]

GLC, sweet potatoes like it hot hot hot! I can't imagine they'll do much in the PNW.

I know...but I was hopeful. It does get hot here, particularly in the valley I live in, but the nights are ALWAYS cool and our season is very short. I tried a potato variety that supposedly does well in this region this year and got NOTHING. I'm annoyed. I think I might contact the growers where I bought the slips as they are also local and might have some hints for me. I *might* give it one more shot.

I can't wait to see your herb garden! I'm really procrastinating on mine. I've got a few annual herbs in with my regular garden, but I haven't even started my perennial garden yet. I have decided on two locations so all I need to do now is make it happen. You know...in all that free time...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Is that borage there in the front of one of those photos? Do you eat it or is it just there for insect protection and visual interest?

It's for my honeybees (and any other bees who want to share). I have several flowers for bees in the veggie garden.

We need pix of your gardens! Did the rose bushes at ends of beds work well for you? How are your animals doing?

Lisa, your garden takes my breath away! How beautiful!

Thanks! I remember when you gave me that advice about utilizing the space in my old small garden better, and planting closer together. I've been following that advice successfully ever since, and it works well for me.
But my biggest tactic that works is successive planting of just one or two 3' rows with seed frequently, and yanking out the older stuff somewhat ruthlessly and composting it.
Seeds are fairly cheap, and life's to short to eat bitter bolting lettuce!

More kohlrabi!! lol

[spokewench]

Oh, I'm so jealous - I'm lucky if I get that much growth in a season let alone one month!

I spent two days in New Hampshire prior to my niece's wedding doing landscaping in 97 degree 100% humidity. I love the growing back there; but I just don't want to deal with the winters and the inability to get away from them; so I will stay in Flag at 7,000 feet!

But, I really would love the gardening . . .

I was away for a week; so I am behind in my weeding; I will try to get a picture of my little tiny garden this weekend so you can see what is up!

spoke

[GLC1968]

OK, here goes:

This is our row garden taken on July4.


We have a very late summer this year, so a lot of things are just now getting going. Here we have tomatoes, two types of corn, winter squash, summer squash, melons, beans and garlic in the back. Potatoes hadn't yet been planted (they go where the black plastic is and I'll also be doing fall broccoli where the garlic is after we harvest (next week!).

This is our squarefoot gardening section also taken on July4.

Kale, carrots, radishes, parsnips, beets, peppers, tomatoes, cukes, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, lettuce, chard, spinach, potatoes, strawberries, and onions.

This is the section of row garden that was covered with black plastic - it's now our newly planted second potato patch (the first is in the boxes - we are experimenting to see where they do better):


This is our 7 new blueberry bushes and our drip system. Someday we'll get a real harvest from these but not this year...


Red plums - should be ripe in a couple of weeks:



And for good measure - here are a couple of other things that we are 'growing'

The bees 'hanging out on the front porch' on a hot day last week:

The taller hive is just MASSIVE and filling with honey like crazy!

A pregnant Skylark (due end of August):

[Veronica]

Yippee! GLC garden pics!

Almost as good as a blog entry....

Did you know Nov. 17 is Homemade Bread Day? I thought of you as I was prepping my writing prompt for that day.

Veronica

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Great to get these updates from everyone!


GLC- my two hives are doing very well too! But mine are mostly just building up their population their first year now....i doubt there'll be any excess honey for me this year.
My new blueberry bushes are just babies too.