PNW: MAY 2015

FamilyGardening wrote:...snip....I bet you will see your green beans this week!  

hugs
rose.....

Grin... Yep


On a less whinny note... picked my 2nd strawberry this morning (May 18) and put it into my bento. YUM

Debs....so happy that cyber hugs are not a pain in the neck.

corn is up corn is up

Happy for you!

Thanks sanderson!....now lets hope we get great germination....we planted 4 corn seeds per hole per SQ foot..... .....a 6x8 bed of an early corn called *Quickie* 64 days....and my hubbys favorite *Kandy* 90 days...both from Territorial seed company

its been lovely this week!....here is a few pictures of whats growing on

BTE SQ foot (back yard garden)

cole crop bed....a 4x8 bed & 4x10 that has 8 SQ's at the end of carrots, a couple SQ's of celery, and a few onions growing here and there as well.....going to harvest a small broccoli head tonight....its looking like it may flower as some of our bok choi has already due to the days being warmer this week....



Cabbages.....we have 6 of them growing along the fence in top hats....onions growing in between those top hats, and then one brossel sprout that made it, and one collard green that is hanging in there along this fence line....we still also have 4 top hats that need something replanted as those cole crops were eaten by something.....



2-6x8 corn beds covered in garden cloth to keep the rats out as the corn germinates....as soon as the corn reaches the top of the hoops we will uncover and let grow until ears form....then we will wrap the beds once again just around the bottom 4 feet or so leaving the tops open...this so far has kept any rats or other critters out of our corn ....the corn has just started to germinate and it seems to love the extra bit of cover for more warmth....



one of our three 3x5 potato beds



SFG area



Bed #1 been harvesting lots of salad fixings this bed has lettuce, spinach, Orach, Onions, celery, carrots, beets, scarlet runner beans....we harvested the 2 SQ's of radishes and replanted some more carrots in those SQ's



Bed #2....blanching 2 SQ's of celery, we have sugar snap peas, bok choi, purple cauliflower, Walla walla onions, green onions, purple cabbage,  



Herb & garlic beds



our children's SFG containers....they have sugar snap peas, sorrel, a volunteer tomato, carrots, onions, leeks, lettuce, spinach, orach, strawberries, herbs flowers, cauliflower & broccoli.....the strawberries are also growing in the red rocks....eek they are taking over



Green house......Pepper plants.......we also have some sunflower, watermelon and cantaloupe starts and 2 different cucumbers in containers that are just coming up



happy gardening
rose

So pretty, Rose...and so far along! What do you think is eating the cole crops?

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:So pretty, Rose...and so far along!  What do you think is eating the cole crops?

CC

Thanks CC

Rats! eat the very tiny heads that just get started on the broccoli & cauliflower plants they are not smart enough to wait to let the heads get bigger before dinning

happy gardening
rose

How ya do'en Rose?
Actually, how are all'ya all doing? I'm jus' thinking (and when I say thinking I should just come out and say prayen) for momma Rose.

Trying something different this year. In my Everett garden I get fantastic spring and fall salad greens. Early summer is also good. If I get tomatoes they start in late July and go through the heat of August and September. Seems as if the two never meet.

About a month before Mother's Day (my target for tomato plants in the ground) I laid out grids in the Tomato Box and sowed them with radishes and early summer lettuce. I am hoping that the lettuce will grow in the shade of the tomato vines and we can have a classic tomato salad. That is the plan at least.

Humm, didn't really think about the timing of radishes.

Debs... who feels crazy-happy about no school tomorrow!! Whoo-hoo!

Deb's you are such a sweetie!! Thank you for thinking of me!.....IM hanging in there....we are working on the middle of June for surgery.....It was going to be this coming Tuesday, but I need a few work up's first.....the June date maybe pushed more too depending on when I can get all the work ups done...blah!

the gardens have been giving us lots of salads, and we are able to share some of the goodies with friends as well we were afraid they may bolt due to warm weather last week....but it cooled off over the weekend a bit giving us more time!

the broccoli heads are getting bigger picked one small one to avoid it going to flower....the rest seem to be doing just fine......

been eating a few ripe strawberries.....I say a few because the slugs are also enjoying them but all is good....those half eaten slug ridden berries go straight to the hens for a wonderful treat!

speaking of the girls.....one of them *PENNY* has a long enough neck she was able to eat the back row of the green beans....(French Gold)....that grow along the chicken & Dog fence...I think she must be doing some neck stretching exercises because last year I Don't remember her being able to reach the beans so we replanted them today.....its always something.....hubby thought it was funny!!!

Deb's......let us know how the salad fixings and tomato plants work out we too want to harvest lettuce at the same time as the summer salad fixings.....good thing the radishes only take about 30 days or less to grow.....enjoy those ones poking up and replant your garden looks awesome!....your Tomatoes seem to be doing really good!......I Really enjoy your updates!

happy gardening
rose....who has a Broody hen.....eek!!

Hiya everyone.

Nice to see a lot of you are doing so well in the garden. And Lavender Debs, what a fantastic looking lunch!

I've planted some tomatoes in buckets and a couple in the big bed my neighbor says I can use. That's the neighbor who replenishes his high-quality pure-compost soil every year with another big load of it. His soil is incredible and produces bumper crops. This year we both decided to rotate tomatoes out of the beds we used last year, but he succumbed and filled his with tomatoes anyway. Who can blame him? It's near impossible to equal a home-grown tomato. I've planted only one in last year's bed and am filling the rest with beans.

Good news -- he doesn't want to use another of his beds, so let me use that one too! Now I will have two outstanding beds with good deep soil. I think I will plant the other one with some kale, another tomato, and some more beans.

I even got a raspberry on impulse and put it in a five-gallon bucket. I have no idea how to care for berry bushes, but our master gardening course had some good material on it. When the time comes,I will refresh myself about which canes to cut and etc. Right now it's just four inches tall.

The rest of my five-gallon buckets are planted with tomatoes for the most part. I do have some kale in there from last year which are throwing out pods. I'll save some pods for replanting. They're quite tasty!

Out back on the wild hillside I've strewn a few packets of wildflowers, but haven't seen anything pop up yet. Lots of critters around to eat them, so a lot of luck will be involved.

All the area around my own place is yet to be planted. I skipped spring crops this year.

Marc I kept 3 raspberry plants in a huge bucket for about 4 years. The first year was the best, I got a nice harvest most years but the 4th year the plants produced three-bubble raspberries. They tasted fine but they were too small. We finally transferred them to our Back to Eden garden where they are making up for lost time, growing strong and putting out new canes for next year. As ever, the bigger the bucket, the happier the plant. I do not think you will be unhappy with your sample plant. Worst case, it will let you know when it isn't happy and needs more space. Best case, shortcake.

Debs.... hoping everyone got to eat something from their labor this weekend!

Well I hope mine work out like yours did. I think I'm in trouble though -- the day after I transplanted the raspberries into a 5-gallon bucket, we had a jolt of unseasonable heat, and a hot day after a transplant sometimes kills my stuff off. I think the little guy is still alive, but he looks much worse than when I bought him.

Watered the garden today. Beans are coming up fine, banana peppers are looking fine, and all my tomatoes look okay so far. I just transplanted the first of them last week, so would be too early for them to look fantastic yet, but I'm hoping. Big temperature fluctuations this week -- from the 50's to almost 90 -- makes everything struggle a bit.

So far I've got a brandywine in a great bed, three more in 5-gallon buckets, a chocolate cherry in a bucket, and a hillbilly tomato in a different bed. Couldn't resist getting the hillbilly ... those are so beautiful when cut open! But I don't think I've ever tasted one in real life. Really looking forward to it!

Time to plant some basil, too.

Got another veronica(speedwell, some call it) to plant, and some marigolds and violas and some coreopsis for indoors. I really like those. Never did when I was growing up, for whatever reason. Maybe because most of them I saw were made out of plastic!

Bad news today in the green house....a rat has stripped off most of the leaves on our 4 pepper plants

Good new's...... our dog woke me up at 4am barking away....Im thinking we may have caught that bad rat in one of our many rat traps!  

Bad news....we had to harvest some small heads of broccoli ....as they were looking like they wanted to bolt......

Good news.....at least we get to eat the broccoli instead of the rats!

Bad news.....I think we may have picked the last of our SFG lettuce & spinach as it looks like it may bolt......

Ending with a positive note....good news.... our 4th of July tomato plants have fruit!....now lets see if it turns ripe by the 4th of July....as the packet of seeds did not specify if the tomato by the 4th of July was going to actually be a ripe tomato

happy gardening
rose....who is still amazed at 5am that her garden has tomato fruit at the end of May.....May people May!

A Rat in the Greenhouse?
May 30: Yeish, I thought slugs in the greenhouse were problems. At least the deer who comes through and eats.... whatever (she favors tender young pear leaves, last time she ate peas and roses) anyway, we can at least say to ourselves, ....gurrrr, someday, I'm gonna put you in my freezer! And the OPC who dig up what I put into the garden just to replace it with their own plantings, they make me so mad. BUT maybe OPC keep some of the rats away?

Our early spring asian salad is about done too. Same with spinach. Good-by until the fall. It was amazing while it lasted AND made my fellow teachers think they were getting something WAY better then an old apple when I brought them bags of spring salad. The early summer lettuce is coming on. It is good but not as fantastic as the early spring greens and spinach. I was impressed with May Tomato blossoms... not so much now.

The dogs have damaged most of the Fava Beans (saving us from sudden licking death by the neighbors big sweet lab) that were planted by the fence, they trampled the cabbages that were planted near the Favas.

Our good news? Strawberrys on our ice-cream. They are just Red Robin's so there is more pucker then sweet, but hey, I picked them just before dessert.

Debs... who REALLY likes deer.... on the grill. 
Note: OPC means "other people's cats" just in case you don't read my FB page

FamilyGardening wrote:
 

- - - -

Good news.....at least we get to eat the broccoli instead of the rats!

Yeah! I prefer eating broccoli instead of rats.

Lavender Debs wrote:I was impressed with May Tomato blossoms... not so much now.

Why not?

Kelejan wrote:

FamilyGardening wrote:
 

- - - -

Good news.....at least we get to eat the broccoli instead of the rats!

Yeah! I prefer eating broccoli instead of rats.

CapeCoddess wrote:

Lavender Debs wrote:I was impressed with May Tomato blossoms... not so much now.

Why not?

GRIN.... BECAUSE Rose posted....
...snip..... good news.... our 4th of July tomato plants have fruit!....now lets see if it turns ripe by the 4th of July....as the packet of seeds did not specify if the tomato by the 4th of July was going to actually be a ripe tomato 

That's Why

Glad it was only due to friendly competition. I was getting ready to rip off my May blossoms thinking maybe it was better to not have them for some reason.

CC

I didn't understand Deb's statement either. I googled to see if there was a tomato variety called 'May'!

Hey, I'm just glad to have 5" tall Tow Maters planted in the garden by the end of May!  Because of my lack of larger pots, I was never able to pot up my seedlings the second time, so the floppy, leggy 8-10" of stem is now coiled and buried with only the top 4-5" tree tops sticking out of the ground.  Those are MY May Tow Maters!