Gardeners: how's it looking?

[Parasaurolophus]

Got more pawlonia seeds in the mail, gonna try again!

[Parasaurolophus]

Dug up my potatoes (too early?), cut swathes of kale and made no dent, and gathered two large containers of raspberries.

The corn keeps growing, and the zucchini is wild.

[AmLitHist]

I spent 3+ hours this morning pruning the zucchini and yellow squash, and pruning and tying up the tomato plants.  (All had been done earlier, but last week's off-and-on monsoon rains, with temps in the upper 90s in between, kept me in the house in the AC, and things grew like Topsy!)  I found 3 zucchini!  Two are nice sized; one is overgrown, so I see muffins/bread in the future this week.

I need to trim up and probably stake my 3 bell pepper plants; each has a nice pepper on it.  I do need to water this evening towards dark, after a good dose of bat guano and epsom salts on the tomatoes and peppers. 

I pulled the peas yesterday; they got started too late after the wet and cold spring, and then the heat got them

I also cut down the white hollyhock, after the Japanese beetles did in the remaining buds left after most had bloomed and the rust had its way.  I trimmed up some yellowed leaves from the sunflowers; they need to be staked.  I need to deadhead some flowers, pull some weeds, and generally neaten up the back yard flower beds.  All of that will have to wait until tomorrow morning when it's cool.  I'm toast for today (after all the garden work this morning, then spending this afternoon grading).

Still to do this week:  trim the blooms off the catnip, maybe pull a couple of nice-sized onions, and thin out the carrots. 

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I spent 3+ hours this morning pruning the zucchini and yellow squash, and pruning and tying up the tomato plants.  (All had been done earlier, but last week's off-and-on monsoon rains, with temps in the upper 90s in between, kept me in the house in the AC, and things grew like Topsy!)  I found 3 zucchini!  Two are nice sized; one is overgrown, so I see muffins/bread in the future this week.

I need to trim up and probably stake my 3 bell pepper plants; each has a nice pepper on it.  I do need to water this evening towards dark, after a good dose of bat guano and epsom salts on the tomatoes and peppers. 

I pulled the peas yesterday; they got started too late after the wet and cold spring, and then the heat got them

I also cut down the white hollyhock, after the Japanese beetles did in the remaining buds left after most had bloomed and the rust had its way.  I trimmed up some yellowed leaves from the sunflowers; they need to be staked.  I need to deadhead some flowers, pull some weeds, and generally neaten up the back yard flower beds.  All of that will have to wait until tomorrow morning when it's cool.  I'm toast for today (after all the garden work this morning, then spending this afternoon grading).

Still to do this week:  trim the blooms off the catnip, maybe pull a couple of nice-sized onions, and thin out the carrots.

Sounds like you've been a busy bee. What's your hourly rate? :) We need help over in our campus garden.

[AmLitHist]

Ha!  I have to tell you, there have many, many days when I think I'd have been better off doing this kind of work instead of going into teaching!  Of course, my SIJD problems make that impossible, but I do like the immediacy of being able to see the results of my work, which isn't often the case with my teaching.

I'm still toying with the idea of starting up a very small greenhouse/truck garden when I retire, if I can swing the funds to do it in cash.  It would be a lot of fun, and selling some plants and produce could generate some nice "pin money" income, too.

As to the garden:  I fed everything toward dark yesterday, and it all looks great this morning.  It's cool enough that fungus shouldn't be an issue. 

Anybody got ripe tomatoes yet?  None here, but it's been a weird, up-and-down spring and early summer.   I have a lot of green ones on, though.

[Puget]

Anybody got ripe tomatoes yet?  None here, but it's been a weird, up-and-down spring and early summer.   I have a lot of green ones on, though.

Yep, harvested a hand full  of sungolds so far. There would have been more by now but we had a weird three day cold and wet period (after a record heat period). Warming up again now so I expect more shortly. The sungolds are by far the earliest variety and last year were great producers all the way until first frost in October, so I'm hoping for a repeat. The other varieties also have lots of green ones but no sign of ripening for them yet.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I picked several red tomatoes (not sure of the type- some kind of hybrid) and lots and lots of cucumbers! We planted Straight 8 and Lemon, but I haven't seen any of the lemon cukes.

[Harlow2]

We alternate cool and rainy with blistering hot and sunny. Tomatoes aren't ripening as fast as usual and I'm expecting fewer since pollination is difficult in very hot weather.  Beans seem confused. Kale is fine.

[AmLitHist]

No ripe tomatoes yet here, either (thanks, wonky weather all spring/so far this summer).  Two more nice zucchini, though!

[mamselle]

We alternate cool and rainy with blistering hot and sunny. Tomatoes aren't ripening as fast as usual and I'm expecting fewer since pollination is difficult in very hot weather.  Beans seem confused. Kale is fine.

What do confused beans do?

Grow upside down, or tangle around the car?

Inquiring minds want to know...

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Discovered a lot of ants hanging out on one of my indoor fig trees (mini). Turns out it had scale, so I busted out the alcohol and q-tip and went to town.

[Harlow2]

We alternate cool and rainy with blistering hot and sunny. Tomatoes aren't ripening as fast as usual and I'm expecting fewer since pollination is difficult in very hot weather.  Beans seem confused. Kale is fine.

What do confused beans do?

Grow upside down, or tangle around the car?

Inquiring minds want to know...
M.

Haha!  Some produce a couple of beans and then stop, refusing to even continue blooming.  Some bloom prolifically but produce little. I did find a few beans this morning though, and ate them raw. Very tasty.

[apl68]

Yesterday at church I overheard one of the pastor's grandchildren tell him that "Daddy got a rain today!"  Her father is a farmer, and it had been starting to get dry lately.  The rain came at an opportune time for area farmers.  We didn't get much of it here in town.

[AmLitHist]

We alternate cool and rainy with blistering hot and sunny. Tomatoes aren't ripening as fast as usual and I'm expecting fewer since pollination is difficult in very hot weather.  Beans seem confused. Kale is fine.

What do confused beans do?

Grow upside down, or tangle around the car?

Inquiring minds want to know...
M.

This sounds like my beans, too, Harlow, except I haven't found even a few to pick yet.  The plants make nice foliage, though.

Everything here is confused:  my watermelons and okra and cantaloupes from seed are just starting to grow, with the latter blooming.  At this rate, it'll frost before they even think about producing fruit. After late frosts and a late snow, then weeks of cool rainy weather, then heat near 100 degrees, and last week's clouds/heat/humidity/heavy rain--not to mention that the vegetable and herb gardens are in beds we installed and filled only in April--I should be glad for anything at all that I harvest this crazy first year.

Still, the flowers from seed are all growing and blooming after late planting, so there's that. I'll take it!


Haha!  Some produce a couple of beans and then stop, refusing to even continue blooming.  Some bloom prolifically but produce little. I did find a few beans this morning though, and ate them raw. Very tasty.

[AmLitHist]

I just picked and ate my first ripe tomato of the year!  It wasn't ready for the 4th of July, but considering these plants spent time under boxes twice this spring (once for temperatures in the 20s, and again when it snowed 3"), I'm happy to even have this one.  There are a lot of nice fruits on the plants, so more will be coming soon. 

So far I've also had yellow squash and zucchini, baby carrots (thinning out the row so the rest can grow bigger!), and lots of nice herbs and catnip.

The green beans are finally making beans out of all those blossoms; some of the onions are getting big enough to pull; and the watermelon and cantaloupe are late, but blooming like mad, so I'm hopeful to get ripe ones before frost.