Getting there

I got the leeks in yesterday.  I'm not sure it was the best place to put them,  right in front of the potatoes...
in the 18 inches behind the potatoes i planted some striped maize.  Japonica striped maize to be specific.  However i was being watched closely by a perky, gray Catbird and i'm not sure if she's going to undo my work.

Lack of room seems to be this year's gardening theme.

When i run the rows North to South instead of East to West i lose a few feet on each row so i have less room. But i do it to enforce a fairly consistent crop rotation thing.  This year, as usual, i overbooked my space. Turns out that the almost complete failure of the root crop row has freed up some space for some of that overbooking.  I put in a whole row of sunflowers there.  In between the sunflowers,  i tucked in the broccoli.  The sunflowers look good,  but the broccoli are pathetic. Barely 3 inches high and a malnourished color.  Most of my seedlings spent too much time languishing in the seed flats with either too much water or too little and fertilizing attempts were somewhat wasted when the trays overflowed with rainwater and roots suffered further when they didn't properly drain.

I got the rest of the squashes in and most of the herbs.  There's a couple flat-leaved parsley, a few lettuce-leafed basil and some pathetic looking Red Russian kale.

This is what i am doing to try and contain some of the overflow.

SOme herbs, some chinese cabbage, assorted salad greens seedlings, flowers and a few pots of herbs i just seeded. I realized with annoyance yesterday that i have no more cilantro seeds.

The tomatoes are looking great. They need pruning and i have to get them staked and twined.  That is planned for today.

Eggplants and peppers.... The peppers already have blooms and little fruit started.

Freshly planted ornamental sunflowers:

A couple broccoli plants tucked in among them.   I didn't want to put the broccoli on plastic. They are heat stressed enough and i don't think broccoli likes the extra heat from the plastic later in the season.

The beans are looking good.  Wish i had allowed room for another row of them.  I might be able to sneak some in on the other side of the cuke/melon row....  early enough so they won't get shaded out?

I have seeds for Yard Long beans.  I read a lot that vining beans are room savers,  but the trellising and staking seems to be beyond my ability to plan for,  so it never happens.  Instead of bush beans i just might sneak in a few yard-long seeds behind the melons....



a little while later....

Tomatoes,  Pruned, staked and weaved.

Today's seed starting

My parents have our daughters for an overnight stay,  which means i can play with seeds in peace :o)

I planted:

Tea hibiscus
Leonotis
Red Russian kale
Green shiso
Red shiso
General broccoli
Waltham broccoli
Aunt Molly's ground cherries
and
Bubbles Brussels sprouts

My Raveena eggplants are all up.  No word from the sweet peppers and parsley.   The Raveena have almost 100% germination,  making me wish i had only planted one seed per pot.  I hate thinning.  It seems such a waste.  I'll never get over that.  lol

Just...stuff...

We got pouting rain yesterday evening.  Probably about an inch. We didn't get more tthan one rumble of thunder but the rain was coming down like buckets.  I think we also got some sprinkles overnight,  bu the rain did the garden good.
I'm looking to the weeds as some sort of living mulch at this point!

I may take some small bowl and a paint brush with roundup and see if i can paint away the weeds.  I also need to dust the grapes for Japanese beetles.  They are eating my leaves like mad.  Even the prune plum is getting defoliated.  I had planned to spray the apple tree last night but i took the kids on a visit to my parents and we used the pool and stayed until dark, so no spraying got done.  Hopefully tonight...

I'm going to start Kefiring again. I just put in an order of kefir grains to Marilyn Kefirlady. I killed mine last fall through neglect.  They were making more kefir than i could keep up with, i had a backlog and i was reluctant to store more and more only to dump it out.  Also my mom has been buying kefir from the store, so i'm going to get her started on the real stuff.   The store bought kefir only has about half the strains of beneficial bacteria as homemade. Plus you can chose what milk you want to use- whole or skim and there's no sugar or unnecessary flavorings added.

Photo borrowed from: http://joannasteven.blogspot.com/2010/11/fermentation-series-4-milk-kefir.html

UPDATE:  Grapes dusted, apple tree sprayed.

I picked a load of broccoli today and two 49r summer squash.  Broccoli for dinner it is!

Squashes are about 8 inches, not sure why they look so different, they are from the same plant.

Green beans,  second sowing. The first sowing is about to flower

Sweet Chelsea tomatoes

Cucumbers and weedy grass *sigh*

Squashes before picking

Broccoli and cabbages

Japanese beetles are doing in my grape leaves, this is Marechal Foch

Elderberry flower buds.

 This is what the Japanese beetles are doing to my Stanley prune plum.  I have dusted both this tree and all the grapes.

Autumn Olive is doing well.

Petunias doing well- and a small bee in flight.

Purple smoke bush starting to fuzz.

Mostly full garden shot.

Growing things

Marechal Foch a week ago

Marechal Foch today

Frontenac last week (just blooming)

Frontenac just setting frui

York elderberry last week

York elderberry today

Apples. Looking good, a little russetting but better than bugs

The leftmost Edelweiss, putting on some berries.

Morning Glory

Some petunias to match the house

Its growing!  Beans are newly up as well

Weeds!  And a few plants.

I can SEE the corn.....mostly.

I forgot how tall potatoes get. What was i thinking?

I even have some volunteer tomatillos in there

Broccoli, yay!

Cucumber trellis up.

So many weeds, so little time outside.  But so much is growing. I'll have to look back a bit to see how it compares to last year. It will take me a few years to get a feel for the garden events like first ripe tomato, first cucumber, first bloom of squash....

Today i saw Japanese beetles and cabbage butterflies.  I'll have to break out the BT soon.

I think it might be time to pull some new potatoes in about a week.  If i remember what side i put the red ones on!


It hit 90  degrees today, supposed to stay warm tonight.  Great growing weather!

Broccoli

I picked a small head of broccoli today. IT WAS DELICIOUS!    I also planted another round of green beans and weeded. I took pictures but i fell victim to a malicious script which caused me to have to do a full system restore on my computer so i lost the images i had saved to desktop.
Other than that today was simply a day of weeding and peering at how things were going and things are looking good!

Chilly days....

Well, nothing much going on really.  We did catch a woodchuck in the Havahart trap.  It is no longer in our neighborhood.

We plan to keep the trap baited and will continue to remove any other woodchucks that we happen to capture.


Thursday was rather cool outside (this entry was begun Thursday evening and its now Friday am). My oldest daughter remarked that it felt like Fall, and it really did!  It got into the high 60's, but i think that may have been as high as it went, that i noticed at any rate.  Its pretty chilly this morning still.


I went to Home Depot to get chicken wire and the inside of the store was hotter than the outside.

Last night the overnight lows went down to about 48. It seems strange, but weather is like that sometimes, but i do wish it would warm back up within reason. My corn looks like it just might reach the "knee high by the Fourth of July" standard.


I did another order of seeds through Pinetree.  Remember i said i'm considering specializing in Kale?
Yeah, so i got a couple ornamental types and some bred for eating.  The ornamental is said to be fairly good for eating and if i grow it in the flower beds or garden at least it will look pretty.  Not relying on it being tasty, but i think a nice row of edible kale flanked by pretty kale might be a cheerful sight one frosty morning.


I got some Purple Sprouting Broccoli too.
And they had a close-out on their Hopi Blue Dent corn that i have wanted to try for a number of years.  I decided that if this year my sweet corn does not make it through the season i would start growing either ornamental or 'meal' corns.
I also got a packet of Podcorn, which is an ornamental type in a sort of breeding throwback, it has husks on each kernel, more like its earlier ancestry.
They are also having a closeout on their Banana Legs tomato. Its supposed to be a pretty good paste type and we prefer paste tomatoes here.  I keep growing salad tomatoes because i can't resist all the different types, but when it comes down to it, our salads and sandwiches taste best with sliced paste tomatoes. Types like Pear Tomatoes get eaten like grapes.
I found they had seeds for  San Marzano Tomatoes,  they are supposed to be the very best paste tomato- ever.  But not very disease resistant.  But i decided to try them.


I got some red cabbage and some green cabbage and some Saltwort to try and i got seeds for Leeks and Rue.
 I also grabbed some Beit Alpha, Spacemaster and Boston Pickling cukes. I was going to be out of my cucumber seed stash for next year and according to some sources it is not too late to plant cukes up here. I may try it.

I also saw they had a really good price on a book called "The 64 Dollar Tomato"  which sounds amusing and fascinating and maybe a little more familiar than i'd like to admit .....  so, looking forward to reading that!


I got some Kossack Kholrabi.  I wasn't very impressed with the Early Purple Vienna i had.  They need to be harvested small... and the ones i had to rescue from the woodchucks were only a little bit smaller than ideal...  but considering it takes the same effort and spacing to plant Kossack....  why harvest something quarter sized when i can get baseball sized veggies.   The EPV were very pretty and i might plant them just for color, but its like chopping down a redwood for a toothpick.


Oh, i didn't do very well by those cuttings i got a couple weeks ago.  They looked like they were doing fine, nice and green. But literally overnight, some went brown and crisp.  The mulberries look like they might yet hang on and one hardy kiwi cutting is still going. A couple each of the cherries and cranberries look ok-ish still.  But the Raspberries were looking fine and then poof.  But that's the way it can go with cuttings, sometimes they do awesome and sometimes they just sit there and give up.  I once tried rooting some Kaffir Lime cuttings i took in attempt to save the plant i had and they lingered for 6 months and suddenly gave up.  No roots at all.
But i have some berry seeds and i looked up what to do with them, i just need to find the time to do it. :o)


So as far as the actual garden goes, there isn't much going on. Things are simply growing,  and growing well.
I keep pulling out a few weeds here and there, i plan to plant some more beans somewhere in there, maybe try again with some herbs.
Hopefully the woodchucks will go into the Havahart instead of my garden.


Oh, yeah. The chicken wire i bought.
I think i will use the buried fence idea.
I got 2' x 50' fencing.  So i can bury the bottom half in a way that flares it out away from the garden. About 2-3 inches from the top of the fence, i can run one strand of electrified wire to repel climb-overs.
I plan to use the Mantis Tiller to loosen up the soil so i can bury the fence. I should be able to till, then simply scoop the dirt off to the side, set the fence in then cover it.  I bought more PVC to use as non-conductive posts so i don't have to play with insulators.  The PVC will be sturdy enough to stand a number of years.  I will drill small holes into the PVC and use cotter pins to attach the chicken wire and the hot wire.  The height should not be too tall for me to step over comfortably, though it might be pushing it.  I may have to lay the fence out far enough away so i have a whole width of space in the front just for walking to and from each row.  I can't straddle the 4' growing rows.  I'll work out the details as i'm doing the project. I can't add too much space since i only have 150' of chicken wire and my garden is about130' around.  Not a lot of room for error.


I might begin today or next week sometime. I have a lot of house stuff to do.  Laundry sorting.  Whatever no longer fits or no longer gets worn needs to go to GoodWill or Salvation Army.  But it needs to be washed and dried first, ideally it should get folded too.  But its really booooring  to do.

Its been hot, rainy or humid for the last few days. Keeping mostly inside.  Its been in the low 80's, but when the humidity is in the 70% range it just isn't fun to be outside. 

Of course the whole woodchuck fiasco has had me pretty miffed, but it wasn't really enough to keep me out of the garden, but combine it with weather and it will stop my chattering mood in its tracks.

I'm saying it quietly cause you know how it goes when you say something and then the opposite happens.... but it looks like Wednesday is the last day the garden got raided.
I haven't seen a woodchuck since Wednesday.
Granted, there isn't much left for a groundhog to get into as far as my brassicas go... but there is some stuff left and the Swiss chard is regrowing.
They did miss two of my brussels sprouts and the 3 purple cauliflower might make it back if they get left alone.  The groundhogs did not eat the center of the plants so the leaves could still regrow.
I have read in garden books that things like cabbages can regenerate if the original head is harvested right.  If you don't cut too close to the soil when you cut a cabbage head (leave about 2" of stalk), the plant will regrow a few miniature heads in a cluster.I just might try and see if i can use that information and try to apply it to my situation.  If i cut what is left of the heart of my cabbage plants out, it may set up a similar signal to the plant.  Only trouble is that there are few outer leaves left... but it might not matter if the roots are strong enough.
My other option is to leave alone what is left and see what it does.  If  the cabbage do not head, the loose leaves will still be edible, just not as sweet and crisp.
Luckily, there is enough time for me to start new seeds of all my brassicas to get a fall crop.
If i am fortunate, the woodchucks won't be so interested in my garden by that time of year.... but maybe it will be worse?
Winter fattening time vs. baby woodchuck feeding time....

But i  think that last woodchuck may have had an encounter with my fence in a big way.  I went out yesterday to see if there was more stuff ruined (there wasn't ptl!) and i noticed the fence in the back part of the garden (the way they exit when i scare them off) was all twisted up (candy cane twist, not knotted mess). The top two strands were wound together enough that it had stuck like that until i undid it.
Now if the woodchuck had got caught in the two strands enough to tangle them like that, it would have been getting continuous shocks for who knows how long.  And that was a rainy day, so water may have made it worse.  So if the woodchuck that charged me had gotten tangled, it sure would explain its behavior.
But i don't remember if  i did check the fence after that incident.  I wish i was sure, because if the wire got twirled for some other reason i'd like to know.

I do wonder why i haven't seen one of them since then.
There were three, all about the same small size.  Hubby had harassed them a bit with the pellet gun, hoping they'd decide it was too hostile an area to set up house, but it didn't seem to work. Maybe the combo of it all did something.  Or they got that brain roundworm disease...
I won't claim victory over this batch of groundhogs 'till midwinter when i'm sure they are hibernating (or until their skins are tacked to the back wall of my garden shed, Daniel Boone style) because my garden is full of things they will either eat to the nubs or just taste-test enough to ruin.

I did take reconnaissance photos yesterday, but didn't feel like posting them.

*************************   about 3 hours later*********************

I took some more this evening since i did see one of the groundhogs run across the back of the next yard over. If i'm lucky, they have decided to stick to the other side of my neighbors' house. I really wish they'd do something about that woodpile.  If it were stacked properly it wouldn't be so inviting to vermin.

Anyway, here are the pics from 6/23/10

Kohlrabi & Chard

Cabbage

Collards

Broccoli

Kale stands untouched and a small cabbage plant to the bottom right was missed.

Its har4d to see, but there are the small purple cauliflower plants here. They got their big round leaves nipped off, but they have their center leaves still...at least 2 of them seem to.  I need to weed this area.

And these are the Brussels sprouts, some seem to have made it, they might survive to grow if they don't get eaten again.

and Today

Looks pretty much the same to me except the chard seems to be regrowing. Its a cut-and-come-again veggie, so that is encouraging.

Kohlrabi and chard

.I haven't bothered to weed here lately, the weather has been uncomfortable for me and its too depressing to spend much time looking at the ruins.
This is the cabbage, i think it is also the same.

The collards look the same, damage not too bad on them for the most part.

The broccoli, being my favorite and most anticipated crop, of course got the worst of it.  Cabbage is my second favorite by the way, and the damage is approximately proportionate.

 At least the kale looks great.  I have never grown it before, based on the level of enjoyment by the groundhogs of my other favorites i have a strange feeling that kale will not be to my liking either.
Lets hope! It might be the only crop those nasty things leave for me.

 They still haven't noticed my little cabbage in the lower right corner.

I figured while i was out there to take more pics of what is doing well.
Tomatoes and corn....  need weeding, can't tell the corn from the weeds and i do have basil to the left of the tomatoes and i have marigolds to the right.

Carrots, beets, rutabagas, beans and behind them are the brussels and cauliflower

Squash always cheer me up,  they can make anyone feel like a successful gardener.

Topsy-Turvey tomato is doing well.  Its more than doubled in size.

The gift cuttings i got last week are mixed. Some are still putting on a game face and some are obviously not going to root.
There is at least one out of each group that has shriveled or balckened,  i think i only have 2 pieces of the kiwi that are still hanging on. Hardy kiwi are a cantankerous  little creatures anyway. lol
Though many leaves have dropped from the cuttings, there do seem to be tiny green buds remaining in the leaf scar area.  They might develop if roots start to grow.  Its just a matter of time to see how it goes.

I planted the chitted Autumn Olive seed but it hasn't emerged from the soil surface yet.

If i am going to replace the ruined cole crops with new seedlings i'll need to start seed this coming week.  It might be a good opportunity to test the year-end value of the row covers, if the season cuts me short on the brassicas, the row covers may make the difference.

I read in one of my garden books, i think it was Joy of Gardening, that i can grow my own onion sets easily. The time to start that would be about now. Just plant the seeds directly in the garden and they will grow just enough to be set-sized by late fall. They can be lifted from the garden, cured like big onions and stored cool and dark in a fridge or root cellar for the winter and then set out as early as possible in the spring.
Worth a shot.

Oh and lastly...

The Mighty Hunter

That's my Caper...  with his first mouse (that i know of) He's been 100% indoor kitty since we found him when he was about 5 weeks old.  I have no idea how we got a mouse in here, i have never seen evidence of one before, maybe the weather and the pouring rain drove it in. I'm glad the cat found it though!
He left it right at the doorway to the living room just where he knew i'd see it.  He usually leaves his Rosie Rats there for me instead, so i almost didn't notice it at first.

So you know i'm very proud of him cause in order to brag about his catch, i have to admit that i had a mouse in my home and i had to show my hated pink carpet!  The carpet came with the house and we want bamboo floors, but until we can afford wal-to-wall bamboo, i am stuck with the color i dislike the most.
Oh well.
Hubby teases Caper and calls him useless cause he sleeps all day and 'capers' through the house all night...  but i told hubbs that he can't call the cat useless anymore. :o)