Notes: 2010 veggie garden so far - end of May

[hendi_alex]

Probably the best garden ever, with first ripe tomatoes on May 9th.. Squash and cucumbers beginning 2nd to 3rd week in May. Great harvest of mixed salad greens. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries have been giving a continuous bounty of fruit. Stawberries started in mid April and are now down to a trickle, but blue berries and raspberries are just now ripening in mass, and will likely peak in a week or two.

The early heat caused the garlic to die back prematurely. Still many nice sized bulbs formed and the harvest will more than take care of our needs. Began pulling and drying the plants a couple of days ago.

Three rows of corn is looking great at six to seven feet tall, tassling and silking now. Also have a younger batch of corn at maybe three feet.

Planted three general types of cucumbers this year: Asian, burpless, pickling. All are doing well. Individual varieties were mixed into a single pack, so the exact variety is never known and is always a surprise.

Peppers and egg plant are blooming and fruiting like crazy. Have had a moderate problem with flea beetles on the egg plant. Some of the Asian egg plants seem to be resistant to the flea beetles as the plants have been barely touched.

Am getting mixed results with edamame start. One block just disappeared, a few sprouts, then nothing. Beer friend is doing great as is one other variety. Still have several varieties to plant as the garlic gets harvested.

Picked my first batch of green beans yesterday, mostly Romano II. Will seed some replacement plants this week.

Radishes didn't make this year. Got nice top growth, but little root development. I think that the couple of weeks at 90 and above in both April and May caused the problem. The plants began to flower very quickly.

Carrots did fine, but nothing to write home about. S.C. carrots IMO just can't compete with those sweet California carrots.

Swiss Chard continues to be a favorite, it is growing vigorously and holding up to the heat well. Malabar spinach is growing in pots, looks good so far, havesting a few leaves, but can't decide where to plant the vines, in the ground or confine to pot culture.

We have had at least two weeks now of more cloud cover than sun, and with lots of scattered showers. That is taking its toll on the tomato plants. Disease is now showing and most plants no longer have that thick, lush look to them, and are obviously growing under stress. The celebrity plants for the most part still look very thick and healthy. Though the tomato plants are starting to get disease very early this season, there will still be lots of fruit, even from the sickly plants. I'm combating the problem by starting more seedlings for a succession planting or two. I'll try to keep replacement plants available for when a spot opens up. Will likely put them down in the same hole, hoping that vigorously growing young plants will not necessarily pick up the disease that was in the previous plant. Have used that strategy with success during previous seasons.

Yesterday, started seeds in containers for tomato, cucumbers, and squash. All will be for replacement plants, succession planting. It seems most of my plants get a better start in containers, and don't suffer any significant degree of transplant shock. Am glad that I experimented with transplanting squash and cucumbers.

Still have not been able to make myself use preventive spraying of milk solution and/or hydrogen peroxide solution on the tomatoes. Either this year or next I'll experiment with at least a few plants, to see if weekly spraying helps avoid or decrease disease.

Herbs are mostly doing very well. I was late starting succession of parsley and most is going to seed, will let that reseed much of the yard, wherever the plants will take hold. Another frustrating year with celantro. Vigorous early plants are now flowering. Replacement plants are giving mixed results. Many have died when young and others are growing pretty slowly.

[tomf]

With the warm weather in SC your garden is so far ahead of ours in the cool NW. I am still planting starts from the green house. I did get a few strawberries to eat so far.

[DoubleDogFarm]

hendi_alex,

Everything sould realy good, a few bumps along the way. Like tomf mentioned your about a month ahead of us.

Tomatoes, have you tried some overhead protection to keep the rain off. I believe warm and wet foliage spreads desease more quickly.

[lakngulf]

Sounds great, handi_alex. April tomatoes indoors??

[speedster7926]

quick question about you starting from seeds I have never done that and I want to start my broccoli and other fall crops from seeds when do I need to start my seeds indoors and then when should I plant them in my garden?

[hendi_alex]

May ripe tomatoes were started in the greenhouse in December. They were placed in the ground the around April 10th and gave a few ripe tomatoes on May 9th. Memory was in error on the April date. I'll go back and edit my original post to reflect the change.

Thanks.

[hendi_alex]

Speedster, hopefully someone from Florida will chime in, as your growing conditions are so different from those of us that get freezing temperatures. I start my cool weather crops inside the house in August and after germination, move the plants to a morning sun only location outside. If the temperatures are way too warm, I would likely just move the plants to the sun in early morning, and then back inside the cooler house environment during afternoons. I move them to a full sun garden location in late September or Early October. For me the timing is variable, just waiting on temperatures to moderate. The transplants do o.k. when the night temperatures drop back down into the low 60's and the highs are in the mid 80's and lower. Much hotter than that and for me, the plants seem to suffer and get a bad start.