rainbow's 2016 gardens

[KitchenGardener]

RG: that looks completely and utterly awesome and delicious! And here I've been feeling so smug, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, that I've had my stuff in for months whereas so many of you have had to wait, and I've been enjoying my cool weather crops for months...(you know there is a BUT coming)

BUT!

When your hot weather rolls in, your heat loving crops go hog wild, while mine are still inching along, ha ha! It will be a good month before tomatoes come in, probably two months before I get my peppers (other than Padrons). And heck, can't hardly even think about eggplant seriously until August with first fruit probably in September.

So enjoy your bounty as it looks so lush and green and almost ripe - and I'll just sit here, tapping my fingers.

Signed the formerly smug Californian.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, I can't believe how fast everything grows here (this is my first growing season since moving down here from Cincinnati). I don't know if it is the heat, so much sunshine, or the fact that the bottom half of my garden beds are filled with horse manure from the horse ranch behind me (I've never gardened with manure before), but it feels like I can just watch everything grow...

I turned one of my garden pictures into the wallpaper/background on my desk top. The picture is from 4/24, six weeks ago now, and all the plants are so teeny....

[JohnGCS]

Sorry, didn't see that! I do like your raised beds, we've been toying with some ideas for some new beds recently - very tempted to put something similar together!

[rainbowgardener]

I love it when people borrow my ideas! I've borrowed plenty from others here. Just post pictures to show how they come out.

Here's my story of building them:

viewtopic.php?f=91&t=67784&p=383540&hilit=raised+beds#p383540

[rainbowgardener]

update again

Here's my quarter circle bed with corn, beans, squash, but each separate:

Here's ripe tomatoes and ripe corn. Most of the lettuce that was along side the tomatoes has been pulled. The broccoli that is in the background behind the corn has since been pulled. (as always shows up better if you click on the picture)

All the peas (that were in a bed to the right of this photo) have been pulled.

Today I planted black bush beans, more pole green beans where the peas were. Carrots and onions where the broccoli was.

Just for fun, here's the dog enjoying the garden:

that's the last of the peas in the background of this one, but they have since been pulled and the space replanted.

[applestar]

Fabulous, @Rainbowgardener All your hard work are paying off, and you are getting full production out of your new garden

[rainbowgardener]

Yup, we've been eating well out of it! Potatoes, tomatoes and corn! Life is good.

The edamame beans have pods on them now. And the squashes have some baby squash. It is all winter squash varieties, acorn and butternut. So far so good, they are looking healthy, no sign of attack by borers or squash bugs... But my experience with squash in the past has not been good. They always look big and healthy and tantalizing and then succumb to something, so I'm just keeping fingers crossed.

I have sweet potatoes growing slips to plant when the regular potatoes are pulled.

Tomatoes are starting to struggle with septoria a bit. I removed all the affected leaves and did the baking soda spray, so we shall see. I know, ideally, I should have been spraying BEFORE they started to struggle, but not something I ever seem to get together.

[rainbowgardener]

Four days later, but lots of change:

lettuce is done, but I will leave a little bit to see if it will self seed. The first planting of corn has mostly been eaten (one ear for each plant, but not well filled out at the top).

But look at all the tomatoes!

[applestar]

Looking great! Nice maters. I'm green with envy.

Red stem chard looks like they are doing well, too.

[rainbowgardener]

Just nine days after the last circle quadrant picture, but it is looking amazingly different:

(Click on the picture for a better look at how amazingly healthy that stand of SilverQueen corn is looking!)

It didn't start out to be a three sisters bed (it had corn, beans, and squash all planted at the same time, each in their own section of the bed), but it is turning into that as the squash snakes its way throughout. Squash are coming along:

so are the edamame beans in the same bed:

and the butternut squash in the actual three sisters bed:

[rainbowgardener]

Here's the story of this garden bed . Reading down, the pictures are from the end of April, end of May, end of June (6/23), and beginning of July (7/2)

Love gardening in the South! You can sit and watch your garden grow...


In the north, we used to say corn should be knee high by the fourth of July. Well, it's almost the fourth of July and this is my third planting of corn. First two have been eaten already!

[applestar]

I'm really enjoying your successes in the new garden, Rainbowgardener.

[BU54]

Rainbow I would die for veggies like that so early in the season. I'd till up half the yard to expand and plants 2,3,4+ crops. Get some more tomatoes in the ground before it's too late.
Here in northern Illinois I can only get tomatoes 2 months/year. August and September usually by October the sun angle is too low and the temps too cool hence the tomatoes just don't taste the same as the August and September tomatoes.
Beautiful!!!!!

[rainbowgardener]

So I'm working on replanting some of the areas that have opened up. Planting seed and getting it to sprout in our continued heat and drought is challenging. I have planted various beans and squashes (including to replace the two acorn squash that bit the dust). I also planted some more potatoes, in July! I know that isn't kosher, but I thought I'd try. I planted them two weeks ago and so far four of the five potato chunks I planted have sprouts above ground! (Having survived being dug up by the dog and replanted!). I figure by the time they are getting big enough to be making tubers, the weather should have broken.

Planted some crookneck summer squash along the chain link fence on the off chance that by the time they are up, the SVB's will have moved on....

Working on clearing some more ground, expanding the area that was my little potato patch.

[rainbowgardener]

It's been about a month since did a real update. And the whole month was 90+ degrees and next to zero rain. So everything has been struggling, stressed and then stress making them vulnerable to pests and disease.

Here's my tomato plants with hardly any leaves left after I pulled the septoria spotted ones off:

But healthy new growth at the top:

But the cherry tomato plant is all denuded at the top where that new growth should be. I found a bunch of the barrel shaped frass that is a tell tale of hornworm. But I searched and searched and could NOT find it!

There's no ripe ones, because I keep picking them as soon as they blush, to prevent damage. Production hasn't stopped. But my five regular tomato plants have been giving me about two tomatoes a day total, way less than I would be getting in different weather. The cherry tomato plant keeps chugging along, except for the hornworm.

continued next post

[rainbowgardener]

The kale was totally destroyed:

I pulled it and the cabbages which weren't doing anything and were also in rough shape, so now have this:

never did really figure out what was doing it. I saw ONE slug when I went out with flashlight. At one point when I was watering ONE grasshopper jumped away. And I found a couple harlequin bug nymphs. So maybe there was a lot more that I couldn't find or maybe it was just a combination of everything. I bought Neem oil then never got it together to use it.

Continued next post

[rainbowgardener]

NOTE: This is the third of three posts I made, just dividing it up because it was picture heavy. The first one is on the previous page.

The seminole pumpkins or whatever they are are ripening up:

How do I know when to harvest them??

We ate the first two ears of Silver Queen corn in this third planting. They were wonderful and the ears were completely filled out! You can see the squash showing some wilting even though it had been watered just a few hours earlier. Without that it would have been more severely wilted. Those vines are huge and wandering all over.

Some things I have planted now are sprouting, mainly more squash and some potatoes:


You can see some squash and potatoes sprouted. Peppers and purple basil hanging in there. The sticks are to keep the dog from digging them up. Works pretty well.

Some yellow crookneck squash planted along the chain link fence. The weeds are mostly the neighbor's:

Just for fun, one of the fence line flower plantings, color kind of washed out by the bright sun:

So where I am now is still planting to fill in where things have been pulled. I still want to plant some more potatoes and to try a fourth (!) planting of corn. We still have three months until first frost! (Love gardening in the south!) so I think I can do it, though days are already getting shorter. Everything is an experiment since this is my first year here. But I think it is almost time I could start re-planting cool weather stuff, spinach and broccoli, etc.

In the past few days our weather pattern has finally broken; switched from mid to high 90's to low 90's and even some days in the high 80's! The garden started perking up immediately. Things looking better. I gave everything a top dressing of compost to help it recover. Butternut squash that had been sitting there with one squash on it, doing nothing for ages, suddenly put out another one. So I think I have made it through the worst that the summer here can offer and in an extreme heat and drought year.