Applestar's 2016 Garden

[applestar]

I'm also starting to harvest nice little carrots for the DDs to snack on


Kaleidoscope Mix (Atomic Red, Bambino, Cosmic Purple, Lunar White and Solar Yellow), Danvers, Scarlet Nantes

I sowed some Yellowstone recently, too.

[applestar]

The tiny VGB Korn Patch (Kandy Korn x Glass Gem F1) was starting show signs of stress a few days ago, and Innoticed it had begun to yellow yesterday. But I'm out of Chickety Doo Doo I used for the SFH corn, so I decided to try laying a thick layer of 1/2 finished compost -- about 3 inches worth -- in the swale•path between the corn and the pallet-sided high raised bed. I'm going to continue to pile greens (pulled weeds) on top and cover with cardboard.



If the local earthworms and night crawlers don't gather on their own, I might get some of the red wigglers from the vermicomposter working in here.

[applestar]

Subject: Sweet Potato Questions

Well you could have put it back. Sweet potato is pretty sturdy. ABSOLUTE KEY to growing is heat, Heat, HEAT. 85°F or above. 90°F would be better. Once it gets hot enough during the day, direct sun will provide the kind of heat you need. No A/C -- set up outside or garage or attic... Maybe your car parked in the blazing sun.

For me growing the slips is not the problem, it's the typical lovely cool night air in the 60's and threats of early killing frost and accompanying drops in temp starting around late September -- I can't count on heat-loving crops beyond then even if the subsequent days are frost-free until late October or November.

This year, late lingering cold spring delayed everything so I'm not very optimistic about sweet potatoes, but I put this extra late Hawaiian sweet potato in last year's eggplant SIP after the big broccoli were done.



...if this works, I might have to concede that I have to grow sweet potato under black plastic mulch when planted in the ground, and plant the slips earlier by setting up a low poly tunnel over the black-plastic mulched raised mound.

[applestar]

NOT-Kakai -- since the first blossom didn't set, I made sure to pollinate with males from same vine.

Bottom two are yellow zukes 'Butta' -- first female blossoms may open day after tomorrow?

SFH corn -- a couple of Mirai359bc have started to shed pollen but no silks yet

_- I think they are looking good

Today's garlic harvest -- they were drying in the shade on patio table and were brought inside just in the nick of time before severe thunderstorm swept through

That one in the bottom left close up is supposed to be Russian Giant Marble Purple Striped, I think. The cloves are starting to separate, right?

[applestar]

Espalier Fence Row is looking good -- Prok persimmons, Arkansas Black apples, Magness pears, Seckel pears.... Now to protect them all summer until they are ready to harvest in the fall

[applestar]

This morning, I was childishly excited to notice that the satellite map of my area has been updated on the iPad native Maps app and I could see my Spiral Garden!

… yep, that's all I could see, but hey, it's there Only trouble is that the mask for the current location blurs the image a bit. I'll have to take another screenshot when I'm out and away from the house

Google updated only a few years ago, so I suppose it will be a while before they update again....m

[applestar]

[Lindsaylew82]

Ah it's so pretty!

What's the frosty white thing near the center of the spiral?

[applestar]

That's a cabbage

[Lindsaylew82]

Wow! It's so bright!

[applestar]

Practically all of blueberries and grapes are bagged:

...I ran out of organza bags... I have to get more or put up a netting for the blackberries.


First blackberry -- almost ripe, not quite. Maybe tomorrow.

...something chewed through one of the yellow raspberry bags and ate one Berry. 2nd unripe was chewed off but still inside.

---

I don't think I've shown a photo of my tiny rice paddy yet this year. I'm growing sweet glutinous rice this year sprouted from a package of Korean organic sweet brown rice

[applestar]

I didn't get the chance to take pics, but some of the Mirai350bc corn in the SFH are starting to shed pollen, and there were at least 4 stalks that had the tiniest tufts of silk emerging. ...I collected pollen in a deli soup container I had handy and sprinkled them on the tiny silks.

[applestar]

Wow! It's so bright!

I like to mark the center of the spiral in some way. Last year, I planted my big banana plant there. This year, I'm in love with the color contrast of the cabbage as well as broccoli and cauliflower to the rest of the green growing things. In this photo, I think morning dew was on the already frosty colored foliage, with rising sun reflecting off the sky/clouds to create that effect.

[applestar]

Somehow, I didn't take pic again, but the silks have emerged some more and also on more stalks, so I hand pollinated again. I can't easily get into the middle of the patch, but hopefully, the middle ones are sufficiently covered. One problem I noticed with the densely planted corn is that the leaves of different stalks overlap and sometimes block the silks, directing the pollen away. Ideally, I think individually standing corn with plenty of room stretches their leaves wide without interference from neighbors -- corn seems to be designed to form upward cups with their leaves so the pollen grains slide down and collects, bathing the emerging silks in pollen.

Squash are Starting to bloom. I hand pollinated the Not Kakai and it has set (actually pale yellow color but the leaves cast a green shadow) Long Pie is not blooming yet, but soon, and has a female almost ready to bloom (long thin calyces and velvety fuzz not spines marks this as a C.moschata). This last one -- I can't remember which one it is because I forgot to label it, but since the male has opened, I can tell it's a C.maxima, and it's NOT Uncle David.





A lonely female Butta summer squash on one plant. A solitary male -- though females are on their way -- on another one 6 feet away.... The male blossom was occupied, but the bees climbed out and flew off as I walked with the cut off blossom, then I married them.

One of Kikuza x Tromboncino F1 has male blossom and at least two female buds. This one is a C.moschata.

[applestar]

...a fly-by post of the silking corn (5.13 Mirai350bc)


But the one on the right is something different (from the 5.24 ASH WORTH • DBL RED • AZTEC BLACK group)

[applestar]

Harvested more garlic. (Elephant and Giant Russian Marble Purple Striped)



The SFHX garlic•onion•shallot bed is almost empty now and Butta squash is starting to fruit -- hand pollinated a 2nd female blossom today -- so it can take over the middle of the bed as intended. Timing is working out well. There are a couple of what I'm thinking are rutabagas growing here as well as a few of the old dill seeds I scattered.

And there are at least four very nicely bulking onions here -- you can see a couple of them to the right... The others are on the other side of the squash. I finally consulted my notes from spring planting, and those are "Onion last year's runts•sets" I didn't ID the variety but I think these are Walla Walla.

The onions along the left edge of the bed are from seeds I started in late winter.

[applestar]

Butta F1 Yellow Zucchini Summer Squash Seeds | DP Seeds Commercial Hybrid Vegetable Seed Company
https://www.dpseeds.com/node/109

Color/Shape:
Light lemon yellow with slight stem ridges.
Maturity:
45 days.
Tolerances:
Has shown tolerance to several podi viruses.
Features:
Butta F1 is a hybrid, yellow zucchini squash. Unbelievably uniform, this cream colored zucchini does not show the scaring that darker varieties exhibit. Blocky, long fruit cut to a nice ivory-white flesh—a striking package when boxed. This will be an excellent addition to any squash growers program.

-- I picked up the seeds repackaged under Agway brand on a whim without knowing anything about it. Looking at the official description, it's a bit worrisome that they make NO mention of flavor at all....

[applestar]

SPIRAL GARDEN UPDATE --

I know -- I just posted a picture of my Spiral Garden a few days ago, right? Well, you gotta keep up! Most of my garden beds are intensively grown with continuous and generally overlapping succession of plants throughout the season. I spend my winter and early spring months couch-potato gardening and planning the logistics and crop rotations for all this.



I trimmed off all the older leaves from the June bearing and even most of the day neutral Seascape strawberries in the Inner Spiral. They were starting to show some signs of fungal spots, but I matted them in the swale/path as mulch anyway

When I was able to see the mulched ground of the mounded spiral bed, I spread some organic fertilizer, lightly worked that in so as not to disturb the strawberry crowns, and sowed pre-soaked/germinated melon seeds in the widest available spots.

I soaked those melon seeds overnight two days ago. By yesterday afternoon, Apple Melon was already germinating, and White Honewydew wasn't far behind. Today, one of the Sugar Baby seeds had germinated. I'm late planting melons because --- to be honest -- I TOTALLY forgot! So I don't know if they will have enough time to grow and mature, but at least they will have a couple of days of heat wave in the 90's with heat index in the 100+ to hurry them up and out of their seeds and sprouting out of the ground.

[applestar]

I weeded and fertilized the SFHX and planted all the remaining rooted slips of Korean and Japanese sweet potatoes. One deep 4x4 container had overwintered Japanese sweet potato vine in it, and there were tiny peanut-sized sweet potatoes crowded in the bottom of the container.... I hope they will grow some more.



The flattened plastic mulch and potting mix bags are going to cover at least the perimeter of the bed once the onions and shallots and the last two garlic come out. I guess you are supposed to use black ones, but these are what I had handy. My plan is to layer white/opaque one on the soil and then top with transparent layer to trap heat. (Do you think that would be too much?)

I'm also hoping the white under the Butta yellow zuke will help confuse the pests.


...after all that work, these berries were wonderful to snack on ...

[applestar]

Here's a mystery cross -- out of Kakai hulless squash seed. Kakai seeds are GREEN with no seed shell/hull so there's not much chance that I confused it with another seed when I seedzipped the pre-germinated seed. But it's growing a pale yellow elongated fruit, faintly striped instead of the typical dark green immature fruit.



Kakai is a C.pepo so it could have crossed with Yellow crookneck. I'm half tempted to pick it immature and try tasting it, and I think I would if I didn't have FOUR plants of Butta yellow zucchini plants poised to pump out fruits.

As it is, C.pepo is bounds to be taken down by SVB's early so I'd rather gamble on letting this first fruit mature so I can see if the seeds have hulls or not. I wonder if hulless trait is dominant or recessive?

[applestar]

Yay! First female cucumber flower buds -- these are on H-19 Littleleaf

[Lindsaylew82]

WOOHOO! You planted the apple melon! I think you should have enough time.

We have late plantings of Petit Gris de Renne melons! I'm hoping to get a few! They are just starting to get really vine-y. Male flowers just today, but they're only about a foot in length.

The apple melons have been slow to fruit, but now that they're fruiting, they're putting in heavy, sort of like Cukes. I'm very eager to see what they are. They look like smooth little footballs right now. I hope they at least stay small, they're climbing vigorously!

[applestar]

Subject: chick peas/garbanzo beans

I started harvesting some of the chickpeas. A tiny baby bunny has found a vulnerability in the garden fencing -- adults are excluded -- and has been making its way around here and there. Some of the chickpeas closest to where the bunny is getting in has been munched. Found that dried stalk on the ground for example and a few others in tiny bits including empty pods.

It's been dry, and getting hot, but we have had some rain and I have accidentally flooded the beds once or twice. The pods are filling out but 1 in every 10 plants have yellowed and wilted -- and looking back to Jai_ganesha's tips, it's probably too much water.

Pods are like air bladders, and the wilted ones are empty, immature ones are full of air but soft. I picked ones that felt firm shelled, and in most cases hard with the pea I could feel inside. Most of these had one pea each, though s few contained a 2nd less mature pea also.



I squeezed and popped the pods open without extracting the peas, then put them (along with some broccoli side shoots and leaves) in the hot water after cooking and scooping out farfalle pasta. After they had turned bright dark green, I cooled and extracted the chickpeas from their pods, and added with the broccoli florets, peeled stalks and side leaves to a tuna-pasta salad. They were yummy

[applestar]

Female cucumber flowers are starting to show up! I missed the one of the right yesterday. Hopefully, the pollinators did not.



...and these two Apple Melons were first up! Really good seeds @lindsay!

[Lindsaylew82]

Ours are showing signs of powdery mildew after last nights monsoon...I will have to be vigilant about keeping it managed if I want any melons and I SO badly want these to fruit!

[applestar]

I left you a comment about spraying them in your garden thread Lindsay

*My* baby bunny has somehow made his way all the way to the other side of the house -- or else it's a littermate maybe -- and got inside the rabbit fence enclosure of the Family Room•Rice Paddy beds. A bunch of Adzuki bean plants that were just starting to flower have been sampled. It keeps hiding under the strawberry leaves -- I'm tempted to scalp those as well.

I lectured him/her about eating dandelions and chick weeds and NOT eating my beans -- I have edamame starting to poke up above the strawberries -- and later on, I saw from the FR window that it was eating red clover along the edge of the enclosure from the TOP OF A HILLED MINI-POTATO PATCH MOUND, then hopped right out from this handy accessible height through an UPPER, WIDER OPENING between the wires of the rabbit wire fence.

I will need to keep the rice paddy filled because gardener's who grow rice in upland/dry beds have said that rabbits LOVE rice foliage. There are also overwintered carrots that I'm letting go to flower to attract a certain type of Garden Patrol for Japanese beetle control, as well as some broccoli that are still looking amazingly nice (this is messing up my succession plans for those areas, but I might let them grow on and make seeds and stop harvesting the side shoots... These are most likely diCicco.)

[applestar]

There are TWO of them. One in the SFH eating carrot and beet greens, sweet potato vines, and venturing out to the spiral garden to eat adzuki beans and chickpeas. I found a dill chomped and on the ground -- maybe it didn't like the flavor. Basils are still standing but I'm remembering a friend with a pampered pet rabbit said her bunny loves basil so she grows a whole bunch of them....

The other one is back in the FR•Rice Paddy garden as described above.

[applestar]

Back in Sun Jun 16, 2013 4:18 am

I need a 2nd plant for my hazelnut which blooms every year but doesn't produce nuts.

I did get a 2nd plant from a different source (well my SIL got it for me) in spring of 2014. It didn't bloom the first year, but did start to bloom last year a little bit, and fast forward to this year.... TA DAH!!!!




...I SO LOVE mornings when there is a brand new surprise discovery in the garden, and this one was one of them

At first I only saw one and was super excited. But I also discovered that the Japanese beetles are already here -- they are attracted to the American Hazel more than anything else except the sweet Cherry. They congregate on the hazel leaves in triple stacked orgies and make lacework out of them. So I decided to bag the first developing hazelnut I found.

Since I'm already out of extra bags, I had to harvest some blackberries and blueberries to re-allocate. I freed three bags, came back, and almost immediately found a second nut packet and then a third. I said to myself, OK that was NOT normal. Since I found three developing nuts too easily, there's bound to be one more and I must be short one bag.... And yep, found the 4th one, went back for another bag, came back to bag it, and found the fifth ... of course.

[applestar]

Today's harvest included the first Butta yellow zuke along with some carrots -- it's a challenge to find good ones now as some only have stubble of greens....

[lakngulf]

I just never did well with carrots. I would pull 10 and only a couple would have a decent root.

[applestar]

Is that related to your soil-bourne disease issues? Have you tried growing in the tub with tomatoes? I planted my carrots with peas this year, and they seemed to be good companions. Now the peas are done and vines have been sharp-yanked to leave the roots and root nodules in the soil.

[applestar]

Today


Blueberries were not photo'd -- DD's ate them all.

[applestar]

Subject: Applestar's 2016 Tomatoes (& peppers & eggplants)

I'm having problems with tortoise beetle infestation in the potato foliage. These two beds were pretty badly affected, and the potato foliage had been demolished, so I decided to pull the plug and put the beds to good use.

I'd already robbed some of the tubers before -- harvested this much more today:


Planted the remaining hot pepper seedlings here where it's NOT fenced, hot and dry:

(Maui Purple, Fish, Czech Black, and Hanoi Market were overwintered from 2015)

...and remaining sweet peppers here in the Sunflower & House where it is tree-shaded in the morning and tends to be more watered:

... Of course I found two more that I forgot to plant ...

...so, that means I planted the pepper seedlings elsewhere and this didn't happen, though I did plant the sweet potatoes as planned.

More garlic harvest sitting in front of a fan on standard size webtray turned upside down.



One full-size elephant garlic...I think I'll dig up the rest in couple of days. Thinking of planting sweet potatoes in the SFHX bed and rest of the pepper seedlings in the Outer Apple Guild bed after the garlic are harvested.

Apple Guild garlic harvest has been delayed because we had some rain and the ground there was still so wet. I need to build up both inner and outer Apple guild beds so they are raised mounds >> more compost and fall leaves this winter... OR since I have to come up with an alternate crop to plant after the garlic is harvested... Maybe some kind of cover crop? The outer Apple guild is tricky because it doesn't have a protective rabbit fence.

What late summer-fall crop can be planted here without rabbits munching on them? All I can think of are nots -- not beans, not peas, not greens, not broccoli/cauliflower, not carrots, not beets.... Hmm I just had an idea -- broccoli, etc. need to be sown/grown under protective insect tunnel so that might protect them. I did think about trying fall-sown onions here, but do I want to follow garlic with onions?

[sweetiepie]

I always love seeing your garden photos. You do wonders in such a little space. Sorry no idea about the rabbits. I have a fence around mine but am now fighting pocket gophers. Terrible little creatures, just like on the cartoons, sucking your plants down from under ground. Anyway back on topic, love your garden pictures.

[applestar]

I want to show you my West Garden Gate

-- I realized the Triple Crown blackberry canes grow long enough to be like a "climbing" rose, so I decided to let it climb over the arch trellis.

View from inside the garden and from the driveway:

[applestar]

Harvested the Outer Apple Guild garlic. This is about the best condition to harvest. You can see how firmly the garlic roots have grown into the clay (there was at least one earthworm in each rootball of the garlic ). If I let the soil dry more, I would have to chip away at the clay. Absolutely no way I could harvest garlic by pulling on the top.

[nltaff]

OOooh, lovely arch over the gate! Love the pathway approaching the gate. Inviting for a slow stroll down the path, and it looks so protected and...cozy.

[applestar]

Something has been eating the chickpeas. I was blaming the baby bunny but I managed to exclude it from the Spiral Garden enclosure -- this morning it was dashing around under the Ostrich Fern -- but just now out of the upstairs window, I saw the real culprit ... A chipmunk climbing around on the chickpea foliage

Tomorrow our indoor kitties are going to have a rare garden exercise hour ...not that I expect them to catch it, but to leave their scent all over the garden.

[applestar]

Some random photos....

Spiral Garden and Sunflower House area



All the melons are up and growing. Only one of the unlabeled saved large watermelon seeds seem to have made it but it looks like it's a MOON AND STARS!



I actually did this a couple of days ago, but waited for the pruned foliage to dry up to take pictures -- I opened up the skyview and airspace as well as shrubby growth along the fence behind the Spiral Garden. I felt the cucumbers needed a bit more sun and airflow to avoid getting fungal issues. The Highbush cranberry viburnum nudum "Winterthur" needed it, too, so it can hurry up and grow up to replace some of the ROS. Removing excess ROS sucker growths and exposing the white fence made the area brighter from reflected light as well. All the mulberry and Rose of Sharon clippings went on the ground as mulch.




Today's harvest including 2nd harvest of ready to dry Marrowfat soup peas

[lakngulf]

Looking good!