September bounty

Did a bit of harvesting from the garden yesterday. Production has reached a seasonal high and until the first frost it will only be a matter of keeping up with eating it all or finding a home for the extra produce. Tomatoes have yielded the best so far, and surprisingly, the beans keep on going. I was forced to cut down the sunflower head after I noticed that something had begun to nibble at the edges of the seeds. I later discovered a squirrel running down the stalk, dismayed probably at having his easy source of seeds taken away.

Also, to my delight, I realized all was not lost on the eggplant front. A separate plant I had hidden in the empty cold frame had survived the raccoons plundering and had reached a rather respectable size, now ripe for the picking. All in all a good day to be a gardener.

Successful garden installation

A few updated photos of the garden I installed for a friend's mother in early May:

At left is the yellow squash followed by a row of tomatoes

Yellow squash looking very healthy

Jade bush beans with their first blossoms

A vibrant row of peas supported by a simple wire mesh trellis

I asked for a few updated photos to see how everything had performed; I hadn't seen the garden since I planted the seeds several months back. Seems things couldn't be doing better.

One for the road

Leaving for New York tonight to attend my cousins' wedding on Saturday. The ceremony's upstate in Binghamton, but I'll be spending a couple of days in the city with my sister and brother in law prior. Then a few days in D.C. to catch up with an old college friend, Brian.

For the interim, the garden will be in the hands of my able-bodied roommates (I'm praying for rain). I've shot a few pictures of some garden produce as it's coming along.

Dew sprinkled quinoa starting to form the main seed cluster.

Peas overflowing on the vine.

Rattlesnake pole beans filling out nicely.

Pumpkin blossom nestled between the beans.

Scarlet Runner beans and blossoms.

A pic of the garden today (most of it anyway). Even with all my careful attention to spacing, everything seems to have grown rather close together. I guess part of me didn't expect it all to grow so prolifically. The tomatoes in the cloche are beginning to press against the plastic. When I get back next Wednesday I will have to figure out the best way to deal with their rampant growth.

Visitor

Stole a picture of this helpful garden friend as she sipped nectar from Scarlet Runner blossoms. In addition to bees and other insects, hummingbirds play an important role in flower pollination. They are particularly attracted to flowers on the red side of the color spectrum (red, orange, pink), which is something I didn't consider at all when I planted the seeds. What an unexpected surprise.

Weeding

Summer's just officially begun and already the days grow shorter. A depressing thought I'll try to ignore as long as the garden's growing green and vibrantly. The pea harvest is in full effect; the plants have grown so large so quickly they're actually causing the trellis to sag! Today Aaron helped me tie the plants back to prevent them from leaning onto the row of beans, which are also growing rather fanatically. The northwest end of the garden has become a bit of a struggle to navigate through, in spite of (what I thought was) ample spacing. This is partly due to my reluctance to pull a volunteer pumpkin vine that sprouted near the end of the bean row.

From here on out we'll have all the peas we can eat and then some.

Aaron and I spent a little time managing the garden this afternoon. We piled some compost around the potatoes to encourage them to fill out with more spuds underground. The spinach and broccoli were also pulled from the garden. In the next few weeks I will be seeding the area where those plants were with crops that I intend to overwinter, perhaps leeks or kale, or some other hardy overwintering variety.

An important aspect of garden maintenance I haven't spent any time discussing is weeding. With proper upkeep this task will take only 1-2 hours a week. It's usually only when the task is neglected that it's a real chore. The main reason to weed is to avoid competition between your vegetables and the weeds. Weeds will use water and minerals from the surrounding soil that would otherwise go to your plants.

I try to break it up to about two times a week. The weeds are given little chance to reach any appreciable size, and the task takes less time. A regular garden hoe works best between rows, and saves your back. Last year I did all my weeding by hand, and definitely made the work much harder on myself and my back. A good hoe is definitely a must have for in-ground gardening. I still pull weeds growing near the plants by hand to avoid damaging them, but by doing this frequently it is a much less tedious endeavor. Here's Aaron demonstrating his technique:


Using the hoe allows you to keep your back straight and exert minimal effort.

And just for fun, a picture of the first eggplant blossom:

Buds & Blooms

Thought I'd go easy on the words today and just post a bunch of pictures of the flowering plants in the garden.

Scarlet Runner Bean Buds

Sugar Snap Pea Flowers

Pear Tomato

Black Eggplant Bud (in cloche)

Strawberries growing from containers near the garden.

Me and the bean(stalk)

In the week since my last post, me and the plants have been soaking up some serious sun. I completed the final trellis, which will be providing support for the two different varieties of beans, the rattlesnake pole beans and the scarlet runners. Construction is the same as the trellis for the peas, the exception being that it is much less crowded with twine. Beans appreciate more space to fill out. Here's a pic of a scarlet runner crawling up the crosspiece of the trellis only a few hours after I completed it. They climb fast!


The quinoa and some of the carrots have sprouted, though I may have to resow some carrots as they are sporadic and the germination rate left something to be desired. A quinoa seedling:


Everything in the cloche is faring rather well, though I have yet to establish a satisfactory method for securing the plastic along the base of the pvc that is in contact with the ground. Perhaps it's time to bring out the zip ties.

A couple of my broccoli plants are suffering from some ailment I am unable to diagnose at this point. Here's what they look like:

The leaves are wilting and beginning to turn yellow. I first thought they might not be too keen on the warm weather we've had as of late (75 + degrees for the past week). They've been adequately watered, though not over-watered. They seem to perk up at night once it cools off, but set to wilting once the sun's up the next day. The remaining plants seem fine, and it may be that I just have to cut my losses and remove the plants if they don't recover soon. I can always plant something else in its place. Here's a more uplifting shot of one of the plants that is doing much better and even starting to bud!


I did a little work out in the front garden today, planting several herbs (parsley and basil), nasturtiums, marigolds, snapdragons and various tomatoes. To update on the front garden, the initial tomatoes I planted weeks ago are growing vigorously and seem to be enjoying their location near the concrete. I plan on planting some additional herbs and flowers at a later date. A quick shot of what the garden looks like now:

Tomorrow I'm waking up early to set up shop in the front of the house to see if I can't find a good home for the remaining seedlings I have no more room to plant.

Me and the bean

Visited my parents today and happened to stumble across this picture from my earlier gardening days. Judging by the Super Mario Bros. sweatshirt I'm wearing I must be about 6 or 7 years old. Fantastic.

All Strung Up

Didn't end up going to Discovery Park today(though the weather couldn't have been more obliging). Instead I built the first of several trellises for the peas and beans out of some bamboo I found for free.


Free is Good

The trellis is constructed with 4 pieces of bamboo, about 6 feet long and 3/4" thick, one piece slightly longer than the length of the row, and as many lengths of string as there are pea plants. You could also build this using pvc pipes or any scrap wood you have lying around. On either end of the row two of the 6 feet pieces of bamboo are stabbed into the ground to form a steep X. I drilled a screw through the two pieces to hold them together securely. The row-length piece is lain along the length of the row between the two X's. Next I tied a string from the spanning bamboo down to the pea plant. You can either loosely tie a loop around the stem of the plant so that it can begin climbing or tie the string to a twig or perhaps a thin stick of bamboo that is staked in the dirt near the plant. I tied the string to some scraps pieces of bamboo.

Peas are natural climbers and should have no trouble finding their way up the string. My trellis sags a little in the middle, hopefully the weight of the vines won't drag it down much farther.

Garden Installation

Today I planted a garden for a friend's mother. The plot was formerly a lawn, but had been dug up (at least a year) prior. Here's a shot of the space before I got my hands dirty:

Overall a good space with direct sun all day that required minimal labor to get started. I turned the soil, as it had become compacted from our usual Northwest winter rains. The garden is triangle shaped, probably around 150-200 square feet. I planted rows of spinach, carrots, bush beans, snap and snow peas, tomatoes, and a small herb garden consisting of cilantro, basil and parsley.

Here's what it looked like after 4 hours of work. I managed to finish just in time to get out of the rain (which lasted pretty much the rest of the day). A great way to spend the morning and early afternoon (and make a little money on the side). With any luck I'll be doing this sort of thing more often in the near future. The Urban Grown garden installation service, a pipe dream now, but maybe someday...

Spring Rains...Sprouts!

This past week has seen the sprouting of the various seeds I sowed recently. Have a look:


Top: Beans Bottom: Spinach

Top: Broccoli Bottom:Peas


All seem to be doing well, with the exception of a few beans who had their tops munched off by some of the local fauna. Today I hope to plant a few tomatoes outside, as well as sow some rows of carrots, onions, basil and cilantro. Though it may be a bit early for the tomatoes, a few of the plants have grown leggy, and so I will have to take a bit of a chance setting them out early. I don't think upping the pot size at this point will benefit it much. Here's hoping they adjust adequately. Before the peas and beans get too large I will be constructing trellises for them to climb.

Sowing Seed

Some mild, partly cloudy weather today, perfect to begin sowing seeds in the garden. Though I likely should have done it earlier (as peas love cooler spring temps), I sowed two rows of peas (pole variety) at the western end of the garden. Next to them I planted a half row(6 feet) of pole beans and a half row of runner beans. At the other end of the garden I sowed a row of spinach seed as well as the broccoli seedlings that have been chilling in the cold frame.

Broccoli in its new home.

For each of the seeds, I followed the sowing directions explicitly, something I neglected to do last year which to crowding and most likely smaller yields. Between the rows of peas and beans, I left at least 2 feet. As these are pole varieties (they are indeterminate and will require some sort of trellising), I tried to plant them to the far end of the garden to hopefully prevent them from shading smaller vegetables nearby. The fact that the rows are oriented north-south should prevent shadows for the most part anyway...

Plant far more seeds than you intend to ultimately grow, as you will be able to thin once the seedlings have grown a couple of inches and a couple of pairs of true leaves. The broccoli plants are spaced 18" apart. The soil can be filled all the way up to the cotyledon leaves. With transplants and seed sowing, be sure to pat the earth down around the plant or the top of the row with your palm. This restores capillarity to the soil, which will help the area around the seedling stay moist and encourage germination. After planting all the seeds and broccoli, the rows are watered are labeled so the different varieties won't get mixed up (and so my roommates don't step on them). Also this was my first opportunity to use water collected from the rain barrel, which was pretty neat.

A (short) planting list of the garden so far:

-Peas (Snow peas and Super Sugar Snap peas, both pole varieties)
-Beans (Scarlet Runner and Rattlesnake pole)
-Spinach (Bordeaux Hybrid)
-Broccoli (Early Green)