I Said It Was a Jungle Before? What Is It Now?

Okay, I admit it.  I am horrible about starting projects like this blog and not finishing them. I left off blogging about my jungle of a garden last year in June.  Obviously, there was a lot more story to tell.  I just didn't get around to telling it.  This post was left in draft stage with just the pictures imported in August. They were taken August 12th. You can see that the jungle just got more amazingly huge as the months went on.  August and September last year were the hottest driest weeks I've ever had to nurse a garden through.  Every day was over 85, with over half the days in the upper 90's. The more sensitive plants were not happy about it.  The runner and pole beans, pretty much shut down. No matter how much I kept them watered, they wouldn't flower of set any beans. Many leaves on the afternoon sunny side even got fried in the hot sun. (see below)

You might notice in the above picture the squash vines have wilted.  This is mostly due to the squash bug feeding, but I am sure the heat didn't help.

The beans that I planted around the chicken coup did help the chickens to stay cool, and some of them actually made beans in the shade of the coup.

All of the pumpkin plants died.  I had the most overwhelming infestation of squash bugs you can imagine.  I am also wondering if they carry a disease. I read a journal article about yellow vine wilt, a plant disease that is carried by squash bugs, and is fatal to pumpkin plants. It has not been documented in our state.  I read it too late to be able to send them a sample of my vines. I don't think I will plant pumpkins this year. They take a lot of room and work, so if they are going to die like that, it really isn't worth it. The butternut squash and the unknown hybrid F2 revert shown below didn't succumb to the disease, and did make a few smallish fruit, despite the squash bugs.

The mammoth sunflowers did reach 12 feet.  Some of them fell over.  I think that is because I plated them underneath the roof overhang and they had to lean out to get the sun. Some of them just got too heavy on the top to be able to hold that slanted orientation. Despite the constant occupation of the flowers by longhorn bees, about half of the sunflower seeds were empty when it came time to shell and eat them.  That was kind of disappointing.  The seeds that weren't empty were large and delicious.

The sunflowers did shade Molly's windows pretty well, but I think this year I will plant the runner and pole beans here on strings connected to the eaves.  It seams like a good cool shadier place for them during the hottest days and they should grow thicker and provide better shade.

The strawberries didn't produce much in their first year, but next year they will make loads, hopefully.

You can just scroll down through the rest of the pictures....

Mostly Peppers

Rosa Blanc Eggplant - I am not a big fan.

Hansel Eggplant - Awesome!

Gourds and cucumber

We did end up getting several dried gourds.  They have just finished curing and Molly is looking forward to crafting some bird houses, water bottles and pots out of them.

We did end up getting quite a few cucumbers despite the fact that I crowded and shaded them pretty bad.

The nasturtiums and marigolds really got big, too big.

I planted too many tomatoes, but it didn't matter because they were a huge disappointment:

It was very hard to keep them consistently moist like they like, so many of them got end rot.

The rest of them were fed upon by stink bugs like this one above

and this one.

Pretty soon the tomatoes looked like this. Gross! You can't see the inside of the tomato, but each of those marks on the outside means there is a white pea-sized tough mass on the inside.  The taste is bitter and the skin is tough. Just not yummy at all.

I did get enough good tomatoes to can 14 quarts and 7 pints, but with the number of plants I planted it should have been much more.  I will only plant a few tomatoes this year and I will mulch them heavily.  I have also installed soaker house systems to make the watering more convenient and therefore more frequent and regular. It is bad to grow tomatoes, peppers or potatoes in the same place you did the year before.  That doesn't leave me many options for this year.  I will have to do a better job planning for rotations this year.

RIP poor little comise pear tree.  For some reason, it died over the winter this winter.  It gave me three pears last year and some grafting experience. I will not be replacing it this year.

The rhubarb did recover after the ants and earwigs were removed, and I look forward to being able to harvest it this year when the strawberries are ripe for strawberry rhubarb squares and Rhubarb pie. Yum.

Here is a picture of the last double yolker I got from my girls. They quit laying in November for about four weeks while they molted.  I got a bit worried when it was daytime highs of 18 degrees Fahrenheit and they were molting with some bald spots, so I knitted them some sweaters.  What a comedy that was.  They hated them and promptly got out of them, or mostly out of them after I had to struggle to get them on.  I settled for rubbing coconut oil on their combs, feet and exposed skin regularly.  They started laying slowly in December and then were up to full speed, about one egg per chicken per day, by the middle of February.

Three Pears

My little comise pear tree has three little pears on it.  I think I will let them grow and ripen, even though I probably shouldn't, it being the first growing season since I planted it last fall.  I just really want to see what they turn out like.

Pear # 1

Pear # 2

and Pear # 3.  It has a little browning on the end.  I don't really know what that means, but will keep an eye on it. The pears are all about an inch long and almost as wide.  They are spread out, one to a branch, too.

Okra and Corn Sprouts

I had fun this afternoon after work taking pictures of all of the new sprouts.  Sadly the long awaited beans have not sprouted yet, but lots of other stuff has.

Loads more carrots have come up.

Almost all of the nasturtiums have come up.

Our first okra sprout.  You can't see it very well yet, but it's there all right.

A few painted mountain corn have come up.

The mammoth sunflowers I planted last week are already coming up.

I planted two different types of sunflowers.

My potatoes have started to bloom already.  It is only May 16th.

Here is one of my celery plants I planted from seed on March 3rd.  Celery sure does grow slowly.  I hope I actually get some celery before it frosts.

The Cinderella Pumpkin has two true leaves now. Yay!

The zucchini has a true leaf and a half.

The cucumbers almost have one true leaf opened up.

The cilantro is finally growing.  I have to say that I do not like peat pots.  I had forgotten that since last year, but I won't forget it again.  They dry out really fast, and you have to carefully rip them off your plants in several pieces before you plant them.  Don't believe anyone who says you can leave them on the plant when you plant them out.  I forgot this fact, even though I did already learn it, and plunked these cilantro in the ground.  They sat there and complained to me until I said, "what is your deal? Why aren't you growing right?"  I scooped one out of the ground to bury it deeper because it looked like it had popped up and was kinda floppy.  Lo and behold, the peat pot was still on it.  I knew right away that was the problem.  I ripped the peat pot off and planted it right back in the dirt.  Now it is happy.  I did the same thing to all four of the cilantro plants.  I have also direct seeded the next round of cilantro, but they haven't come up yet. I plan on planting more very two weeks.

My husband and I went to Lowe's to get two more bags of potting mix so I could re-pot my smaller tomato plants.  We both thought that we should buy this sweet mint plant and a pot to grow it in.  We see mojitos in our future now.  If only we could grow a lime tree here.

I also finally figured out what variety of eggplant it was that I loved so much when I grew it two years ago.  Now I know it was a Hansel.  I thought I had gotten the right kind last year, but as soon as it started growing I knew it wasn't the same.  I didn't like it as well either.  Last year I bought an Ichiban because the picture of the fruit looked similar, but the plant is totally different.  It grows with a different habit.  The Hansel grows taller and with large branches all with fruit, and it also has dark purple colored stems and spines.  It makes lots more fruit, and the fruit are delicious.

This is my eggplant I grew from seed.  It is a new kind I have not tried before.  It makes small round fruit.  The picture of the fruit that was on the seed packet looks like the eggplants that my friend Sean Stephan gave me from his garden a few years ago.  They were delicious. He also told me that they made a lot of fruit.  More than their family could eat, if I remember right.  Come to think of it, of coarse that is true, or I wouldn't have gotten so many.

This is our first pea.  It is the same one featured in a previous post.  It won't be long now before it is ripe.  My daughter checks it everyday.  She loves peas.

Looky, looky.  My graft is growing.  I grafted two branches, but one broke off in a wind storm a few weeks ago.  This one is finally growing leaves.  I am so excited.  you can still see the thick layer of wax I put on to keep it from drying out.  It is cracking off of the parts that are growing.

Here is the end bud.  The leaves are even bigger than the leaves on the main part of the tree.

The strawberries are coming along nicely.  I don't think I will get enough this first year for a batch of jam, but definitely enough for a batch of strawberry ice cream  and fresh fruit on pancakes and cereal a few times.  Yummy.  I can hardly wait.

Next post will be about insects in the garden. There is some cool stuff out there today.