Carrots are Catching up, General Update

Carrots

My carrots are starting to emerge, so perhaps I didn't doom them to rot in the ground after all. The dill and cilantro seeds I sprinkled around at the last minute are coming up too, so perhaps Apiaceae simply take a little longer to get going.

Other Veggies

On the other hand, many of my collards and beans have not yet emerged, so I may have to re-plant. We're going out of town this weekend, so I'll give them until Monday to hustle up out of the soil.

One of my cabbages died (a Red Acre) out of the 15 or-so others. That's pretty good for a plant that's known to transplant poorly. I still have a few extra seedlings, so I'll put another one in. The red cabbage has looked the most unhappy, so I don't know if it's the variety or how they were treated before I got them. Hopefully the green varieties will keep doing well.

The peppers are back to wilting again, but now they're growing dark green leaves up top. I can only assume that's a good thing, as I have no idea what to think at this point.

Water Management

I think I was over-watering things, so I'm going to pull back a bit. I'll try to keep it more around the recommended 1" per week, with the exception of the seedlings, which I've been watering every 1-2 days to keep the soil moist.

Phenology

The corn in our 'neighborhood' is finally tasseling. It's so tall we can't see the road anymore, which is nice. Hopefully the harvest will be good after such a crazy spring.

Planting Turnips, Carrots, Radishes, Greens, Green Onions and assorted seedlings

Whoo hoo I did it! I finished planting everything I needed to get into the ground right away. The only things left are finding space for the remaining cole crop seedlings and digging a mound for my fall garlic planting. I finished not a moment too soon, since we're expected to get pounded by storms this evening.

Freshly planted garden, viewed from the SW corner.

And from the NE corner. Yeah, my rows aren't perfectly straight, but I don't think the plants will care.

July 16th Planted:

Roots

• Hakurei Turnip (38 days)
• Purple-Top White Globe Turnip (55 days)
• White Satin Carrot (68 days)
• Sugarsnax Carrot (68 days)
• Miyashige Daikon Radish (50 days)
• Scarlet Queen Green Stem Turnip (43 days)
• Shunkyo Semi-Long Radish (32 days)

Greens

• Garnet Giant Mustard Greens
• Toscano Kale
• Champion Collards
• Redleaf Amaranth
• Goldberg Golden Purslane
• Summerfest Komatsuna Greens
  
• Cooking Sorrel

Onions

• Evergreen Hardy White Bunching Onion
• Nabechan Bunching Onion

Cucurbits

• 8-Ball Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Sunburst Patty Pan Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Amour Pickling Cuke (2nd planting)

Misc. Seedlings

• 2 Watermelon Seedlings (var. unknown)
• 4 Cayenne Pepper Seedlings
• 4 Brussels Sprouts Seedlings
• 2 Purple Kohlrabi Seedlings

For most of the plantings I did a box-style layout, giving turnips 6-8" and carrots and radishes 2-3". I planted a lot of the Hakurei turnips, because I liked them so much. I really hope they grow well. The greens should be exciting too, though I don't know if the kale and collards will get beyond the 'micro-greens' stage. I tried to arrange the root crops so that the quick-maturing varieties were in a very sunny spot, which I can sow with a fall crop of greens or peas.

At this point my space is pretty much used up. I'm kicking myself for not having the neighbor till the garden further east, but I was too lazy to move the giant rock pile out of the middle of the paddock. Most of the west side is unusable because of the shade from the maple trees. Oh well...I can always refine it next year.

In other news, my peppers are looking droopy. I'm trying to water them well, but they just won't perk up. Maybe with the coming rainstorm, all the fertilizer will be mobilized and the plants can take it up and be happy. If the peppers bite the dust I'll gladly plant other stuff in their place, since it's prime real estate.