Garden Update

So far nothing's germinated yet, but that's not surprising. I think I see some cracking in the soil over the beans, so hopefully they're doing their sprouting thing.

Half of my peppers are quite wilted now. I'm not sure what the problem is, since we got drenched in rain yesterday and it seems unlikely they'd be thirsty. From what I've read and heard, pepper plants often wilt, especially in hot weather. However, today was pleasant and in the low 80s, so I would think they'd be fine. Five out of five look happier than they did before the rain and the other five look wretched. I guess I will have to keep monitoring them. Like I said, they're in prime real estate so I can always replant. What I'm afraid of is phytophthora stem rot due to too MUCH water. Maybe I should back off with the hose.

My cabbages are looking happier now than before the rain, but I've seen some insect holes on the leaves. I was hoping not to have to get floating row cover this late in the game, but it might be necessary if they're going to make it to sauerkraut stage.

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.

Planting the Seedlings: Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cabbages

This weekend I began planting the starts. I planted:

July 11th : tomatoes
July 13th: cabbages and peppers

I also threw the dill plants into the ground because they were looking so wretched. I have little faith that they'll survive, but it's worth a shot. I still have more cole crops to plant, it's just a matter of finding sunny space for them.

Variety-wise, I basically went with what was available at the garden stand. The tomatoes are a random assortment including Better Boy, Brandywine, Rutgers, and some yellow full-size and cherry toms. The cabbages included Savoy, Stonehead, Discover, and Red Acre. The peppers weren't well-labeled, but I think they were all sweet peppers.

For all the seedlings, I tried to mix the varieties around so that I wouldn't have all of one type in a single location, in case that spot's bad for growing.

I also took a few approaches to the planting itself. The tomatoes were really leggy, so I removed their bottom leaves and buried them quite deep. Since they were already so tall, I had to mound soil up around them to keep the stems buried. This might have been a bad approach from a water management perspective. I mulched heavily around the mounds using oat straw. I placed the tomatoes in the second row from the north. They will get excellent sun there, but won't be shaded by taller plants. I may have spaced them a bit close--I used a checkerboard pattern with ~24" between plants, giving 3 offset rows in the mound. If I get a single tomato out of this I will be amazed.

When I watered the tomatoes I noticed that a lot of the water was running into the walkways, so I took a slightly different approach with the peppers. These I placed on the furthest north mound, where they will be next to the green beans, but not in their shadow. Between the peppers and the beans I made a trench, where most of the water flows. I hope this will make a little reservoir of moist soil whenever it rains or I water. I have not mulched these yet and I'm not sure if I will.

For planting the cabbages I got cleverer still. I placed each cabbage plant in a small depression, so that they will be surrounded by moist soil after I water and the water won't run into the walkways. I mulched heavily between the plants to discourage weeds, hold more water, and keep the soil cool. I've heard that cabbage roots are delicate and they often don't survive transplanting. I tried to be gentle with them, but they were terribly root-bound in the pots. I teased the seedlings apart while holding the rootmass in a pail of water--a technique I perfected on swallow-wort, of course. So hopefully these little guys will survive. I would really like to put up a bunch of sauerkraut from my own garden.

Next I need to plant the herbs and I'm trying to monitor the garden to find a sunny spot that's not in high demand from vegetables. I will be receiving my seeds early next week and then I will plant those.