Update and Cauliflowers Finally Doing Something

I'm out of batteries from my camera, but my garden looks about the same as last time, but more scraggly in some places and with plenty of insane tomato plants. My tomatoes are still green, but I harvested a few large ones to encourage the plants to ripen the remaining fruit. The sun returned after a long absence and after just a couple days of warm weather some of the tomatoes are starting to yellow.

A couple of days ago I went in the garden to get rid of the gigantic cauliflower plants that, until that point, hadn't done anything but crowd my cabbages. Fortunately I peeked into the center of all the leaves and there I found some tiny white florets! I guess the plants finally got big enough to bear florets and were probably helped along by the cool weather. I may just get a harvest from them, since they're frost-tolerant.

In other cole crop news, I harvested a 4-lb cabbage today. It's absolutely beautiful and I just love it to bits.

I'm also getting cucumbers all of the sudden and put up some fermented Kosher dills yesterday (though I need to add another half pound of cukes as they come ready. The "Amour" pickling cuke is a great variety--it produces attractive, uniform fruit, and many come ripe at the same time. They're very prickly, but I think that's OK. I'm definitely going to plant more of this variety next year, and it's clear that I don't even need to bother starting them indoors.

The green beans are continuing to produce heartily, and "Provider" is my favorite variety (as befitting its name). It was the first to produce, and the beans are tender and stringless, with great flavor and a nice shape.

I've got tons of greens that I'm not harvesting. It's just hard to get excited about them in the harvest season when there are plenty of other, tastier, things to eat. The important thing is to freeze some of the collards, which are so nice to have during the winter. The komatsuna greens have (amazingly) not bolted yet and they have a succulent, spinach-like flavor (like a cross between spinach and bok choy). I will probably grow more of them next year, starting earlier, so I can appreciate having greens early in the season. The big loser has been the "Garnet Giant" mustard greens--they have yucky flavor, bolted quickly, and dye everything blue or purple. I would be more inclined to use them as an ornamental in the future, since they look cool in the garden.

First Cabbage Harvest

My cabbages came back from the brink a couple weeks ago and are quickly becoming harvest-able. All my cole crops are happy for the cool weather we've been having, though if it continues I fear I will be harvesting only green tomatoes. Today I harvested my first savoy cabbage, picking one that isn't as large as it could get, but which will clear out some space for its neighbor to mature. I cut an X into the stem I left behind, which supposedly will encourage the plant to make 4 more tiny cabbage heads. We'll see.

I'm thinking of making this one into kimchi. It's not Chinese-style cabbage, but the head is loose enough that I may be able to get the salt in.

Not much else has progressed dramatically in the garden since my last post. I harvested my daikon radishes for kimchi, but they were a touch disappointing. I'd hoped they'd be bigger and/or I'd have more of them, so I wouldn't have to buy radishes from the store, but I think I'll have to. Next year I can plant a larger, longer-maturing variety for more kimchi, though.

That still didn't put a damper on my garden enjoyment, as you can see here:

Does my baby have my nose?

This past week I've just been harvesting delicious summer squash and thinning my green onions. My carrots are coming along and I ate one of the white ones today--it was wonderfully sweet and zingy. Next year I'll plant way more carrots, because they're just so much better when you grow them at home.

Hopefully the weather will warm up a bit to give everyone's garden plants the last little jolt they need. I've been talking to other people and most of them have tons of unripe tomatoes still too. My cabbages have set a lot of fruit but they're still too tiny to harvest--I'm hoping they'll all ripen at once for pickling.

Green Bean Update

My green beans are finally producing a usable yield! The Cupidon French Beans are the first ones to be ready. They are actually right on time, it just felt like they were taking a long time because I wanted green beans of my own so badly. The yellow wax beans are probably a lost cause, but the next to harvest will be Provider, and then Giant. So far I've only nibbled on the Cupidons raw, but I think they will cook up well and seem to be stringless.

Everything else seems to be marching down the path to harvest. It's already been a very rewarding garden, and I haven't even harvested my cabbages or any large quantities of tomatoes.

Harvest Hopes and Bright Blossoms

A variety of zucchini squash known as 'Eight Ball' for obvious reasons. I figured that if I was going to venture into the dangerous territory of growing summer squash, I might as well grow something that would be fun to stuff.

My garden continues to mature at an amazing rate. A burst of cool air has descended on Minnesota, but it's brought with it brilliant sunshine. The combination is making my cole crops very happy but is still bringing along my hot-weather-lovers nicely. Sadly, the crisp nights and slanting sunlight remind us how close fall is. I was hoping to put in fall peas and spinach, but there won't be time for the peas to mature. Next year I'll have to plan better.

The median last frost-free date is September 28th here, so I have just over a month for my garden to finish its production. Some of my plants will be OK until it dips into the mid-20s, which generally happens after the first week of October. The full story, with median frost free dates and growing season for many locations in Minnesota, can be found here.

Fortunately, some of my vegetables that were sluggish to start may just mature within that time. I've also harvested many turnips, radishes, and greens, and my summer squash are just starting their profusion. Even my cabbages appear to have survived the evil moth attack of a couple of weeks ago and are beginning to head beautifully. Below is a pictorial update of the garden.

My tomatoes are a complete mess, but starting to be a tasty one.

After some windy storms my tomatoes have blown down, despite my earlier efforts to stake them up. At this point I'll leave them down since I'm afraid of snapping the brittle stems. They will probably mature anyway, and might even do so better now that there's more light shining into the densely planted area.

My beans are finally starting to set fruit, though they are still only knee-high and will probably not produce the yield they would have had with a full season. It's still very exciting. This is the French filet bean, 'Cupidon'.

I planted these watermelons on a lark, but with another month to mature, they may yet be edible. They are certainly adorable either way.


Likewise, I took a chance planting these cucumbers from seed. The ones that had enough space and sun have already begun to flower and make fruit. These are 'Amour' pickling cukes.

Savoy and 'Stonehead' cabbages looking good and forming heads. I think the savoy cabbage will be great for things like colcannon (I'll post the recipe later).

I planted some flowers here and there in the garden to encourage pollinators and add extra color.

A wee spider valiantly standing guard (or maybe just chilling in her hammock?) on a stalk of 'Golden' purslane.

I call this 'Squash Blossom Jungle'.

The flowers are really tucked down in the depths of the plants, which are quite poky, by the way. I haven't made any fried squash blossoms yet because I'm afraid I'll accidentally harvest female flowers, reducing my squash harvest. The male blossoms seem to be on stalks, while the female ones are more sessile against the stem, so I might be able to get some blossoms without causing harm.

Here's a cheeky little bee visiting a female flower (IIRC) with a load of pollen.

I still can't believe how adorable the teensy patty pan squash are right now. They're a bit more slow-growing than the zukes, but they will be SOOO delicious.

Who needs cabbage roses when you can have rose-like cabbages?

My 'Red Acre' cabbages aren't doing so well. In the past my red cabbages have grown better than the green ones, but this time they're struggling. These seemed to have difficulty getting established and are more sensitive to water stress and evil moth nibbling.


Anyone who can name this 'moon food', as Dan calls it, wins a box of donuts!

Harvest Season Gets Underway

The other day I went to all the trouble of taking and uploading pictures and then I completely forgot to update my blog with them! It's 35 days after my main planting on July 17th and already I'm harvesting things. Here are some photos from August 19th, showing the progress of the garden and some of the fruits of my labors. These are in no particular order.

The garden, just over one month after planting. The tomatoes are almost as tall as me and I've given up trying to stake them up. So far they have lots of flowers and green fruit.

I planted this cabbage from seed and it might just have a chance of setting fruit before the snow flies. No flowers yet, though.

Scarlet Queen turnips--they are just so beautiful. Their greens also grew a lot taller and straighter than the other turnips, making them even more distinctive.

My first turnip harvest! Definitely the most adorable vegetable, I am looking forward to making them into tasty pickles this weekend as more mature.

I was too exhausted to do anything with the greens so I guiltily composted them.

Here's a closeup of some of the caterpillar damage.

Amazingly, though, the cabbages are starting to head. I may need to sprinkle them with bug killer again once the rain lets up, but they are well on their way to being sauerkraut now.

My first bean blossoms. Come on little guys, you can make beans before winter, I just know it!

And hooray! My first tomato of the season (Rutgers variety). It was tomato-tastic, though one side was home to some kind of naughty bug. I ate the rest though and it was like mainlining summer.

So that's the update as we zoom headlong into fall. Yesterday at the bakery I took an order for a cake for the day after labor day! It's really just around the corner. It's amazing that I was able to pull off this garden and it's been very rewarding, even though harvest is just beginning. It's my first real garden and the results are amazing. After our deluge a week ago we had more dry weather, so I started watering again. Today, though, we had a nice gentle rainfall that will help the plants to fill out.

First Harvest - Shunkyo Red Radishes

Hooray! I have my first real harvest from the garden, beside the leaves of mustard greens that I've been picking here and there. These radishes are righteously spicy, so I wasn't sure what to do with them at first, since they'd overpower any kind of salad. I wrote to the wonderful Maangchi for some advice, and sure enough she replied with a tasty kimchi recipe. I'll cross-post the results with the food blog in a few days, after the fermentation is complete. For the time being I'll admire my beautiful and bold radishes. Soon it will be turnip time!

Update and Caterpillar Nightmare!

Another obligatory cloud shot. On this one I was having fun with negative space, and I like the effect.

My garden as of August 10th. The weed pressure has been very minor since I planted so late and the weather's been dry. Even in a large-ish garden I don't have to do much control. The landlord has since mown the surrounding weeds down.

It's been ages since I last updated and things in the garden have changed. We had several weeks of dry weather and then some soaking rainstorms, which seem to have jolted the garden out of its dry slumber. My tomatoes are thriving, my beans are finally getting ready to flower, my peppers are flowering, and my turnips have shot up like crazy. Since most people around here are already harvesting the above vegetables, we'll just have to see if these catch up.

My 'Garnet Giant' mustard greens are doing well. They're tasty, but zingy enough to need cooking. I love the color.

My first acorn squash. I got this on impulse at the garden store and put it in a neglected corner of the garden, but it seems to be doing well after a couple weeks of droopiness.

Does anything smell as good as a tomato plant? Oh I hope these make it to maturity!

This shot would have been cooler if I had a manual focus. In the foreground is a cucumber I bought as a seedling, and in the background are seeds I planted. In the few days since I've taken this photo, they've developed at least 2 true leaves.

When I planted this garden I tried to remain detached, since it's my first time with a real, full-size garden, and I had no idea if I'd succeed. I couldn't help but get emotionally invested, though, and now I'm terribly upset by the possible demise of my cabbages. This is worsened, of course, by my desire to make gallons and gallons of sauerkraut.

It turns out that the pretty white butterflies that were 'gracing' my garden are known as 'Introduced Cabbage Moths'. They ugly eggs at the base of the petioles of cole crops, which hatch into velvety green caterpillars. RAVENOUS green caterpillars. They go to town on the leaves, leaving shot holes and eventually destroying or at least greatly reducing yield.

They tend to be a problem later in the year because they've had months to reproduce. It probably doesn't help that the garden was surrounded by massive weeds that the landlord hadn't mowed, where the moths could have been chilling out and reproducing on cruciferae family weeds.

These were nifty until I realized they were massacring my cole crops :'-(

This head of savoy cabbage isn't too badly affected by the evil worms, but you can see some of their naughty nibbling.

So, even though I swore I wouldn't go to great lengths to save my garden from threats, I did anyway and bought up some insecticide at the hardware store. I wanted to start with tamer stuff so I got insecticidal soap and pyrethrin dust. My attempts at control were interrupted by a trip to the City and an all-day rainstorm, so the damage got worse.

I started by picking all the caterpillars I could find off of the leaves and throwing them in a bucket to drown. Then I started spraying both sides of the leaves with the insecticidal soap, but the squirt bottle was a piece of junk and would stop working every 3-4 pumps. This drove me nuts, but I got as far as I could before it got dark (about 2/3 of the plants). After a day and a half, when it stopped raining (this morning), I gave up on the insecticidal soap and switched to pyrethrin dust. It stuck fairly well to the leaves and was much easier to use than the soap--I focused it on the stem and petioles. By this time, the eggs had swollen ominously. It's supposed to kill insects on contact, so hopefully it killed any that hatched this morning. Unfortunately it poured rain today and washed the powder off a few hours later. Pyrethrins are quickly de-activated by sunlight, so perhaps I didn't loose that much activity anyway. In the future I will apply it in the evening when there's no rain predicted.

Who knows if my efforts to save my cabbages will succeed or not. I'll probably apply the pyrethrins again, and then consider that enough. There's always the colorfully rustic local farmer's market. There's only one stand that seems to grow vegetables professionally--the others are just people who planted extra and shelled out $5 to put up a stand at the market. Oh yeah, and the old lady who sells the junk out of her house and uses the market as an opportunity to chat with everyone in town. She specializes dogeared dime-store romance novels :-P

The collards don't seem to like the heat, so I may need to seed a third time, or just give up on them. You can see an evil moth on the left, just waiting to wreak more havoc.

The 'Carson Yellow Wax' beans haven't sprouted at all, much to my disappointment. I'm not sure if it's a bad batch of seed, the heat, or if the resident critters just like to eat the seeds right out of the soil.

Other than the cabbages, things are going pretty well. There are some plants that don't like the heat, so I may do yet another planting. They're doing a little better with the mass of cool air that's hanging over MN, courtesy of Hudson Bay. Let's hope it persists (as it's predicted to)...despite the cold, wet spring the crops seem to be happy this summer and MN is expecting a record harvest (though of course that's due to a record corn PLANTING, thanks to crazy high prices).

Tomatoes have been Staked

Another breathtaking cloud on the march.

If my tomatoes were vampires they'd be so dead. I staked most of them up using the wire frames that my landlords left with the barn. I have 21 plants (or rather mounds--some contain more than one tomato plant) and I staked up the western 2/3rds of them with the wire and did my best with the boxelder branches I cut a few weeks ago. I will definitely need to keep monitoring the tomatoes and tying them up as they grow. A couple of plants were damaged by lodging and a couple were damaged as I staked them, but hopefully they will recover.

So far two of my tomatoes are infected with what seems to be bacterial wilt. One died completely and the other is wilting and looking like it's walking towards the light. If the second one dies I will try a diagnostic test in which you put the infected stem in water and see if it exudes a nasty slime. If it does, it died from bacterial wilt. One additional symptom is yellowing of the lower leaves, which I didn't see, so it could be a different problem altogether. See factsheet here.

At this point I think the most likely explanation is that the stems got fertilizer burn and the ones that had it the worst are the ones dying.

Re-seeding and General Update

First true leaves on my daikon seedlings.

A happy garden hastily photographed due to mosquito attack.

My garden is coming along nicely, and the tomatoes and herbs especially seem to be thriving. Some seeds didn't do so well and I got low germination, so yesterday I re-seeded. The problem was worst among my green beans, where I got less than 50% germination and zero germination of the Carson Yellow Wax variety. I suspect that the seeds were predated in whole or in part and then rotted beneath the soil. My reasoning is that when I dug in the rows I found few seeds, and those that I found seemed to have holes in them and were rotted. (Though the rotting itself could have caused the holes, so who knows).

July 29th:
Re-seeded

• Toscano Kale
• Champion Collards
• Hakurei Turnips
• Scarlet Queen Turnip
• Amour Pickling Cucumber
  
• All varieties of green bean
  

Next I need to pop in a couple of more cabbage plants. I had one more red cabbage plant die on me--for whatever reason they didn't take to the transplanting. My sorrel hasn't germinated, or if it has I can't identify it. I will wait a while longer and then decide if I want to re-plant or maybe put in some Thai basil.

A red sorrel seedling from the Ohio State Website. My sorrel isn't red, but the seedlings should look something like that.

Beyond some low germination, things seem to be going well. I'm getting some leaf predation by flea beetles on my turnips and radishes (though fortunately as that's increased the nibbling on my cabbages has decreased). I might look into getting some floating row cover, but I haven't been able to find it at the couple of stores I checked at. I don't know how much aerial holes will prevent root development--I'm most interested in the roots and if nibbled leaves is the cost of keeping my cabbage un-eaten, I'll happily sacrifice my turnip greens.

My peppers are still playing head-games with me, but haven't died or anything, so that's good. Many of my tomatoes plants have unripe fruit now, byt I've learned not to 'count one's chickens before they hatch' when it comes to tomatoes, so I'm cautiously excited.

Amazingly, I have one pickling cuke! It matured so quickly because I bought it as a large greenhouse seedling. What do I do with one pickling cuke?

Weather-wise it's been a pretty typical few weeks of summer. Hot days in the low- to mid-eighties with rain or a thundershower every 3-4 days. I pulled back on watering a bit, but I'll go back to it to keep the new seedbeds moist. We're going to have some extremely hot weather this weekend, so hopefully it won't damage anything.

Weed-wise, the redroot pigweed is finally starting to pop up significantly. The seedlings are still quite small, though, so they're easy to control. It's the dominant weed, joined also by lambsquarters, purslane, and cheese-weed, and a few grass species in the mulched areas. I think the mulch brought in the grass seed--I should make more of an effort to identify it, but I usually pull it out before it's big enough to do so conclusively.

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.

Composting Has Begun

I finally got my compost pile started. It took a lot of machete-ing to clear the weeds out of the NE corner of the garden. There were a lot of boxelder saplings growing there, so I chopped them down to make stakes for my tomatoes. I'm not sure if they'll be sturdy enough late in the season, but for now they'll at least keep the leaves off the ground. Now I guess it's time to read up on composting.

Seedlings Starting to Emerge!

Daikon radish seedlings peeking out of the soil to say 'Hi'.

How very exciting--my seeds are starting to emerge! It's truly amazing how fast they can grow. I went out to check this morning and saw a few radish and purslane (cultivated) seedlings, and by the afternoon there were turnips, beans, cucumbers, and basil as well, and the radishes had already grown much larger.

It's funny to see how my seeding deteriorated throughout the afternoon that I planted. My first block of radishes are in a perfect offset grid. By the time I reached the end of the mound, I basically scattered them in the rows, telling myself I'll thin them later.

My carrots haven't yet emerged, but from what I've read it sounds like they take a while. I may have made some mistakes in planting them...I just found a guide here. It rained right after I planted them, which may have compacted the soil. The publication recommends covering them with vermiculite instead of soil to prevent this problem. Also, the fertility of the spot I chose might be a bit high. Oh well, it's all just an experiment. Here are a few more photos of my lovely seedlings.

These cucumber seedlings just can't wait to provide me with delicious pickles one day.

Happy little bean seedlings with purple stripes. It will be interesting to see if the adult plants will retain any of their dappling. The seeds were certainly beautiful.

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.

Birds A-go-go

Hold still you naughty goldfinch!

Just wanted to make note that our bird diversity is even greater than I expected. Today I saw a pheasant in the far SE field and I'm watching a juvenile Northern Flicker play in the sandbox right now. This is in addition to the Rosebreasted Grossbeaks, Goldfinches, mysterious little greenish songbirds, Housefinches, Hummingbirds, Orioles, Cardinals, Turkey Vultures, Hawks, Kestrels, Bluejays, countless Robins, and more that we've already seen. If only my camera could capture them from a distance--I always scare them away before I can approach.