STARTING OUR SPRING VEGGIE GARDENS PART 6

Lise-root pouches are cloth bags. I've haven't used them yet but the roots grow thru the fabric
and get " air pruned ". I have hand pollinated my squash zukes,crookneck and white scallop. This is the first year that female flowers have shown up at the same time as the male.

My potatoes are still growing so weird it's almost June!

It rained like crazy here all day, and might rain tomorrow. There wasn't even a chance of rain. I don't know if I'll be able to get in the lower garden. It may be too muddy. My beans still aren't blooming..

Drthor thanks for the reminder about the male squash blossoms, i eat them plain. It's been so long since vie had decent squash plants, I forgot.

I have 14 types of dwarf tomatoes and about 35 types of peppers and they are getting planted this weekend!

I had to educate my boss on the male & female squash blooms this morning. (He's a first time gardener.) He was slightly embarassed. LOL!

I don't think I'll be watering for awhile! Roads closed on all sides of me -- flooded out. We had 8" of rain last night over just a couple of hours. I'm fine here, but it's a real mess out there.

How's the river walk area doing, LiseP? Did they get flooded? I need to tune into WOAI and listen to the news.

I haven't heard anything about the Riverwalk. The street in front of the Alamo looks like a river, though. Here's a set of photos of what it looks like in certain areas of the city.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Mayor-urging-San-Antonians-to-stay-off-the-roads-4548362.php#photo-3523215

So glad you got the rain, but sorry it came as a rain bomb and dropped all that in such a short period of time. Need to call my dad again and check on him. I talked to him late last night and all was well. Thankfully, I don't think his side of town got hit as hard as the south/southwest side of town.

Tomatoes season is officially started and they are ripening like crazy.
I need to start to harvest daily ... what a problem, right?? giggle
First Eggplant and first Blackberries ... a few okra and I hope soon cucumbers and peppers (this year I am going to harvest them red or yellow = it takes forever to tun color)
Lots of zucchini flowers ... yum !

Lise- glad to hear your ok. We got a ton of rain also. I don't remember rain even being in the forecast. Everything is so muddy.

So glad ya'll are ok. We didn't get any rain.

Houston, we have Black Beauty Eggplant liftoff!

We harvested 2 pounds of Kiowa blackberries today. We've never had such a harvest!

Lots of baby tomatoes and blooms on all my maters.

Shot of the whole garden plot, almost. Can't see the garlic all that well, but it's over there. I'll be harvesting the onions and garlic this Thursday on my day off.

Burgundy beans (bush beans) are doing great! There's one plant that's yellow. Not sure what's going on with that!

wow ... yes the blackberries are huge this year.
Mine never make it to the kitchen ... I must eat them right away before my DH give them to his pets .. sigh ... he loves them like if they were family.

Stephanietx, do you have any ripe tomato yet?

#1 This is my harvest yesterday: I tried to make a face ... can you see it? The right eye is Momotaro tomato, the left is Black Zebra. ONE long bean ... giggle ... and one Thai Sweet Pepper (from Baker Creek) which is NOT sweet at all ... so spicy ... yuk ! Lots of zucchini flowers ... so good !

#2 this is how I store my tomatoes in the kitchen. They are in order of maturity ... so I know which one to eat first. I just love to see all of the tomatoes at this time of the year. All that "tomato dance" was well worth it !

Biggest one to date. Unfortunately, I have NO Idea which variety this beautiful tomato is. I have to go back through my receipts to figure this mystery out. And, I sure hope I do, because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this flavor!

The tomato is huge, meaty, and an orangy, peachy color. Juicy without being runny, and a great sweet to tang balance.

I have no clue...but, I grew these from seeds I saved last season. They did very, very poorly then, but the saved seeds are producing wonderful fruits this time around.

This one weighs in at about 7 ounces.

drthor---I Love your veggie face photo. Thanks for sharing. Your tomato dance Was indeed worth it.

This the new vegetable bed I built yesterday.
My arms really hurt now.
I have used all the room in my back yard now ... soon I will start to remove grass in the front ...:)

I am still watering by hand, but soon I plan to have a soaker hose in there.
Squash are under the cover and long beans are growing behind them.

I planted some cowpeas this year. Just a few but the seedlings are up and growing.

Meantime something got into my Straight Eight cucumber seedlings and dug them up and broke the others. By the time I found them they were totally wilted. I replanted and watered but I doubt they will make it. Good thing I have extra seed so I sowed some new seed.

newyorkrita
I had by cucumbers dug up by an Armadillo, I replanted the cucumbers at least three times before he finally managed to totally destroy them. So if what ever dug them up does not return, you have a good chance of saving them. I noticed today I still had one of the original plants hanging in there with a few blooms on it.
I put a small fence around them but he just dug under it after I replanted, then I replanted again in a new location just a few feet away and he has not bothered them.

Oh wow. Fortunatly no armadillos around here. It was probably a squirrel.

Or a bird.

I picked my first 2 crookneck squash today. I have never had such great looking plants in Tx. I forgot how fast the fruit matures. I should have zukes in a day or so, and some white scallops. I have got most of my peppers planted, I have pepper plants that I onverwinter in containers they are starting to really bloom and set pods.

I also have some pole beans that were supposed to be bush beans and vice versa. I'm trying to figure out how to give them something to climb up since they weren't sown to be pole beans.

Everything is looking really good my garden seems to be enjoying the cooler temps and the rain.

Today I tied and grouped the onions and all the garlic (about 170 bulbs) after they dried in the back porch.
I am storing them in a one dark room.
I also harvested the rest of the onions. Not so bad for my second year of growing onions. Lots to learn still !

All my cooking will have lots of garlic from now on !

What can I plant after onions since I used a high nitrogen (organic) fertilizer?

Do you like Malabar Spinach?
http://www.rareseeds.com/red-malabar-spinach/?F_Keyword=malabar
This vine grows really well here, especially in our heat.
I grow some for my DH pets.

Ok. maters were doin great. Cantt find anyone who knows what this timy worm by the thousands is... Its prob moving north tho... so far a sphinx moth cat is all i can find resembles these guys. Will take any ids available

THAT'S WHAT ATTACKED ME!!!!

TWO applications of Bt (because it rained immediately after each app) wiped them out.

yuk !

Yuk! is absolutely right!

Mine were barely half that size and were turning the tomato leaves into doily skeletons. They move fast and are ravenous by the scores, so they must be handled early on.

Fortunately, like some insects I've run across, they seem to concentrate on only one leaf at a time and don't move on until it is total destroyed. That means they collect in one area, so it gives you a chance to eradicate them before they spread too far.

I don't know where mine came from. Never had them before...

They look like those worms that get into the ears of corn.

So I know I am really late late but I just sowed some mustard greens (not a lot) and some celery seeds. Wow, that celery seed is so small I can barely see it. I have Tango Celery which I have read is very good for home gardeners. I have read celery is difficult but I had celery from seedlings last year and found it very easy to grow.

They look like army worms. I'd apply Bt THEN try to ID them.

I caught that, LOL!

This message was edited May 29, 2013 2:38 PM

Southern army worms. Tent worms ONE stripe, whitish...eggs are little sparkly things on undersides of leaves. Search and destroy in early mornings. moth is a small one- looks to have a set of clear wings

This message was edited Jun 3, 2013 9:53 AM

Planted collards, lettuces, some more tomatoes, corn in the straw bales (with squash, melons, and sunflowers), eggplant plants, okra plants, and some flowers beneath one of the apple trees. The strawberries I planted in the straw bales yesterday, and they look pretty happy. Still no sweet potatoes after they froze, but might have some beets in the same bed coming up. The Casper eggplants are getting their true leaves.

It is said that the temps will dip down to almost freezing tomorrow night (or below, never can tell) so will probably have to cover tomatoes, okra, and eggplant I planted in the GH area yesterday. Trying to harden off watermelons. Boy they hate this sun up here.

I have 10' Lilac hedges, like solid walls almost, around the front and side yard and they're in full bloom- two weeks early. At least they're loaded this year, and smell heavenly. I want to take and start some cuttings for other areas.

Getting the other strawbales cooking so I can plant in them too. The barley bales are feathery soft after a long snowy winter, but the wheat bales from last fall are still pretty firm. They sat out all winter, so should be cooked, but who knows?

I run out of energy before I run out of things to do. There's no end to it. Whew!

Solace Like being a youngster ,,having fun running out of energy is big "FUN" !!!
Planted some Huckleberries ,some amaranth , the past few days ,,
Harvested , lettuce , radish , garlic, onions , for eating ,, Leaves of Borage , spearmint . also..
Myself I am not going around real fast , near 90 today ,, The temperature not my Birthday age ...lol

My hubby harvested the garlic and onions yesterday!

Gathered all my onions, just before possible rain. It looks like I have about 100 pounds. There are a mix of sizes. Some are quite large and others very small. Many are baseball size or larger. Not bad since I didn't keep them fertilized, watered, or weeded. They were basically on their own after I planted. The garlic were all small. I guess they need a little more attention than the onions.

I haven't given the garden the attention it needs, I've been fighting health-related depression. It's hard to get motivated to work in the garden. It hasn't been the distraction for me that it has been in past years. I think the odd weather made it worse, but then I didn't get things done as quickly as I should have, so now there's even less motivation since I am so far behind.

Tore out the sugar snap peas today. I planted them so late that they burned up in the heat before they could bloom. Started to till the area where I pulled onions and peas out, but the tiller broke-- lost a pin holding the tines in place. By the time I got back from Lowes with a new pin, it had rained and the ground was just wet enough to be a problem. Maybe I will be able to get to it tomorrow. Still need to plant all the possible summertime vegetables: beans, cucumbers, squash, okra.

At least the second planting of corn is growing. I need to cultivate it, too, to knock the weeds back while the corn is small. If we don't get a measurable rain tonight I will water the corn tomorrow. I plan to water it every week if it doesn't rain. In past years I haven't watered the corn consistently and later plantings did not produce well.

David

Stephanie,

Is that "elephant" garlic? If not, my garlic is REALLY pitiful. Most of the heads are about the size of a 50-cent piece, some are smaller. : (

DTR

David, I have found garlic to be pretty self-sufficient. Just be sure to water it every now and again. I'm hoping to plant cukes and okra tomorrow.

Yes, it's elephant garlic, which is technically a leek, I think.

I have always admired garlic and leeks ,, once you have a few things correct with either ,,, super easy .. and yes I have had my share previous difficulty with them .

Super job with Harvest and great pic's!!! ,,, folks

Outstanding harvest, Steph!

To date, I've picked 12.8 lbs. of tomatoes from six plants.

My plants are more than six ft. with no signs of slowing down. Should fruits be setting this high?