Summer Veggie Gardens Pt 2 & Beginning Fall Gardening (Pt 1)

Genovese isnt one I have. Though I fell in love with blue spice this year! Blue is the only one my dau takes cuttings of and replants in the spring- Lime and red leaf we just thin when spring hits, chuckl. Cinnamon, we might buy or not if we dont see it volunteer. thanx for answer!

Hurray, tomatoes have finally started to come in. My very favorite summer veggie. I could eat tomato sandwiches forever!

Those look great, Rita!! What variety are you growing?

On long list. This year my tomato varities are-
Beefmaster
Early Girl
Big Boy
Better Boy
Big Beef
Jet Star
Rutgers
Supersonic
Juliet
Sweet Million

Yes those above do look great ! .. and there are lots of em too!!! yummy ..
Here's my odds and ends from today ..

Jet Stars make a VERY tasty fried green tomato, not as tasty when they do get around to ripening tho- says my DH in Tn, I only got one of em so nothing to say abt em...

Many varieties were new to me this year.
Jet Star
Big Beef
Rutgers
Supersonic

All new so we will see how much I like them.

I like Rutgers. We've grown those previously.

Today, we harvested a big ol mess of beans! Guess we'll be having beans for dinner.

Wow, those look great. I have already pulled my bush beans and am waiting on production on my pole French fillet beans. I have two types, one a burgundy colored bean and the other yellow. First year to try the French Fillet types.

They stated flowering but no beans set as yet. I made that mini garden bed there with the two bean towers to grow them on. Really those were sold as tomato cages but when I saw them I thought they would be great for my pole beans.

I see several baby bean pods in the 3rd photo!! They'll be along soon!

Yes, I think it is time for the bean pods to start. I am really looking forward to these as I have read so much about the fantastic flavor and tenderness of those French Fillet type beans. Then I had to search for what I wanted as most seem to be bush types and I wanted pole type. Plus green was my last choice. So I finially found these. Burgandy and then the yellow on the other tower. I am thinking they will look good as well as taste good!

This is the first year I have gone for a second season cucumber crop. Started seeds just recently and today just now I planted them out. I have Orient Express and Suyo Long. So the idea is too have cukes later into the season than when I have to pull out my spring planted ones. We will see how this goes.

Rita, you're doing so well with many vegetables whether they're in ground or in containers. I gathered your growing season in zone 6b is a tad shorter than us Southerners down here. May I ask if you've started your seeds indoor and transplant your seedlings out later?

Anything I start late now that it is warm I start outside. Not direct sow usually. I like to start my veggies in re-used veggie six or four packs which I fill with new potting mix. So I have been starting squash and now those cukes I just planted all outside to transplant once I have seedlings.

Small things like beets and turnips are direct sow. Oh, I did start those beans pictured direct sow and my yard Longs direct sow but I started all those beans late and I knew the seeds would pop up quickly with the nice weather.

Earlier in the spring when the weather is not so warm so seeds would not pop up fast I start them inside. I use the same method of the veggie six packs with new potting mix. Then as soon as they break ground I bring them out in the sunshine during the day and bring in at night for a few days. That way they grow well.

Picked two classic Eggplants and made grilled eggplant slices topped with tomato on the grill. Just ate them all up now!

Awww, that looks mouth-watering! And I already have eaten dinner. lol. Great going Rita.

It was very tasty. Healthy too.

Picked these cherry and grape tomatoes. Almost four quarts. And I picked all these cucumbers also.

plus the yard long beans have started.

Seeing Calif fields gathering grapes, nectarines and peaches and we are bringing them out to eastern areas. The peaches look really good. Cherries are about all gone now from Washington state, you guys enjoy your veggies, One of these days I'll be able to get growing too!

Around August 1, I will plant:

lettuce Romaine and butter crunch
cilantro
broccoli (plants)
cabbage (plants)
carrots
spinach
leeks (plants)
swiss chard
sugar snap peas

Drobarr,
What will your temps be around August 1st?

Average highs for August are 81-85F and lows 61-66F. Though last night we got down to 57 and the last two days highs were only in the upper 70's. My air conditioner didnt even come on today.

http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/daily/17036?climoMonth=8

Average frost date is around October 15th.

I remember living in SE Texas....leaving the house in the morning with temps already in the 80's...feeling like a sauna and sweating ugh! But the fall, winter, and spring were quite mild.

We get snow up here but its kind nice to put the mower away for 4-5 months. When spring comes one cant wait to get back into the garden. I harvest carrots, leeks, and brocoli well into early December.

Bro Dro!
Our highs for August are 95-100°F and lows 75-85°F.

Our average first frost date is anywhere from November 7th - December 7th.

And, yeah, in Houston, Texas we WEAR our humidity! And our fall, winter, and spring are quite mild.

You harvest carrots, leeks, and broccoli well into early December, and I can harvest up until mid-March or so, depending on when the spring heat sets in. I love to grow in the fall/wtr/early spring season!

Last season I started all my seedlings the weekend of August 6-7th, and suffered through hotter-than-usual weather up until mid-November. It was a total pill, keeping my cole crop transplants comfortable, and the aphids at bay. Cold weather down here truly helps with bug control!!

This season I'm gonna start the seeds a bit later, although I do like to have sizeable broccoli, cauliflower, & cabbage transplants by the time the cool weather hits. I start all my seeds indoors. Works better for me against my teeming pillbug population. A very small seedling here doesn't have a chance against them, although I've learned to use the tulle (think bridal veil) fabric as a very cheap and reusable alternative to floating row cover.

We throw the dice down here on when it'll get cold...HEAT is never a crap shoot, LOL!!!

Houston has an average of 285 available growing days, and I'm trying my best to have something growing every one of those days!

BTW, you have any tips on growing onions from seeds? I've grown one successful crop of full size 1015s, purples, and whites from Dixondale Farms transplants. Last August, I started some from seeds for the first time. I sowed Henry Fields onion seeds in August in seed trays to have sizeable transplants by November. Seems it took forever for those wispy onions to start beefing up. But, soon as our weather started chilling, they took off.

Unfortunately, they didn't grow as large as I had hoped. I think I had kept the seeds too long. Also, I didn't fertilize as diligently as I should have.

Thinking of trying again from my own seeds, although it's an long investment of time and resources to get those transplants by mid-November...Only costs $11 for a mixed set of short-season transplants from Dixondale, LOL!!!

Thanks, again for all your input to this website!

Linda

Linda, did you find that your onions from seed were hotter than from transplants? I had really sweet Walla Wallas last year from plants, and last fall I sowed seeds, transplanted them this spring, and they are real hot little dudes! Great for cooking but not fresh eating. I think hotness is somewhat dependent on your soil, but other than that I'm at a loss.

Some of the veggie harvest that I picked yesterday. Lots of eggplant and tomatoes.

Go Rita!! Beautiful!

Looks pretty and tastes great!

I eat a LOT of veggies in the summer. Lunch is almost always squash or eggplant. Or a summer salad or both. Tomato sandwiches are popular with me at anytime.

Gymgirl Linda,

Were you growing short day or long day onions? I would assume the short day onions would be better for your region. Sometimes daylength is a predcitor of bulb size.

I have grown onions from seeds many times but always have done so in the early spring. However, I'm with you lately I just get a bunch of already started plants because they do take a while. I have also used sets but variety selection is limited.

For long day onions like Walla Walla they say that planting them in the fall will give you the colassal sizes but I havent tried that. Not sure if my winters here would be too harsh for them to survive.

JoParrot,
I used to live in Pasco just off of Rd 68...in between there and the airport. I have grown Walla Walla onions both from seed and with transplants both in WA and here in PA and I have never had a hot Walla Walla. I do know that very hot temperatures and very dry condutuions can increase hotness in peppers, some onions and radishes. Could the seed be incorrect?

Attatched are my intermediate day (12-14 hrs) sweet onions called "Candy Hybrid". Harvesting 1 or 2 every day for the last few weeks. I planted them (plants) on April 26th. I ordered them from Miller Nurseries in NY http://www.millernurseries.com/. They are baseball to softball size.

I am also growing "Red Zeppelin" but they are not ready yet and somewhat smaller at this point.

Traditionally I have had real good luck with Walla Walla plants I buy at the box stores planting them in mid to late March. They are very hardy and planting them early give me good size. The only problem with Walla Walla's are they they dont store very well and somewhat sceceptible to Botrytis neck rot.

This year I tried a special onion fertilizer and they responded very well.
http://www.jungseed.com/dp.asp?pID=51026

Sprayed all my squash again with the Neem. Really want to get back on top of this powdery mildew stuff. Already today the squash look so much better than they did on Monday when I last sprayed them. So today being Friday that means 4 days in between sprayings. Now I should be able to go back to weekly spraying. Actually I would like to keep to a spray in just under a week. That should work well.

I had to wait until late in the day, I just came in from spraying. Not that it is hot. I could have sprayed in the middle of the day as temps are really mild. But the bees were out all over the squash all day. Lots and lots of honeybees. I don't honestly know what they were doing but they were at it ALL day. Not in the flowers, they were landing under the leaves and then looking like they were eating or vacuuming along under the leaves. And only on the leaves that had powdery mildew. How really strange. I guess eventually they had enough and went home or it just got late.

I was using my battery powered wand sprayer again. Found a spray setting that works really well and the spraying didn't take as long to do this time as it did the first time I used the sprayer.

The really great part of the Neem is that it also kills any insect pest eggs that are on the plants.

Everything is looking great for you guys! Down here things are just looking fried.

We have had lots of rain. In fact it rained yesterday and some overnight.

Two NOID tomato plants pulled through out of the 24 or so I planted. It's been a tough year on the maters.

My caterpillar issues have *knock wood* abated somewhat, but I keep finding all sorts of other interesting critters in the squash vines.

We also have the biggest wasps I've ever seen. They seem to head for these bananas and then take a break in the squash. But, lots of bees visiting, too. I saw my first bumblebee in ages! She was having a grand old time falling all drunkenly around in the bananas. Made me smile.

Whoa! Those drunken bees do make me smile as well. But your banana fruits and flowers made me grin from ear to ear also. On the issues of caterpillars not being an issue, here too, I've noticed alot more predatory critters in the garden such as crab spiders, hover fly and wasps.

Rain? We're having too much rain, maters drown in this type of weather. By far we've 15" above average rain fall. Ugh!

It was a beautiful overcast, cool, breezy morning today. My husband and I went for a walk, then came home and worked in the garden. Here's our harvest for today. Several tomatoes (Homestead 24, Pantano Romanesco, and Rutgers), one token Hill Country Red okra pod, and 3 Royal Burgundy beans. We harvested a whole slew (3 lbs) of Royal Burgundy beans a few days ago, too.

Rita -regarding your honeybees.

Honeybees also gather water to cool their home (hive).

They also make something called propolis which is a "bee glue". You don't have to know why they collect stuff to make glue. It's just something they do, and is a necessary part of their existence.

You said you sprayed with Neem. Did you spray the under sides of the leaves, too? If so, I suspect they were collecting the oil to make it into propolis. They will collect any kind of sticky-stuff to make bee-glue, including some stuff you don't even want to know about!

As you probably already know, I used to be an apiarist in my younger days!

The summer challenges have begun. First, I lost my second crop of corn to corn worm -- a huge infestation. (Never saw any on the first batch.) Then, my parsley just up and died dead as a doornail for no reason. Next, I started losing sunflowers to borers. Then the pickleworm moved in and oh boy, what a massive infestation I have this year. They are in everything: melons, tomatos, cukes, zukes... I haven't looked at my summer squash yet. I'm losing about half the crop each day. As the sunflowers have died off, the squash bugs have moved to the squash and tomatoes and are doing damage there.

Oh yeah, and one of my apple trees had to be staked up because it could no longer hold itself upright for some reason. I get to dig both of them up this winter and replant it with a permanent support system this time. My rootstock is probably M7A which means they probably won't be able to support themselves and are deigned for trellising, but it's too late to trellis them. Those are big digging jobs for 7' tall trees!

On the other hand, the garlic crop was excellent and I've have a good run of cukes this year (60ish pounds), but they are about played out. I pulled two of the zuke plants out this AM but the 3rd is still blooming so I left it even though it looks really ragged

Tomatoes are starting to come in in earnest. I harvested over 25 pounds today -- most of it from the variety I am breeding from the 2012 seed, so those plants are performing well. None of the toms from my strain have shown any blight this year, but the Brandywine and Cherokee Purple has (only a little though.)

I need to get some more fall crops in the ground this afternoon. Every year about this time I think fondly of how easy fall and winter crops are!

Nicole - so sorry to learn about your "bug" problems.

I had a bad, buggy summer last year, so have left the garden to it's own resources this summer in the hopes they'll all starve!

Earlier, I was watching a cardinal pecking away at something out there - bet he was enjoying a few bugs.

Yes, I always spay under the leaves with the Neem but I spray the tops also. I just never saw bees doing what they were doing yesterday.

Stephanie, great looking tomatoes!

Planted snap peas today for a fall crop. Not as many as I do in spring but enough for now.