SQWIBS Urban Gardening Adventure 2018

[Nan_PA_6b]

Great gardens!

[JRinPA]

I admit I am confused. Snow peas a waste? What went wrong? Weren't they mammoth melting sugar? Those did fine here in raised rows w/o watering. Let us know what went wrong and maybe find a better fit for your yard.

The last few days I pulled about 2/3 of my peas as they are spent now and the heat is coming, but I picked a whole bunch before that. For snow peas I grew Oregon Sugar Pod II, Dwarf White Sugar, Dwarf Grey, Royal Snow, and Mammoth Melting Sugar. The last was the tallest and rather late but I still have that up to save seed. For snap peas I grew Sugar Sprint, Cascadia, Sugar Ann, and Sugar Heart. Also grew Desiree Dwarf Blauwschokkers (for the 2nd and last time). Everything came in strong here, except the Sugar Sprints in my raised boxes that were frozen and drowned in March/early April, then parched since late May. Even they put out a lot under the circumstances.


Your Jalapenos look great; they are way ahead of mine. I don't think I have any set yet, though I admittedly haven't looked them over closely. Do you remember what variety they are?

[SQWIBB]

Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

Great gardens!

Thanks

[SQWIBB]

Originally Posted by JRinPA

I admit I am confused. Snow peas a waste? What went wrong? Weren't they mammoth melting sugar? Those did fine here in raised rows w/o watering. Let us know what went wrong and maybe find a better fit for your yard.

Sorry for not being more clear, the Swenson Swedish Snow Peas produced incredibly and I couldn't be more pleased, the problem was, we didn't harvest them, so they just sat there until they started to die back and I decided they were going to be better suited as mulch... such a waste.

Originally Posted by JRinPA

Your Jalapenos look great; they are way ahead of mine. I don't think I have any set yet, though I admittedly haven't looked them over closely. Do you remember what variety they are?

Jalapenos are called "Early Jalapenos"
Hoping to stuff some this weekend, I'm a little tired of eating them wrapped in bacon, going to try the Popper Recipe from Epicurious.
With a few tweaks of course!

[JRinPA]

I do have Early Jalapeno that took off faster than my Jalafuego. I'll try to look over them tonight and see if they have any peppers yet.


I see now, on page two you said the snap peas were half the size of the svenson snow peas; at the time I read that, the same was true of my mammoth, so I must have transposed that in my head.



I know how it is when you get a lot of fresh food at once, something gets missed. For me it is generally the lettuce or spinach though, NEVER THE PEAS!



Great garden, SQWIBB!

[SQWIBB]

Grow dammit! I'm hungry!!!

Since I am running out of space in my smallish yard, I started looking at my garden in cubic feet not square feet, So I have been utilizing areas above things that are already planted.




My Corno di Toro Rosso was near death yesterday, I watered it last night and this morning. This morning it looks like it bounced back slightly.
I'm not sure what happened but it looked as if it wasn't getting any water. The only thing I can figure is that the water is channeling through the soil as the soil settles in the hugelkultur beds due to decomposition of the material below. The area is probably drying out too quickly due to air pockets and the water channeling. The roots are not extensive so it may not be reaching water.



I tweaked my irrigation lines and put the timer on for every day instead of every other day until I can get some rain water collected.


What I have been doing recently is when a hole opens up due to settling, I try to stuff it with kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, pieces of wood, grass trimmings, whatever organic matter I can get my hands on.

Yesterday after work I soaked down all the raised beds and yard, I really soaked down the Hugelkultur beds to dissipate larger air pockets, as I was doing this my son said, "dad its supposed to rain", I said, "yeah but there is only a 10% chance of rain and my luck it wont rain". Guess what it rained so hard my back yard flooded and my rain barrels are completely full.

[JRinPA]

We finally got rain too, 6/10th of an inch in the gauge this morning. It was pretty violent and woke me up about 4 am. I have two 55 gal that hold about 50 with overflow. The backyard one fills with 1/4" of rain and the driveway one fills with 2/10th. Doesn't take much, but they have not been filled since that 24 hour, 1.6" soak a few weeks back.


If you need to fill vertical space, get some okra in there!

[SQWIBB]

Been wanting to grow okra forever.
Just tossed a few seeds in some spots to see what happens.
Where did you think I should put them?

[ginger2778]

Okra has a strong deep tap root. Needs space to develop well, but will load you up in no time if you keep trimming off the finger sized fruit. Cut and come again growth habit.

[SQWIBB]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Okra has a strong deep tap root. Needs space to develop well, but will load you up in no time if you keep trimming off the finger sized fruit. Cut and come again growth habit.

Thank you. I just tossed them anywhere I could find a spot, I dont expect much but we will see!

[SQWIBB]

June 25th -28th

• Rutgers

• This is my neighbors yard, this is where I removed all of his hemlock shrubs? Anyhow I was afraid he would spray poison everywhere so I planted him a garden (per request from his wife), Basil, Eggplants, Tomatoes, marigolds, sunflowers and White clover. I go over there once a week and clean out the weeds and pinch the basil. I love my neighbors and have no problem taking care of a garden for them, plus it keeps the poison bottle use at a minimum.

July 7th

• Not a whole lot going on in SQWIBS garden, I planted quite a few Okra seeds in various spots, trimming some plants here and there, trench composting quite a bit, working on my Rainwater Catchment/Diverting system. Things are going pretty good, I am battling some kind of Fungus on my Box Car willie plant, removed my Cape Gooseberry from the front Hugelkultur bed and am having some Issue with my Matts Wild Cherry.
  

• I'm a novice with Bee Balm, it go real leggy then flopped, I now know I need to cut it back in early spring. I'm leaving it be for now because its been bringing in humming birds.

• I'm real happy with my "Mini Guilds, this one has Maypops, Blueberries, Comfrey, Hollyhocks (that I haven't seen yet) and I just planted some Okra seeds, but I dont expect them to do anything, let alone sprout. When I trim around the yard a bit I toss it in this guild, this is two of the turtles favorite spot.
  

• This guild wasn't really planned, it just happened, there s a rosemary in there that needs to be moved to the front, also Blackberry, Artichoke, marigolds, some weed that I've been using as a chop and drop. I like to leave all this fill in because its perfect relaxation spots for the turtles.

• Here is a video of a poor attempt at capturing a hummingbird on video, however the video does give you an idea of how things are doing in my garden.

https://youtu.be/OOu31fbkQCc

[mannalon]

Your neighbors are very lucky!

[SQWIBB]

Originally Posted by mannalon

Your neighbors are very lucky!

I am lucky as well, thank you.

[SQWIBB]

The July 7th posted above is wrong, should be July 3rd. (post#86)





July 7th

• I got a little done this weekend, Friday after work I started digging out the pathway stones and a few inches of soil, we decided to put in a mini rain garden here. When it rains the water runs down this path and onto the patio towards the drain, I'm trying to catch some water and channel the water to the drain a little better.

• Saturday, Laura and I stopped at HD to Look at some flowers and once there decided to grab these. Our game plan was to look at what HD had then go to a nursery, but I was actually more impressed with HD's choices, thats pretty sad!

• I had Sam help me out, after all the rocks and soil were dug out I cut the lawn and had Sam rake the grass clippings in the rain garden, I then topped with a few small bags of peat moss and 5 gallon bucket of my compost and about a 1/4 cup of Blood Meal. I then mixed everything up with a few inches of the clay soil. Sam planted the new plants for me then mulched the top. The marigolds got beat up a bit when I separated them, I had quite a few up on the hill all growing in a clump. My only concern is this area gets 5 hours of sun from afternoon till evening, I'm hopping its enough. I tested the garden out with a 55 gallon drum of water 90 percent full. I pumped the water out in about 10 minutes and it caught at least half of the water before it went towards the drain.

I battled some Aphids on my Table Dainty plants but it appears I am loosing, Tried neem oil with a few drops of dish detergent, I guess I'm gonna have to go out and spray the leaves every other day. I also have been keeping up on my Zucchini plants with Bt spraying the stem and soil surface real good, maybe 2 or 3 times a week.

• I also wanted to try setting up another trellis from the deck. I want to grow Honeydew here next year, as a test I set it up and tossed in a few Cantaloupe plants from HD, This trellis is removable.

• I had these stakes left over from when I purchased some landscape edging for diverting the rain water on the patio, these stake the bottom of the trellis nicely.

Here are a few shots from the garden.

• The pepper plant bounced back. To be honest, I'm a bit confused as to what it is, I had it labeled as a Tabasco but I think it was replaced with a Corno di Toro Rosso?
  

• Turtle Guild (that's what I call it now, they love it here!)

• Artichoke, you really got to watch these guys, they start to open very quickly, I just got this guy in time.

• I am really impressed with the Spaghetti Squash plants, I think there are at least 6 Squash so far.

• This is what happens when the pepper is bigger than the plant, sunscald.

• These Poblanos are earmarked for some Chili Rellenos, woohoo!
  

Food break.... we got to enjoy a few of our tomatoes and I had asked Laura to make me some "jalapeno poppers", but there was a mis-communication... my fault. I sent her a list of ingredients and included Jalapenos in the list, so the poppers are not from the garden (sad face).

• It's pretty awesome when you are having a discussion with your spouse on where to go out for lunch and you both agree you would rather eat at home knowing there's some home grown veggies waiting.

• This morning I got a little surprise, my Koi pond was half drained, looks like I'm gonna be late for work today! The veggie filter outlets got plugged and the water was running out of the veggie filter underneath the pond, I usually have the pump that feeds the veggie filter higher up in the main pond just for this reason, somehow it had dropped to the bottom of the main pond. I fixed the problem and added half the water back, I'll top it off tonight and tomorrow so I don't shock the fish.

[JRinPA]

I wrote reply about "okra, where" a long while back but I don't see the post.


Seeing that giant marconi on your pics makes me wonder if that is what I've been growing. Twice I kept seeds from roadside stand peppers, basically sweet, but shaped like that. I didn't buy them, and knowing as little as I do about peppers, I figured pablano from the shape and lack of heat.

Okra is great eating but some people don't like the spines, so that could be an issue for locating them. I grow clemson spineless and never really have any problems. They do form a deep taproot and basically turn woody like a tree by late summer, so a deep bed. I have some that are starting to put pods on now even though they are still short. Last year mine ended up about 8-9 ft and it almost seemed a waste not having a crop under them for fall.

The earliest okra in this year I interspersed as 3-4 week seedlings where ever there was space, so I have some next to cauliflower where two of the original seven survived and are now forming heads. More are interspersed with broccoli, and a few days ago I trimmed the broccoli back a little extra to let the okra up through. Over at my aunt's I put some in the corners of a new raised bed that is squash on one side and lettuce/spinach rows on the other. I would have liked to get it in earlier but it just hadn't been that hot anyway. Also I just threw my last transplants into the 5x9 garlic bed I cleaned out last week, and they look okay.

My main row for okra this year went in the 33' snow pea row. First I put seed in and watered in late May but none ever germinated, so I started another round of transplants in June. They were a couple weeks old when the peas were done. So, I cut the peas, pulled out the trellis, topped off with a little more compost, wet down, tamped down, and laid bio mulch. The next day I transplanted a double row of okra about 18" spacing, hooped and recovered. That is more space than I have given them before. I had to hose through the cover a few times but still have not uncovered them. I hope they're doing well. They should have loved this heat and we finally got rain.