2010 Garden Review Part II

2010 REVIEW
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BIGGEST HITS
Salad Bush Hybrid Cucumber - Excellent production and flavor. A must-have, compact cucumber. Vine are about 3’ long. Has yet to disappoint me like other varieties. Canned TONS of pickles using these (not picklers) and they were excellent. Maintained a pleasing texture and crispiness with canning. Seed is a bit pricier and has to be ordered online, but it will definitely be returning next season.
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Reliance Grape- Newly planted in the beginning of the season. Very vigorous, disease resistant. Very happy with its growth so far.
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Apache Blackberry- I planted one in the beginning of the season. It is an upright variety, healthy, and growing vigorously. Branches topped at around 4 feet to encourage laterals. Fruits on previous years growth.
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Red Norland potato- Good production and flavor in container. Beautiful color. Will be back.
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Russet Burbank potato- Very large potatoes in ground. Good flavor and great production. Rough skin. Will be replaced with Yukons.
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Yukon Gold potato- Good production and flavor in containers. Will be the staple potato here next season. Love it!
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Golden Acre Cabbage- Small cabbage that produces quickly. Very easy to grow with great flavor. Successful in Spring and Fall. Will be back.
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Lady Emma Hamilton rose- An excellent David Austin, disease resistant shrub rose. I don’t spray, so this is important. The heavy humidity didn’t take a toll until very late in the season. A light spotting of black spot. No big deal. New foliage is a gorgeous burgundy which sets of the deep apricot-colored blooms. A stunning rose. Branches form a nicely rounded shape. Heavy bloomer. Strong, citrus scent. Love it!
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Scarlet Nantes carrots- I could place these in either category. Last year these were fantastic. Sweet, large, they froze well. A huge hit. This year, well…black swallowtail butterflies used the to lay their eggs on. They would devour all of the young, supple foliage. I would bring them indoors and raise the cats…picking off the young foliage myself to feed them. Although the plants kept pumping out fresh leaves, it took a huge toll on the size of the carrot. Would I have changed a thing? Not for a second. We may not be eating homegrown carrots this winter, but we have lots of great memories of the butterflies we raised and released.
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Sterling onion- from Dixondale Farms. Large, white onion. Storing well so far. Only a few
Began to spoil. Great flavor.
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Red Zeppelin onion- from Dixondale Farms- still storing well, very strong flavor. Lovely red rings.
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Copra onion- from Dixondale Farms, yellow, long storer, small size, but weather was quite dry.
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BIGGEST MISSES - A large part of these varieties landing in the “misses” list was due to the weather. Record heat. Drought. High humidity. Not exactly a recipe for success. Another huge factor was the soil mix that was filling the raised beds. I used Mel’s Mix. A combination of 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 vermiculite. The peat portion was detrimental to many of my plants because it refused to stay moist or remoisten despite repetitive, deep waterings. My recommendation. DON’T USE MEL’S MIX. Half of the soil in these beds will be removed and mixed into spots with heavy clay soil. The other half will stay in the beds and get mixed with my existing clay soil to help it retain water and nutrients better. With that said, here were the biggest misses:
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Spirit Hybrid Pumpkins - All three plants succumbed to borers early in the season. Willing to try this shorter-vined pumpkin one more time next season.
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Black Beauty Squash- I must be the only one that has yet to grow a successful squash. Of the two I planted, one was eaten by rabbits. The other….just barely hung onto life until the drought hit. Then died. Not willing to save space and try it again. I like zucchini bread, but not that much. I’ll just ask for one or two from my in-laws. They can’t get rid of their fast enough.
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Serendipity Corn- Bicolor, synergistic. Started out so impressive, but it was impossible to get the peat in Mel’s mix within the raised bed to moisten. Would try again. The few ears produced were filled out well with excellent flavor.

The Beauties and the Uglies

I had yet another fun discovery last night. As I was checking on my new friend before going to bed I noticed something interesting on the fennel. A swallowtail egg! This morning the kids and I went out and bought a 10 gallon fish tank and reptile cover for them. The kids found sticks and we placed the fennel plant with the egg and cat on it within their temporary me.Here is a better picture of the little guy. He is significantly larger than when I went to bed last night. That's pretty cool.
The monster gourd that has traveled over 30 feet up and partially down my American Holly has started developing quite a few gourds with some interesting mottling. Anyone know what kind of gourds these are? There are two in this picture. One on the bottom left and one on the upper right.
Squash Vine Borers! Hate them! Slowly they have been burrowing their way into the vines.
This is probably the only thing in my garden that I've been impatiently waiting to get ugly. My Russet Burbank potatoes. I might be digging these up this weekend. They are finally dying back. I'm not expecting a great yield though. I've been bad about watering them during the dry, hot summer.
My three Salad Bush cucumbers plants. The leaves and newest cukes are starting to turn yellow. I can't complain though. They produced an excellent harvest!
Hot and dry summers are not a friend to corn. Here is what I've been finding lately. Extremely poorly pollinated corn. I tried to hand pollinate, but I couldn't collect any pollen. The multiple heat waves were too much for them. Only the first couple of years turned out well...those that pollinated before the extreme weather hit. Next season I'll be planting an early variety of corn instead. I'm thinking a Mirai or other synergistic variety. Any suggestions on an early sweet corn?

Quarky Corn

I was out grabbing a few ears of corn and found an ear with a strange growth on it. It had a spongy exterior that looked like styrofoam. The interior looked like dirt and roots. I'm not sure if it is some sort of fungus or a nest for a pest. Anyone know what it is?

Todays Harvest and More

My 2 year old daughter and I picked these tomatoes this morning. A combination of Box Car Willies, Celebrity, Cherokee Green, and Sun Golds. As you can see, my daughter can't keep her hands off of them. She ate almost half of these shortly after taking this picture. That's my girl!
"Shell" garden- Blue Lake pole beans along the walls, Salad Bush cukes, a volunteer marigold, and th remainder of my onion plants.

The corn started to tassel, but there were no ears on the stalks. I wasn't sure where the corn pops up. Now I know. There are two ears developing from between the leaves and stalk. Pretty cool.

Below are my sunflowers. Looks like something really finds the leaves tasty.

Most of my onion harvest. I think I pulled some of them too soon. The leaves had fallen over and had some yellowing on the tips. Oops. This was my first season growing onions, so I'm still learning.

Weekly Garden Update

On the 15th, I posted a bunch of veggie pictures. I thought it would be fun to post pictures of them every seven days to show how quickly, or slowly, they are growing.
Serendipity CornSalad Bush Cucumbers and Blue Lake Pole Beans
Mixed Gourds on the left, Baby Bear Pumpkins quickly climbing up the right.

Vegetables in the Garden

Tango celery - Harvested it too late last season. It turned hard and bitter. Unfortunately, it was ready when I wasn't. I'm ready this season. It already has harvestable stalks that I can use.
Salad Bush hybrid cucumber- Excellent variety. I've always had to order seed, but it is worth it. It stays quite compact with vines 3-4' long. Excellent flavor and very high yields. It is pumping out flowers. This is a real winner for containers or in the ground. My favorite cuke!

Russet Burbank, Yukon Gold, and a store bought potato used for seed. They are in 3 gallon containers from some shrubs I purchased last season. Behind them are my two composters. To the right is my new Black and Blue salvia plant to help attract some hummingbirds. In the front, long container are some strawberry plants recently purchased that will go into one of my 3'x3' raised beds in the fall.

Russet Burbank potato flowers. I hear that when the flowers bloom it's a good time to sneak out some new potatoes. I'm waiting until they get bigger.

Garlic varieties: Chesnok Red, Silver Rose, Killarney Red, Music, Extra German Hardy, Spanish Roja. They are getting close to harvest time. The foliage is just starting to die back. My Tango celery is in the same bed along with one lonely strawberry plant and some freshly planted carrots.

Mixed Gourds (the first three) and two Baby Bear Pumpkins climbing my new PVC and rebar trellis. Empress of India nasturtium and a self-sown marigold line the front.

Simpson Curled Lettuce

This is my "shell" garden, since I designed it in the shape of a shell. In contains two tomatoes (Isis Candy and Hillbilly) in the far back. A Long Storage Sampler of onions from Dixondale Farms. Three Salad Bush hybrid cucumber plants spaced approximately a foot apart. There are also assorted herbs, a marigold, Empress of India nasturtiums, and one Golden Acre cabbage at the bottom of the picture.

Serendipity Corn - Planted four per square in my square foot raised bed. We'll see how this works. I consider this my experimental bed.

Corn

Last night before some storms hit I harvested the rest of the romaine lettuce. I rinsed it off, left the roots attached, and placed them in a large bowl with some water in the bottom. They have been in the refrigerator all night and look as fresh as it did last night. I wish I had thought of that before.

With the lettuce harvested, and since the spinach has bolted from the excessive heat, I planted the corn that I started two weeks ago in a 72 cell tray under grow lights. They were planted yesterday evening as the clouds from the looming storm started to arrive. They endured the storm beautifully. Only two or three had leaves that were bent over. I'm guessing squirrels since one plant was dug up. I planted them 4 per square foot. I know many of you will think I'm nuts, but I wanted to see if it really would work.