Apple Socks, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Peas and More

Apple "socks" don't work.  I ordered "nylon maggot barriers" from Territorial Seed a month or so ago.  They are supposed to create a physical barrier to coddling moth larva and apple maggot flies.  I was extra careful to snug them on really well, and instead of tucking the ends around the stem I put a twist tie.  So far I have lost 3/4 of the apples to coddling moth larva anyway.  There is no mistaking the damage they leave behind!  You can see it right through the "socks."  Next year I bring out the poisons, which I had hoped to avoid. 

"Socks" on baby apple

coddling moth damage

I picked the first lemon cucumber yesterday!  My daughter and I ate it before I remembered to take a photo!  There will be another tomorrow.  They are so good!  The taste of home grown lemon cucumbers and tomatoes can't be beat.

The tomatoes are going crazy.  Oregon Spring is in the lead if you count size of plant and number of fruit, but Big Beef was the first to form fruit.  The cherries must have hundreds of blooms! 

Oregon Spring - sorry it's sideways, they get warped if I try to rotate them and post on this blog

Super Sweet Cherry

The peas are finished.  I am disappointed in the Lilly Miller brand I planted this year.  The formed peas before the pods were big enough to harvest, and then a lot of them only had one or two peas in them.  I wanted to eat most of them as sugar snap peas, in the pod, but I didn't get nearly enough.  Last year I was giving them away!  They were new for 2013, but I think I should have used the 2012 Territorial Seed ones instead.  I am supposed to sow more in July for a fall harvest.  July?  I just pulled the other ones out! 

We have a new addition to the family!  A kitten.  He showed up on our carport last week, mewing in the heat, thirsty and extremely hungry.  Naturally we brought him inside.  I posted a Craigslist ad, and the next day found his owner.  But... between the time he got lost, and found by us, the woman had told her little boy the kitten had "gone to heaven" and had replaced him with two new kittens!  To be fair, she was told he'd been hit by a car.  But, her husband said "no way," to getting this one back. I wonder what she would have done if we had thrust him back to her?  The shelters are all full with kittens, and the county one has a respiratory infection running through the kitten kennels. So, it is unlikely he would have made it into adoption.  His name is Benny, short for Bensonmum (movie: Murder by Death). He is three months old. Edward the Goldendoodle wants to eat him.  Seriously.  It's a game of musical pets around here!

Benny - now could you put that little face out into the streets?

Late Spring Garden Update

So, it's late spring.  With weather in the 90s it is more like summer.  I don't remember much "spring" this spring.  It was cold, then it was hot.  Lots has been happening in the garden, I just haven't shared lately!  My foot is still terribly sore, so my time in the garden has been very limited, mostly just watering.

PEAS: I tore them out tonight.  They were very disappointing this year.  Was it because I used a different brand of seed?  I plan to dig in some new compost and plant some in July for a fall harvest.  They were Cascadia, which can be picked as pods, like sugar snap peas, or left to mature for pod peas.  Last year I had enough pods to share with two different neighbors, and several large bowls full that my daughter and I sat shelling. This year the pods grew full too soon.  Many of them only held a single pea.  I planted more a few weeks later, in a different bed, but they didn't do well either.  I have four small bags of frozen pods left, and one small bag of peas.  I will plant Territorial Seed next time.  Maybe the weather got too hot, too soon for them?

BEANS: No good news on this front either. I have planted in the 4 x 4 "bean bed" three times, and have yet to have the plants I hoped for. A lot of them seem deformed too.  The ones in the recycled gate bed are better, but not much.  I see no insects, so can't figure out what's wrong. 

TOMATOES: Good ol' tomatoes, I can always depend on them!  I sure hope I can figure out how to can them!  Maybe I should get a dehydrator.  I think I will have tomatoes coming out my ears!  Even the Topsy Turvy tomato is doing well. 

Big Boy (left) and Red Brandywine - June 5

Black Cherry - June 2

CUCUMBERS:  The lemon cucumbers I was worried about are taking off.  They are the ones that were leggy, so I buried most of their vines.  They are covered with blossoms and a few tiny cucumbers.  

The "mystery" plants in the compost pile are huge plants!  The ones I transplanted are getting there, but no where nearly as fast as in the compost. Are they cucumbers?  I am not so sure anymore.  The transplanted ones look like it, but the compost pile's are more squashy in looks.  Time will tell! 

Compost Pile Volunteers

What's in my compost?  

Banana peels, tea bags, over-ripe strawberries, potato peelings, apple cores, watermelon rind, over-ripe cucumbers (thus the cucumber plants!), and old tomatoes (there are a few tomato plants as well, several I have transplanted).  Then general yard clean-up, the old pea plants, leaves, grass clippings.  

The gourds are doing well, not big enough to climb the wonderful trellis on the fence my son made.  The winter squash had to be resown.  So did pumpkins and watermelon.  My "grow in manure bag" idea is a bust.  Nothing has come up after planting twice.  I see it work online. I finally put some pumpkin seeds in a large container and they are up already.  The peppers are growing, and getting tiny blossoms, some of which I am pinching off. 

STRAWBERRIES: Something is beating me to them.  Not birds.  Not slugs or snails.  I see pill and/or sow bugs, but the bait I put out isn't getting any.  I saw a few earwigs yesterday, but the bait is supposed to work on them too.  I haven't had the chance to trim off some of the runners yet, so the bed is a mess.  I did get one good harvest, as seen below. 

BLUEBERRIES: Looking good!  Draper berries are bigger, but Blue Crop plants look healthier.  I am quite pleased with the Blue Crop plants.  They are much nicer than I expected the to be since I got them "used" off Craiglist, and they originally came for Grocery Outlet. Not the sort of place I think of as quality plants, but my neighbor has a plum tree she got there, and it's loaded with fruit. 

Draper Blueberries - June 10 (I do believe they are bluer than they used to be!)

 

Blue Crop Blueberries - June 5

More Tomatoes, and Peppers at Long Last

Yes, more tomatoes. I do it every year!  I find new varieties and want to try them out.  Also, I wanted to find a small one to try out the Topsy Turvy.  So, at Walmart (which has some pretty nice plants, although not specific to my region like local nurseries carry) I got a Black Cherry tomato.  Also, two peppers, a Fajita Bell (spicy) and a Bonnie Green Bell.  "Bonnie" in the name just means it's from Bonnie's Plants, it's just a variety of green bell pepper.  I also got a pot of lemon cucumbers, with four plants growing in the pot.  I threw in a lobelia and a fuchsia too. 

Then, I stopped by the Grange Co-op  at the other end of town (near Walmart) where they have more plants than the one near me.  Oh... so many more plants!  Too bad my foot was hurting (it isn't well yet), or I could have spent much longer there than I was able to.  I got two peppers, California Wonder and Golden Summer (a yellow bell).  Also, an eggplant, Dusky.  I don't eat eggplant, but the plants even without fruit are so beautiful I like to plant them in the garden. 

The two larger peppers are in white plastic cat litter containers, the kind the company has discontinued and replaced with cardboard.  That's a shame.

Golden Summer Pepper - see the lemon cucumbers in the background?  Those are the ones that were overgrown, and now doing quite well!

The two little ones are in the recycled gate bed.  That's where the eggplant is too.

Dusky Eggplant, Fajita Bell Pepper, Bonnie Green Pepper, and the Mystery Tomato, Tom.

I put two of the lemon cucumbers in the cucumber bed, and two were left together planted in a Topsy Turvy.  I planted the Black Cherry on one too.  We'll see how they do, I have yet to see any actual upside down planters that look anything like the photos in the ads! Mostly I see dying and dead plants hanging on porches. 



Black Cherry Tomato in Topsy Turvy



Berries

Strawberries.
Boysenberries.
Raspberries.
Blueberries.

My four berry varieties! 

Strawberries: A few berries a day are ripe, but I am fighting a battle against the pill bug brigade.  Each night they eat more and more of ripe berries, then burrow into the soil beneath it.  So far I scoop them out, but I am going to have to resort to "pill bug bait." 

pill bug damage - they end up finishing the entire berry

A popular gardening blog had a feature on strawberries lately.  The writer was planting a hanging basket of strawberries, and recommended June bearers, because they "don't put out as many runners."  Well, that is just not true!  She got it completely backwards, but since it is such a popular blog, readers will be very disappointed.  June bearers are the ones that put out many, many runners.  That is why my original 20 or so plants are not a 4 x 8 bed of 50, with 12-15 off the deck, and countless others given away.  I lopped off runners just the other day, but they seem to replace themselves like Medusa's hair.

runners a few days after pruning

as you see, they are a bit too big for hanging planters!

some of last year's runners or daughter plants - they will fruit next year

The berries are larger than last year, their first crop since I bought them.  (Craigslist!)

Blueberries:  Blueberries are something I have never grown before, so the whole process, flowering, setting fruit, etc. was a complete mystery.  I expected them to form inside the little cups, but instead the outer cup part becomes the berry.  For such little bushes I think the harvest will be quite big.  The plants look much better than I expect them to also.  I did buy special acid-lovers soil, and I feed them acid-lovers food.  I got four of the five plants on Craigslist, the other is a different variety for pollination from a nursery.

Draper blueberry

 

Raspberries: Well, I only have one raspberry plant, a Meeker.  But, it is growing by leaps and bounds!  I was planning on getting more and building a bed, but then got the boysenberry starts instead.  I bought this at The Grange, no Craigslist here!  Although I have successfully avoided temptation, in that I have had many opportunities to get them there!  I may do that next year, the golden ones sound good!

 

Boysenberries: I am really excited about these berries!  I know they won't fruit this year, since these canes now growing are primocanes, the first year canes.  Next year though, I should have a wonderful harvest!  All of the "sticks" grew well, and a few are climbing the trellis by themselves.  A few have their vines going the wrong way, but I'll soon sort that out for them!  They are visibly bigger day to day.  These were free off Craigslist!  They may be Tayberries, but Boysenberries (blackberry, raspberry, loganberry cross) and Tayberries (blackberry, raspberry cross)  are basically the same thing. 

 

boysenberry primocane starting up trellis

 

All my berries are in planters or raised beds.  As mentioned before, my soil is clay and unsuitable for planting anything directly into it.  Also, even with amendments, it is soggy in the winter, and much of it is under a few inches of water.  Berries grow fine in raised beds and planters.  In fact, many of them prefer it, so long as you use special soil for berries.  This is vitally important for blueberries. 

I discovered something interesting about lettuce, and nasturtiums.  They seem to love acidic soil.  I sowed some mixed lettuce seeds and nasturtiums in the boysenberry containers, with great success.

 

 

Pretty flower of the day... newly unfurled Sunset rockrose. 

 





PEAS! and other garden updates

The peas are ready for harvest!  We got a few the other day, which I added to pasta salad. This morning I picked an entire pan full.  Good thing we all like them!

Cascadia Peas

Now, we'll be eating peas every other day.  I don't mind.  I eat them raw in the garden, they are that good!

Cascadia Peas - after harvesting May 17, 2013

The tomatoes all have blossoms, and the Brandywine has set fruit.  I pinched some off one of the Aces, the plants don't look as good as any of the others.  Next time I water I am going to add tomato food. 

Tumbler - May 17, 2013

I had to replant the pole beans.  Three came up, the rest disappeared.  The soil was too wet and cold I think.  There are Jade bush beans planted in each cinder block hole, and they are coming up.  The holes in the larger cinder blocks are just right for a single bush bean.  No sense wasting space! 

Jade Bush Bean

The lemon cucumbers are blossoming, but so far, only male flowers.  The transplanted compost pile cucs are looking good.  I am leaving a few large ones in the compost pile. 

So, the spring planting is off to a good start.  The weather this week is cooler, so it's just as well I didn't put in any peppers yet. I did buy a 4-pack at the FFA sale, but when I got them home I noticed they were covered in aphids.  Not what I wanted to bring home, so they went straight to the garbage.  Not the green waste, where they would continue to feed, the garbage can. 

On a closing note, while the iris are about done (oh, there will be two blooms on the new bed after all!), I am getting nasturtiums, snapdragons (over wintered), and roses. 

New Dawn - climbing rose May 17, 2013

Compost Pile Cucumbers

The "mystery" vegetables in the compost pile are cucumbers.  English cucumbers.  Those are the long, expensive kind my stores sell wrapped in plastic.  The burp-free kind.  The only kind I buy in fact. I threw out a rotten one a while back.  I had no idea the seeds could grow.  Since the seeds we buy are dry, I thought these green (as in not ripe green) seeds would have no chance of growing. I was so wrong! I think that a few over-ripe cherry tomatoes have started growing too. 

Cucumbers when still "mystery" plants in compost pile

Compost pile cucumbers and I think tomatoes!

I transplanted four of the biggest, healthiest cucumbers and one tomato (if that's what it is). 

The compost pile has garlic growing too.  I know where that came from.  The asparagus bed.  When I moved in garlic had overtaken the bed, and the nearby area where I planted climbing roses.  I am still digging them out. Pulling just leaves the bulb, and up they pop again. 

Lemon Cucumbers

Such a disappointment this past weekend at the FFA sale.  Last year I got lemon cucumbers that were so productive I wanted to get many more this year.  But, as one student told me, they started their seeds earlier. So, they had a few lemon cucumbers (as well as other types and some squashes) that were already vining 18" or so long.  These vines are so fragile, I was afraid they would just snap off, so I only bought one four-pack.  At least it was only $1 and I won't be upset by the cost if they die.

lemon cucumber 4-pack - see how long the vines are already?

I showed them to The Tomato Lady (see previous post) and she wondered if I was going to bury them deep, like with tomato vines.  I hadn't thought of that solution!  So, I dug a trench, laying the vines down them with the ends up the trellis.  They look okay so far.  I do want more than four plants though. 

 

trench for cucumber vines

 

 

I planted half their vines in the trench and hooked the rest onto the trellis