Gardening 2019...

[Phase2]

Hope everyone's gardens are coming along now. My two raised beds are doing well. I'm harvesting a lot of salad greens, the cucumber plants are growing like crazy and everything else is coming along. The raspberries are looking good and I expect to be eating the first berries in less than a week.

I want to share a hint with any brassica (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussel sprout) and many fruit tree growers. I love brassicas, but had all-but given up on growing them due to extensive damage from cabbage moths. Those pretty little white moths fluttering around your garden create caterpillars that love to chew up brassicas. I grow organically and try to minimize chemicals, but didn't have a good solution to help those plants. I recently learned about an excellent organic solution called BT (Thuricide Bacillus Thuringiensis) which is a solution containing a specific bacteria. You spray that solution on any plants vulnerable to attack by moth larvae (cabbage moths, gypsy moths, tent caterpillars, etc) and the bacteria kill the caterpillars without leaving toxic residues anywhere. This is my first year using it, so I can't claim personal success yet, but the Amazon reviews are excellent for those products. Don't spray indiscriminately as it also kills butterfly caterpillars.

 

[COOPADUP]

Green beans are barely above water. Tomato plants are thriving though.
In hindsight I should have planted rice paddies.

 

[eldirector]

We didn't plant ANYTHING this year. Too wet to even get out there. Wife lost a shoe more than once trying. I'm tempted now to pull some weeds, turn over some mud with the shovel, and throw down some cucumber and zucchini seeds. Really too late for much, I think.

We do have a volunteer pumpkin from last Halloween. It is doing great. The blackberry is spreading like wildfire and blooming like crazy. Last year's onions are mostly dead and rotted. A few look like they survived the deluge, but are puny.

Might even do a couple of pots on the deck, just to have SOMETHING fresh this year. Oh, well...

 

[Expat]

eldirector, depends on what you like, you can plant green beans for a late summer, fall crop right now. greens, the same way, you guys are further south so, i would guess fall green planting time wouldn't even be for another month or moe. I love late turnips, kale, etc. Fall beans often do better than summer because the bugs are dying off.

 

[eldirector]

eldirector, depends on what you like, you can plant green beans for a late summer, fall crop right now. greens, the same way, you guys are further south so, i would guess fall green planting time wouldn't even be for another month or moe. I love late turnips, kale, etc. Fall beans often do better than summer because the bugs are dying off.

Didn't even think about beans. We would normally do an early and a late batch. Suppose we can still do the "late" one just fine.

My wife filled the boxes on the deck with flowers this year, rather than lettuce and the like. Can't eat flowers...

 

[bwframe]

Got some cauliflower rice in the freezer and made a batch of broccoli soup. Got a few spears for the freezer too.

 

[churchmouse]

We didn't plant ANYTHING this year. Too wet to even get out there. Wife lost a shoe more than once trying. I'm tempted now to pull some weeds, turn over some mud with the shovel, and throw down some cucumber and zucchini seeds. Really too late for much, I think.

We do have a volunteer pumpkin from last Halloween. It is doing great. The blackberry is spreading like wildfire and blooming like crazy. Last year's onions are mostly dead and rotted. A few look like they survived the deluge, but are puny.

Might even do a couple of pots on the deck, just to have SOMETHING fresh this year. Oh, well...

We just did Cucumbers/onions/maters and taters. Nothing beyond that. Everything is doing really well.

 

[bwframe]

I have another gauge nearby to measure daily rain amounts or how much "a rain" gave us. This one tracks the weekly rain tally, it gets dumped out on Sunday. Had to be dumped today (Thursday) this week. 5 1/2" of rain, so far this week...

 

[spencer rifle]

Getting peas, rhubarb, broccoli, spinach, kale and radishes. Beans and corn have to be replanted, as the seeds rotted. Extra work trying to keep the potato beetles off the tomatoes and potatoes.

 

[COOPADUP]

It appears next week may dry out for a few days.
Will have to review what survived and may reseed.
I sincerely hope the sweet corn is available later in August.
Summer without Indiana corn would be terrible.

 

[Expat]

I will say this, my snow peas absolutely love this weather. I have never picked as many as this year... i have two big grocery bags in the fridge... may have to try to pawn some off on the kids...

 

[bwframe]

Found some onions in the weed patch...

 

[bwframe]

Strange looking cantaloupes. Hmm...

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Strange looking cantaloupes. Hmm...

Just think... you can carve them in October and have Jack-o-Loupes!

 

[bwframe]

It's Reaper time...

Finally got one of this year's asparagus seeds to germinate after numerous tries. Anyone have knowledge of the proper way to get better germination success on asparagus?

 

[Phase2]

So, you are saying that planting it with a body for fertilizer is having only limited success?

Sorry, can't say. Looks like you have a good seed mixture there. I used root sets to get my asparagus patch started.

What kind of peppers are those? Look dangerous.

 

[NKBJ]

Does compost really get hot enough here in Indiana to kill the seeds in the mix?

 

[bwframe]

So, you are saying that planting it with a body for fertilizer is having only limited success?

Sorry, can't say. Looks like you have a good seed mixture there. I used root sets to get my asparagus patch started.

What kind of peppers are those? Look dangerous.

 

[spencer rifle]

Tomatoes starting to get ripe, beans coming in, zucchini growing fast, lots of onions drying, already have an orange pumpkin, deer are eating off the tops of the bean plants that are above the fence.
Walmart potato plants are worthless.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Does compost really get hot enough here in Indiana to kill the seeds in the mix?

It surely can, if you manage it right with the right ingredients and regular mixing. I've done that in the past, but I really don't worry about it anymore. All of the weeds that I pull go into my compost regardless because I want the organic matter, even if I get weed seeds with it. I don't mix my compost much, because it's hard to do in my wire bins, so it takes a lot longer to finish.

Compost is one of those things that people over-think, and I also think that if you read all of the "Rules of Compost" that you see, it might make you think that it's just too complicated to even do. Everything that comes out of my garden goes back into it, except for tomato, potato, pepper, bean, and vine crop plants, which I burn. All of the weeds I pull and all of the waste from canning and every leaf I can get go into the compost.