Rock Wall Garden

My rock wall garden is across the road from the house. Yes that is a road and not a driveway. Our road is tiny and there is no turnaround at the end. It contains some of my fruit trees and my strawberry plants. I'd trimmed most of them earlier. And I transplanted some runners into it. A few died, but most of them are growing.

The last segment however I didn't get to. Its runners were taking over the back near the trees and were draping down the front of the wall. It looked really nice, but that is a lot of energy the plants are putting out for nothing. The runners can't grow in the road. And I can't protect the strawberry plants if they get too close to the back (the squirrels will eat every one before it ripens if they aren't protected). So I spent some time cutting off runners and ripping out the ones that had rooted. I did save a couple rooted starts to replace the ones that had died. Hopefully they will make it and I won't have to buy new plants next year.

For now the strawberries are under control. They will send out more runners that need cutting back, but hopefully I won't let it get quite as bad.

Not all of the rock wall garden has fruit. At the very start of it I like to put flowers. The bees and hoverflies love it. And it is a nice entrance to the yard. My problem is the size of the zinnias. I want ones that get about 16"-18" tall. I grew some last year that were supposed to get to 18" they topped my neighbor's three foot fence. At that height, I have to stake or cage them somehow or they fall over and break and look ratty. I was hoping the 12" ones would get taller than their packet height. One seems to be, but most are very short. They really don't fill out the space well enough and have trouble competing with the sweet alyssum which I keep having to cut back. I wish I could find a good medium height one that had the best of both worlds.

And on the other side of that fence are my neighbor's tomatoes. He grows them there every year. His pride and joy. Yesterday I was congratulating him on his first red tomato. He looked shocked and wanted to know where it was. I could see it from my side, but he couldn't see it through the foliage at his side. So I directed him to it. He held it up and said, "This is the reason we do all that work". I miss the joy of the first tomato. I have my other firsts, but tomatoes are the queen. So many people will grow tomatoes even if they grow nothing else. The difference in flavor between a homegrown tomato and a store bought one is huge.

A Very Nice Morning

Sweet potatoes vines that need to be tucked back into their beds

We have been having such hot and oppressively humid weather recently. I was sweating even when I went out early in the morning to do garden chores. But this morning it broke. The temperatures dropped as did the humidity. At 58F I even had to wear a sweater. I love mornings like this.

First corn succession starting to silk

I'm sure the corn prefers it a little hotter. I've been shaking the plants each morning to help pollinate the ears. Often I see swarms of of some kind of black bee on the tassels, but so far this year I've only see one or two.

It was also nice to see the other summer crops coming along well. These will be my first cucumbers in a day or so. Yesterday I picked my first small zucchini and three beans. Yes just three, but they will add up over time as more start to flower and produce. Remember only two plants survived the groundhog attack and the rest that were replanted have to catch up.

The lettuce hasn't been doing so well with the hot weather. The plants have been bolting before they size up. Some that have sized up are bitter. I ate my last salad last night. I don't know if I'll get to have other any time soon or not. The onions should have been picked already, but I never needed them. I'm now using the sweet onions as they bulb up.

Winter savory is in the upper left

This morning I picked and dried winter savory for the first time ever. I've tried in past years, but this is the first year it has done well. I love the scent. It is kind of like a lemony oregano.

I also picked some chard. I blanched about a pound this morning to put in the fridge for meals for the next few days.

While picking I noticed that some of the stems had spots on them. I've never seen this before. It only seems to be affecting the stems, and I don't eat the stems. I don't know if I should be worried about it or not.

Another thing I noticed was some leaf miners in the amaranth. They have attacked the green leafed ones, but not the red ones yet. I don't know if they are worth covering or not. Amaranth is a new crop for me. If the damage is small, I'll just pick off those leaves. If they damage most of the leaves, I'll have to cover them. I'm not growing these for grain, but for eating the leaves, so the leaves matter. Since my first carrot bed was starting to come up and one section of amaranth is by the carrots, I covered both of them at the same time. I'll leave the other amaranth section open and see how it does. A new crop always requires a bit of learning about how to grow it well.

It was just a lovely morning. I hope the low humidity lasts for a while.

Pulling the Carrots and Planting the Brassicas

I remember a post not long ago that was entitled "Pulling the Cabbage Bed and Planting the Carrots". I have two brassica beds in the spring that turn into carrot beds for the fall. And one carrot bed in the spring that turns into a brassica bed in the fall. I pick to do two carrot beds in the fall as carrots are great storage crops. And I like the two brassica beds in the spring because they produce so quickly so they get the produce flowing when I need it most.

First we will talk about the problems with the carrots. If you remember this bed was attacked pretty hard by the cutworms. They took down or hurt about a quarter of my seedlings. I planted the seedlings after last year's mustard crop to try to keep down the nematode damage. As you can see from the photo above, that wasn't particularly successful. I found though that the Nelson carrots were pretty immune to it, while the Mokums were hit harder. I'll still grow the Mokums, but I might make the bed more Nelson heavy next year.

Split carrot

In addition, Mokums are prone to splitting. There weren't a lot, maybe five or so. And the Nelsons had about three. Not too bad. I was also starting to find some carrot fly damage. If it was at the tip I just broke it off and put it in my waste bin. No need to take it in. Most of the damage was at the tip. I keep the bed covered to keep out the flies, but I have to keep the carrots weeded or they will get overwhelmed. That gives the flies a chance to get in. Not much of one, but enough for some small damage. Interestingly enough after the bed was harvested and the row cover removed, it called in every carrot fly in the vicinity. The soil was just swarming with them. Without a row cover, they would be pretty sad. Though I know if I time the harvest just right in late June, I can pick out in the open without too much damage yet. Now is way too late to pick like that though, so a row cover is essential.

Like most of my pickings, I like to clean things up outside to keep the dirt out of the house. One of my favorite garden and kitchen tools (it does duel duty) is my big enamel washtub. It really helps when you have a big harvest. The washing took a while and my back was getting sore.

So much for the negatives. Lets look at the good stuff. This was the largest carrot. It was a Nelson carrot.

And this was the harvest. This has been the best spring ever for carrots despite the issues. I harvested just under 30 pounds this spring. Wow. Last year was 19 pounds. The big question is why. Part of it is having the right variety for the season. In past springs I'd been growing SugarSnax and Mokum. SugarSnax is a terrible spring carrot. If you don't want it to taste bitter in the summer, you have to pick it early before it gets really hot. But it is a longer season carrot, so it just can't size up in that time. Nelson is a great spring/summer carrot. It tastes good even with the heat, and it sizes up well in the time allotted to it.

The other reason for the increase in yield, is not from anything I did. We might have had a late start to the spring, but it was a very sunny and warmer than normal spring. We didn't get a lot of rain (I watered a lot which is unheard of in spring), but sunshine was in abundance. Often in spring we have cool overcast drizzly days. Not this spring. So Mother Nature was kind to me this year.

Storing such a large amount of carrots (I picked 20 pounds in this batch) requires space. So I cleaned out my vegetable drawer and used that. I fit all those carrots together like a puzzle. I covered it with a damp cloth and some plastic as it will keep them crispy longer. I tried my best, but they still didn't all fit.

So I made up a basket of carrots and my largest cabbage and took it to my townhouse mates. I'm sure they will enjoy them. I would have given them the cabbage earlier, but they were out of town. Now that they are back they can help me with my abundance.

Lunch: pastured eggs over some leftover quinoa and herbs, with some cooked carrots (I like my carrot sticks partially cooked), chard, and a little sauerkraut

And what did I have for lunch? Well carrots of course. Yum. I think this harvest will have no trouble lasting for the two months it will take to grow the next batch. Well at least if I don't go crazy with them.

After lunch I decided it was cool enough to plant the brassicas. I put in six Michihili cabbage, four Golden Acre cabbage, thirteen kohlrabi, and a few rows of Oasis turnips. When I put the row cover on I trapped about a million little carrot flies. Better there than anywhere else I guess.

Spraying the Sprouts

The other day I noticed signs of aphids on my Brussels sprouts. All of the brassicas will get them if given enough time in the garden. I might have swarms of hoverflies, wasps, and preying mantises in my garden, but I cover the brassicas to keep out the dreaded white butterfly. So all those beneficial insects don't do me any good when I keep them out.

Get off my sprouts!

So I have to spray. I use liquid soap to kill them. Dr. Bronners is my current soap of choice in the house, so I just use it in the garden too. I used a quarter cup per gallon. I could go as far as one more tablespoon, but we will see how this dilution works. To work, you have to totally cover all the aphids, which means getting to the underside of the leaves where most of them are.

My old sprayer was failing, so I got a new one this year. I like that it is smaller - one gallon as opposed to two, but my last one had an angled sprayer which made getting under the leaf so much easier. This one does not. So I have to lift each leaf to get to the insects. While I was at it, I checked the broccoli, which is the only other brassica that will stick around all summer long. I found some on one leaf, which I sprayed, but the rest seemed clean. For one leaf I could probably just wipe them off. It is what I do for the growing point of my espaliered apples. I just squish them with my fingers.

I also tested the soap spray on the raspberries just to make sure they don't mind the soap. They were just fine the next day. Mites are hurting the poor things. If I have extra spray next time I do the Brussels sprouts, I'll spray the raspberries too. I'm not as worried about the mites as I am about the aphids. The aphids will spread and infest every sprout if I'm not careful. They make it inedible. The mites will slow my raspberry production down, but mites aren't big pests here as we tend to be wet.

I'm hoping I won't have to spray the broccoli again. I found one of my myriad preying mantises and put him under the broccoli row cover. I hope they eat aphids, but what are the odds it will eat all the spiders first? Mantids aren't very discriminating when it comes to eating.

My Brussels sprouts were also trying to burst out of their cover. So I sewed up a bigger one for them. If this gets too small they are out of luck. I don't have supports that are taller, but the cover is so light it shouldn't matter. The cover is nice and loose and the sprouts could push it up another foot if they want.

Harvest Monday, 13 July 2015

Lets start with the fruit this time. I harvested my gooseberries and my pink currants. I made jam out of the gooseberries and froze the currants. I'm slowly collecting all the currants as I'll make them into jam too. But each bush ripens at a different time, so I have to slowly collect them. I've also eaten some of those currants fresh. The pink ones are my favorite ones for eating out of hand. The red ones are too tart for me to eat straight.

The big harvest this week was the cabbages. I harvested over 10 pounds. None of the heads are huge, which is fine. I have trouble enough getting through one head at a time. Coleslaw is my favorite thing to make with it. Luckily it keeps well so in a couple of weeks when I'm harvesting mostly zucchini and cucumbers I'll get to eat the cabbage too.

The last kohlrabi was picked. It keeps pretty well too. I've mostly been enjoying my kohlrabi as fermented pickles and also fairly plain. I love them cut into sticks then steamed and cooled. I like them raw too, but slightly cooked is my favorite. I've picked a decent amount of turnips, but they are pretty badly damaged. Still worth cleaning up and eating though.

The kale was picked and pulled, so now it is just my chard for summer greens until the amaranth picks up. I didn't pick chard this week as I didn't feel I needed it. I'll need to do that soon or it will out grow its row cover.

I'm still picking from the apiaceae bed - fennel, parsley, and celery. And the lettuce is still growing. Though I've tossed some of it that was bitter (not shown). I have a feeling after our last heat wave more will have to be tossed. I just hope I can harvest something this coming week. The rosemary was picked out of desperation. I used the last of my dried rosemary from last year. I needed more for my rosemary bread. Since I'm gluten free, my husband is stuck eating like that too and he loves the rosemary bread. I do have a lot of rosemary in the garden right now. But it needs to get bigger so I can get a decent harvest to dry enough for the whole winter. But what I picked will tide me over.

I've been picking the Walla Walla onions as they have been getting bigger. I'm pretty disappointed in them so far though. "Big" is being pretty small this year. Dixondale sent some pretty crappy starts for them this year (the other onion varieties they sent were good). Starts are supposed to be around pencil width. I got plenty that were about 1/8" thick which isn't big enough to make a good bulb. But I'll use what I get. Two of them were used to make some onion powder. I used the last bit up from last year, so I needed more. I'll have to do it again later in the year, but these ought to hold me for a couple of months.

And last but not least are my carrots. I so love carrots. I have to keep myself from eating them at every meal or they will all be gone before the fall carrots come in. I'll probably pick the rest of the bed next week to get it ready for the fall cabbages. Hopefully I'll have cleared up some space in the fridge that is being used by my greens.

I was taking a look at some of the previous years' harvest tallies and comparing them to this year. Last year was my best year ever in the garden and I'm about 50 pounds ahead of those totals. I could still fall short this year. We have had some cool nights at times that slow down the melons and sweet potatoes. The melons this year are struggling more, but they might catch up. We will see. 2013 was my worst year ever in the garden and I'm 100 pounds ahead of those numbers. In 2012 we had the year without winter and I planted in February (remember this year the ground wasn't unfrozen until April). I'm about 15 pounds behind that year. I'm not surprised that that was the best spring ever in the garden. 2011 was the first year of this garden, and I'm about 100 pounds ahead so far this year. So all in all the spring crops have done well. I still have carrots to pick, but that is the last of the spring beds.

• Alliums, 1.09 lbs
• Broccoli, 0.31 lbs
• Carrots, 3.33 lbs
• Greens, 18.68 lbs
• Herbs, 2.13 lbs
• Roots, 2.84 lbs
• Weekly total, 28.38
• Yearly total, 211.16 lbs, $410.50

• Fruits
• Gooseberries, 5.92 lbs
• Currants, 2.83 lbs
• Fruit Yearly total, 36.25 lbs

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

This and That

Cappuccino Rudbeckia

Most of what I do in the garden is never recorded. Deadheading some flowers here. Pulling some weeds there. Trellising, tying up, harvesting, pruning. So many little chores that don't take very long. But I'm out in the early morning to get them all done before the heat hits.

Prairie Splendor Echinacea

Since my perennial bed around the peach trees is new this year, I've been enjoying seeing what the new flowers look like as they bloom. I have the above two right next to each other. I think I'll have to fix that in future years. Both are beautiful, but they really don't go well together. The Rudbeckia would be much better off by another pale yellow echinacea that I have with some coreopsis in the front. Right now I have the red Rudbeckia by that one. A switch is in order. But not now. Maybe in the fall, or maybe next spring.

The cukes got tied up. They love to go sideways across the trellis instead of climbing it. I have to encourage them. While I do this I check the plants for cucumber beetles. I knock them into a jar of soapy water whenever I see them. I do this check every morning and also if I'm out later in the day. I've only gotten a few so far, but they always multiply.

Behind them are the zucchini. I check them every day. When I see both a female and male flower at the same time I ought to uncover them. They really want to get out. I figured the squash vine borer ought to be gone soon, but I read the Extension Service Newsletter. "In years with mild temperatures such as we are having this summer, SVB adults tend to remain active throughout the summer rather than dropping off in summer. . . " Damn. They aren't going to go away. I'll have to uncover and just cross my fingers. I haven't seen a ton of them around, but if I see a few, you can bet there are more out there that I can't see. And it only takes one borer to severely set back the zucchini if not kill it.

The squash that grows under the corn needs constant work. I have to keep it UNDER the corn but of course it goes to the light and tries to escape. My garden isn't big enough to let it run free. So every couple of days I check them and tuck the tips back where they belong and make sure it isn't actually climbing up the corn. While I do this I pull any weeds I see.

Yesterday I needed a bit more. The shorter ones had some bamboo poles under them to keep the cats from digging. But I didn't think I needed them anymore. The corn was large enough to keep them out. So I pulled out the poles. At the ends I put in some smaller sideways stick to keep the cats off the bare soil around the squash. Those won't last long as the squash is growing fast.

In addition since I'd removed that big row cover next to the corn, the wind could now knock it down. One of the problems with growing corn in a raised bed is that it lodges easily. The soil is very soft and you can't hill the stalks up. So I stake the outer most rows, which protect the inner rows from the wind enough that they are usually safe.

Next up was the cilantro. I let it go to seed every year so I can collect both green coriander and ripe coriander (the former for the kitchen and the latter for sowing). Once the seed starts to set the plants can get top heavy and fall over. So I tied them to the fence. Hopefully it is good enough to keep them from trailing on the ground.

The last chore was to pick and prune the currants. I pick the gooseberries while I prune to make picking easier. The currants are younger and I haven't had them very long. It didn't hit me until afterwards that I should do the same thing. It would make the picking so much easier. Live and learn. I like how the Pink Champagne currants grow. They send out new strong shoots from the base instead of lots of side shoots. So I could cut all the old wood out. The Jonkheer van Tets likes to have some of its stronger shoots as side branches which makes it harder to prune. That last one I have to really keep under control as otherwise it blocks the path. But I can't let either get too large, so pruning every year is a must.

I do have one more currant, Rovada, but it isn't quite ripe yet. Soon though. That one I'm trying to train as one leader across my fence, but it is resisting. Hopefully if I'm persistent it will work. If not I'll just let it bush out as that space can take it. But if you have ever seen a photo of Lee Reich's espaliered currant bush you will know why I want one. The red fruit hanging down from my white fence would be very striking. But only if I can get it to grow correctly.

Today was pretty similar, though I didn't get outside as quickly. I deadheaded the daisies and dianthus. I weeded the front perennial bed and near the garden shed. I uncovered the zucchini as it indeed had both a male and female in bloom. I tied up the cucumbers. I extended the trellis for the beans a tiny bit. I staked the last succession of corn. I tucked in the squash, melon, and sweet potato vines that were trying to escape their beds. I swept part of the walk that had sand all over it (the ants have moved in). I noticed some signs of aphids on the Brussels sprouts - ack! I'll have to bring out the sprayer tomorrow and deal with that. Sigh. I watched the hoverflies dance around the cilantro flowers. Then it was time to go in for breakfast. I love my mornings in the garden.

Pulling the Cabbage Bed and Planting Carrots

Cabbages and kale under the row cover

Yesterday morning I noticed that my schedule says to plant my storage carrots on July 10th. Last year I did it on the 6th. You would think I would have plenty of time, but carrots won't size up here if not planted early enough. The neighboring trees and houses will shade the yard a lot in the fall. So I have to get them in early enough to start sizing up before fall hits. I can wait until November to pick them but I can't wait to plant.

But first I had to free up the bed which had kale, cabbages, and a few turnips.

It is good that I've pulled the cabbages as a couple had just started to split. No real damage had been done but there would have been if I waited much longer.

Cabbages always seem so wasteful. You grow all those wonderful leaves, but then you cut them off and just leave the inside leaves.

Well my compost is well fed. Too bad I don't have neighbor with chickens. I'm sure they would have loved those leaves.

I picked two Early Jersey cabbages and three Point One. Each kind had over 5 pounds. So these cabbages aren't huge, but that is a lot of cabbage to be eating. Luckily they keep well.

It turned out that the timing for the kale couldn't have been better either. Some aphids had started to take up residence. There weren't many of them. But as I picked them I tore off the infected parts. I suppose I could wash them off, but that was way too much work. Mostly they came in big clumps on small parts of the leaves. But with the arrival of the aphids, it means I'll have to start checking my broccoli plants. The one problem with growing them year round is that you can't avoid the aphids. So I'll be getting my soap sprayer out soon.

And in the afternoon I finally got the carrot seed planted. I hate planting in the afternoon, I much prefer to do my garden work in the morning. I don't mind sweating with hard work, but when I'm just sitting there in the sun it feels worse for some reason. And it takes a while to seed the whole bed. But it is done. I have one more bed that needs to be transitioned to fall crops. That is the carrot bed that will turn into brassicas. I think that will get done next week sometime as the transplants are almost big enough.