2010 - How Does Your Garden Grow?

[Toepopper]

Today, the 5th of May it snowed here!! Last nights low was 29 so I had to bring all my potted veggi starts indoors for protection against the cold. So much for global warming!! I am spending all my time and energy on scavenging firewood from downed madrone trees and not getting anything done in the garden.

[Watchman]

Toe, it is moving eastward! Wife just came and asked 'have you looked outside?' I did and am sorry I did. There is about 2 to 3 inches of snow on the ground. It covered the bed with lettuce, arugula and radishes. The good thing is that it is 40 degrees. Don't know if they're die or not.

[SS5R]

I went out and covered everything last night. It got down to 30 degrees. If the weatherman calls for a low of 34 I know it’s going to be at least 30 here. I had to start the pellet stove this mourning it was 56 indoors at 5:30am. I just bought three more bags of stove pellets. My potatoes are growing like crazy but all my leafy greens, carrots and radishes are slow to grow, just not warn enough yet

[Watchman]

We didn't have any damage in WY, although my apricot tree's blossoms are turning brown - hope that is just normal before they start budding. This week me and grandson bought a Husvarna 700DRT tiller for the lawn care business and naturally used it this a.m. to dig down deep in the hard packed ground. However, still needed to use the Mantis to finish it off. I can't say too much for either tiller - they are great. Our potatoes, onions, lettuce, radishes, arugula and Daikons are coming up good. I thought I saw a shoot from the climbing sweet peas.

A word to the wise - get your permanent shelf seeds and put them away for long-term storage!!!!!!!

[Watchman]

Yesterday it was warm, partly sunny, and our greens were growing very nicely.


Today there is 3-4 inches of the white manure on the ground.

[Toepopper]

I wonder what Egore has to say about this unusual cold spring? They have been keeping him out of sight lately. Cold here too. I took a chance and went ahead and planted potato, cukes, squash, peas and some tomato plants and now I am scared they will all freeze.

[fern]

Hahahaha Toepopper...Egore!

I have not planted a single thing. We have been enjoying heavy, heavy frosts each night yet. The kind that feel like winter rather than a late frost and the sun seems to be missing in the mornings! Good thing we are enjoying all this heavy rain that arrives daily cuz it cleans the frost off the vehicles. My azalea buds died except for about a dozen that bloomed and the same with the peonies. My 2+ year old maple tree appears to have completely died but the irises are in full bloom! At some point...I may have to decide to delete some of what I was going to plant simply because our season is going to be too short.

[Watchman]

Frustration abounds in northwest central Wyoming this morning. It snowed all day yesterday and is projected to snow all day today. Here is what it looks like from my deck. Just to the left you can see what was once a hard-worked bed of lettuce, radishes and arugula - ruined. When the tulips die you know the temperature is below normal. You cannot see the apricot tree which is to the left of the photo - the blossoms are falling off and the green buds are dying. F*** Egore! I don't give a [Wash My Mouth] what the reason is for this weather in May, I don't give a [Wash My Mouth] if it is manmade or if it is a natural cycle, the f****** weather is changing! We argue too much as to what is the reason and instead we should be doing something about preparing for our family's safety for as long as Jesus allows it!

[SS5R]

Yep. We had a little snow here on Monday afternoon and I am still going out every evening to cover everything with tarps and plastic and anything else I can find. I planted two tomatoes plants but I use the Walls of Water and then cover those so they have survived. I am going to wait until the end of the month to plant anything else

[Watchman]

Update. Snow completely gone, temps in the 60s and 70s. I am simply amazed - the cold did not affect the lettuce at all.

[Toepopper]

You see, that snow really is a type of manure. Hopefully thats the end of it for this year. I have finally planted all of my tomato plants and today I will plant green and yellow bush beans and that will be it for the planting phase. I have to dig up about 6 cubic yards of dirt up on the hill and wheelbarrow it down to the area where I want to make another flat spot to grow more veggies next year. This is a real backbreaker and it will take all summer if I just do a couple barrow's per day.
Once again I have noticed that the Heirloom seeds I planted do not perform as well as hy-brid seeds. There were a lot of no shows that did not germinate and the ones that did sprout are slow growing dwarf plants and I sure hope I get a return off of these plants. I have some seeds leftover from last year that are hy-brids and they are going in the ground today so as to compare the performance between the two types.
Also planted 2 more semi dwarf apricot trees this last week so now I have 4 apricot. Most of the other fruit trees have blossoms so I might get lucky and have fruit this first year.

[SS5R]

It is supposed to warm up this weekend to the mid 70s. The last couple of days the highs have been in the mid 50s and lows down to 30. Some of my potatoes and one of my tomatoes have lost some leaves to the freezing temperatures over the last week even though I have covered everything each night. There is a dusting of fresh snow on the surrounding mountains. I hope I can plant the rest of my garden this weekend. Even though it has been cold we have managed to harvest some radishes and I have been planting a new row each week.

[Watchman]

The one 4x8 bed that I constructed has taught me a lesson. No matter how much it costs I am converting the entire garden to beds. We planted a half package of lettuce, half package of arugula, and a package of radishes, as well as onion sets. We are eating salad every single day with no end in sight. A friend visited us the other day and he commented that with beds you can micro-manage the vegetables, ideally filling the bed with what the vegetable wants. Put a small soaker hose and water it in a more thorough fashion than broadcast watering over the whole garden, much of which waters the weeds and the paths. The lettuce and greens are luxurient!

[Watchman]

For the rest of the garden, we went and bought some new hoses and sprinklers (made in the USA!). Just after I hooked up to the well it began raining and has rained steady for two days, with no end in sight until maybe Monday. The potatoes are growing like crazy. I was worried that we got the garden in late but I don't think so, although this year I'm not planting any tomatoes.

[Watchman]

Just did a quick walk-through of the garden before I turned the well on. Everything, absolutely everything is growing and looks healthy. In the bed with the greens I see absolutely NO bug damage of any kind. We are 99.999% organic in that the only fertilizer we use is composted materials from our property, egg shells, and gypsum. We do not accept clippings from neighbors or elsewhere. The other .001 % is because I cannot prohibit the city from driving by in the alley and spraying for WNV. Even though it is not sprayed directly on our property but into a fog, it still settles and it POs me in that I can't do anything about it. Everything seems to be going according to schedule. Fava beans have blossoms, potato plants are about a foot high and are beginning to blossom. I planted the squash, cucumbers, green beans, and bush peas a bit later but they'll be fine. I drove past a house this A.M. and it's onions were thin and only about 8 or 9 inches high. My onions are a foot to a foot and a half tall already and thick and luxurient. Am getting ready to plant carrots and turnips.

[Toepopper]

The sun has finally arrived and the garden has responded to that fact by growing at an accelerated pace. Thismorning I had to stake up my tomato plants to keep them from falling over from their own weight. They are the BIG BEEF variety and yellow blossoms are appearing on these plants. Beans, cukes, squash and potato are all doing fine. I planted Heirloom peas and they are stunted, slow growers that have finally blossomed. The Heirloom beans and cukes all rotted in the ground due to (I guess) from the long cold spring that we endured this year. I have had small plants/low yields with Heirloom seeds before, during normal springtime weather.
This is my first year growing a garden without the added benefit of using the manure from my rabbits, since I don't have any. Bought a small box of blood meal as a test to use as an organic nitrogen fertilizer and the results are downright astonishing. Weak spindly looking yellow leaved plants perked up and started leaping out of the ground the very same day that I applied this blood meal. The plants turned deep green and started growing lateral branches and bigger stalks. I added some granulated rock phosphate and worked that into the soil too and the combination of these 2 organic fertilizers made all the difference in the world.

[fern]

This is the first year I have planted only heirloom seeds and started nothing in the house...just planted seeds. Since that was accomplished just 5 weeks ago, I am truly happy with the garden's process! Corn is about 2 inches from waist high already, tomatoes are almost doubling in size everyday, cucumbers are starting to show enough that I am not hunting for them and everything else is coming along as well. The only thing that is missing is my sweet peppers that I put in 2 weeks ago. They appear to be bad seeds. Giving them another day or so and then replanting. You are so right Toepopper...water all you want but nothing makes a garden grow like a summer storm followed by a sunny day. We are enjoying the fresh lettuce/spinach but are impatient for that corn.

[Watchman]

I planted late May in Wyoming. We already have a bumper crop of onions and potatoes - they will do fine. Green beans, squash, cucumbers, peas are growing but you have to remember we had snow in late May. Lettuce, arugula and radishes are gone and we're ready to plant again. We did not plant tomatoes due to BER last year. Even though we planted some things late I believe we'll be okay, although the peas may not produce because of the hot weather.

[fern]

I am experiencing a weird phenomenon this year. Perhaps it is not an odd event but it is to me. It has been so hot here the last few weeks that I have been watering twice a day...crack of dawn and after dark each night. Our garden is alive with lightning bugs! They do not appear to be eating anything but I do not need a light to see with so many of them! I do not know if it is hundreds or a thousand or more. Whatever the count, they are all making their nightly home in and under all the plants. Watering does not seem to bother them and they continue to blink. Has anyone else experienced this? Do they eat plants? It is definitely a bumper crop year for fireflies!

[Watchman]

We don't have lightning bugs here in this part of WY but we were supposed to have a grasshopper infestation. So far (thank you Jesus) it has not materialized. Yesterday we did a walk-through and EVERYTHING is growing fine. I tried something I have never eaten before - fava beans. They are good!

[SS5R]

I grew up on fava beans. My mother tells me my grandfather would plant them in the apricot orchard then after picking the beans he would disk in the plants for the high nitrogen value (green manure). I have grown them since I can remember.

Our garden is doing well. Despite the heat we are still getting lettuce. We planted a verity this year called Nevada Lettuce from Seeds of Change and it holds up to heat quite well. We should be getting some green beans soon and the first flowers are coming out on the zucchini. The potatoes have almost all flowered and the onion tops are dieing back. Lots of tomatoes none ripe yet but the carrots are ready to be dug up. My apple trees and pear tree are full but the cold May temperatures killed the peach blossoms.

[fern]

I drove around our community this morning while waiting to leave. I counted 5 gardens. Averaging...that is about 1 garden for every 35 homes. Each garden was small though along a fence line or maybe a 10x15' area. Just started thinking this was a lost necessity.

[fern]

Well...the night before last we had a series of storms go through this area with one barely ending and the next slamming us. I grew up here but I have never experienced anything like it other than when I was in Florida when a hurricane hit. Everything that was on our porch including my hanging plants were in the back yard or the street behind ours. It sounded like a train was coming through our front door for almost 2 hours and worst of all...it flattened what was left of the garden. Corn with ears 3/4 grown is laying completely on the ground and the same with all the beans, peppers, cabbage, lettuce. All is stuck in the mud as it was beat down so hard. We are down to the 2 squash plants that moved outside of the garden fence, 2 tomato plants, some beets, and carrots. Here is my question...should I attempt to stand the corn back up? They are still rooted and most have not broken their stalks. I tied up some of it tonight to see but this is a new experience for me. What a summer for a tiny little garden plot tight up against a large lilac tree and tucked in between two houses. It should have been safe.

[Toepopper]

I posted a response an hour ago but it must be floating around in cyber space. I can't believe what rotten luck you have had with this garden !! What else could possibly go wrong? You can tie that corn back up and even if the stalks are broken, it will regrow and mend like a broken bone. I have done this in the past and it worked. You may have to get some help to hold up the plants while you hose off the mud to lessen the weight. Tie it upright with an old broom handle and brown twine or rig up an overhead clothesline affair from the fence and tie the stalks to that. Whatever works. Its a royal pain in the buttock but I would be so mad I would tie em up just to spite mother nature. That rock phosphate you added will make the plants more rubbery and they should be able to withstand a disaster like this with some TLC. Hope you didn't lose any roof shingles or have any other damage.

[fern]

We lost about 10% of our roof shingles. Truly I have not experienced a series of storms like this in PA. It took off almost half of our soffit and fascia. I found most of the fascia but the soffit is gone. One gutter and downspout has disappeared. It truly sounded like a train was charging the front door. It also cracked the top and bottom glass in our storm door. I imagine something hit it. Our old garage has or should I say had the original wood siding...it is a very airy frame now! Thank goodness my better half is home this week! He can replace the shingles before we get another rain! I have never had corn lay down but I got about half of it tied up last night. Happy to hear it will continue to grow!!!!!! Going to head out to do the remaining now. Since that storm, we have had a lot of gnats that bite. I have not even gotten a mosquito bite here before but I gave up tying corn last night because the gnats had gotten into my clothes and were a dozen on each arm and my face. I guess they blew in with that wind. The end house on the street lost all of its siding on one side. It took down lots of trees in the area but I think most folks have power again.

2010 is simply not my year to garden and I thank God that we are not totally dependent upon it right now. Perhaps I am being taught a series of lessons in planning. It has given me a lot to think about now though this year. Between learning how important shade is to certain plants, the hazards of freak storms, bad stanky water, seed manufacturers, and thieving neighbors my mind has been busy working on alternate garden layouts and security. I have invested in the solar motion camera at chinamart ($64) too. I am also considering a 6' fence across the back of the yard where my intruders enter and along the front of the garden plot to protect and shade. I am going to watch for fencing on clearance in another month or two. I am not a fence person but gardening is too much heart and back to lose. Whoever ends up buying this house when we leave will want that fence if they garden!