Garden 2023

[KatyCooks]

I decided to empty out 1 of my potato growing bags. A small clutch of potatoes resulted. (Enough for about 3 meals as sides for Ollie and myself.) Disappointing in terms of amount, but they are quite beautiful! In the growing bag, I have now placed pieces of Desiree potato (that I had sprouting in my potato storage bag) so now I am going to monitor closely and possibly move the bags - astonishingly, the compost is not entirely damp despite at least 7 weeks of more or less constant rain! (I am neither boasting nor complaining - full awareness of the extreme temperatures happening in large parts of the US and Europe currently.)

But the potatoes are lovely.

 

[pepperhead212]

I got a lot done these last several days, because the weather got so much better, with below average temperature and humidity, which made it bearable to be out there for hours. Yesterday it started getting more humid, and even more today, and warmer, but still not like it had been, with those heat indexes well over 100°. I don't know how those people can deal with that constantly.

I pulled out some "bad plants" - things that just stopped producing, in that heat, but didn't seem to be coming back at all. The bottle gourds must have been northern varieties, as the heat did them in! Several cucumbers also didn't come back, while 2 of the first (from early May) County Fair plants are still producing, and two later planted CFs are starting to produce, and I planted 3 more CFs, and 2 County Fair "Improved", to see what the difference is. I figure I'll get some, starting in mid-Sept. I also started some cabbage and cauliflower seeds, to go into those places I pulled the plants from. Tomorrow I might pull the onions and shallots - I "bent them over" a couple days ago, to speed up the process, and I'll see what they look like.

I was going to cut some male butternut blossoms, while weeding today, but there really weren't that many. Surprisingly, there were a lot of just forming butternuts, however, in addition to those 4 almost mature ones, which they always seem to get one of early, on each plant. I didn't count them, but there were a bunch, which are early.

Something I did, just before I came in, was I set up that rosemary to air layer one of the branches. I scraped the needles, and some of the bark off the stem, brushed with some rooting gel, and set up that tube by moistening the coir/peat mix with some water with a small amount of that Clonex in it. This took about 6 weeks to start seeing roots in rosemary, when I did it before, compared to 7 months with the kaffir lime tree!
Just started to air layer a branch of the rosemary, 8-5 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[pepperhead212]

I saw this when picking some spotted lanternflies off of my basil (fortunately, not as many this year). Hopefully the praying mantis likes those!
One of my helpers, on my Thai Basil plant - small, but growing quickly, I hope! by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[rodentraiser]

I have corn potted in half wine barrels, strawberries in a metal tub, and 3 tomato plants in buckets, plus some parsley.

Everything's been growing since the end of June, since it was too cold to plant before then.

So far the corn is sending out grainy tops but it's only maaaaybe 3 feet high. If I get any corn, the ears will only be about 2 inches long.

I got white strawberries and tomatoes from the hardware store. I know, I know, but...anyway, before I got them netted off, the deer ate down all the strawberries and right now I have 3 little leaves. Maybe I'll get strawberries next year. Of the 3 tomato plants I have, the black cherry plant has a bunch of little green tomatoes and a bunch of blooms. Of the other two, one has one cherry tomato on it and the other one has none.

The parsley I started from seed in the middle of June. It might be an inch or so high, enough for one meal.

Yet, the Gerbera daisy my neighbor gave me has gone from 4 blooms to 19 blooms is a little more than a month. And all the sunflower seeds the birds didn't eat are now blooming. I give up.

This is something I didn't think of before, but I may have the wrong soil for all my plants and vegetables. When I got dirt from the store, I bought top soil, not potting soil, and I'm wondering if top soil is lacking nutrients that potting soil has. I used the top soil to spread on the side of my driveway and what I had left, I just used for the vegetables. If this is the case, does anyone know how I might correct this and if so, is it even worth it to do that this late in the season? I have to say, we're getting one week of super high and hot temps in a couple days that my plants will love, but this will be their last chance to grow.

 

[dragnlaw]

Learning curve, it's a learning curve.

 

[taxlady]

@rodentraiser Use whatever parsley you get. Just don't pull it out. Parsley is a biennial plant. That means that next year it will grow weird looking parsley, which you can harvest, but it will produce seeds. I grew some parsley from seedlings one year. The next year I got the second year version. Year three, I got a huge crop of parsley. Year four, I got both first year and second year parsley. That parsley just kept coming back, with no input from me, for about eight or nine years.

 

[larry_stewart]

Probably not much you can do about the soil at this point, since the plants are already established. Can give it some fertilizer for the nutrients, but another issue you may have is the top soil can get very compact in containers , not allowing the roots to fully develop. Mixing in some potting soil would fluff up the soil a bit, but if you did that now it would disturb the roots of the established plants . Just keep water, and fertilizer or compost.

 

[rodentraiser]

Learning curve, it's a learning curve.

That's like the saying, live and learn. One of these times, though, I'd like to actually quit learning and live for a change. LOL

As to the parsley and the other plants, I had hoped when I got my yard done in September, I'd be able to fence it off and put up some vegetable beds next spring. I just found out my car is going to cost me a packet, so I may not even get the yard done until next spring now.

 

[blissful]

@rodentraiser my parsley last year was planted along the back of the garden against the garage. This year when it went to seed, it really went to seed. It's taken all season (one of the drawbacks of harvesting seed) but now I'm collecting the seed to plant in the next few years. (viable 1-3 years) I think I have enough for a half acre.
Which I personally don't need, all that seed, just some. So if anyone wants a pack of parsley or amaranth seed or both in the US, just PM me with your name and address and I'll send that out.

 

[pepperhead212]

I harvested the seed from just one parsley plant, and it is slow drying out! It still had some pods that weren't dried out, but I only got the seeds from the dried ones - I wasn't going to wait for all of them to dry! I got at least 2 tsp from maybe half the plant, so I can't imagine what you must have!

 

[blissful]

@pepperhead212 that's just it. It takes a whole season for them to make seed and it takes a long time using soil that could be growing something else! I saved seed from kale and it was on its second year, it took the whole season. I keep trying to remember that if I'm going to grow seed, grow it on the outskirts or edges in the yard, and not in my prime soil in the lettuce garden! I'd be happy to send you parsley seed if you want any.

I saved the seeds from our keeper onions, clipped those and brought them in today. We start those in Feb-march to harvest in september.

I took pictures of the seed saving and how much space that takes up. I'll post in the next day or two.

 

[pepperhead212]

@blissful That one parsley plant I had in one of those Jr Earthboxes I have around the rail on my deck, and it was originally in my hydroponics all fall and winter, so it didn't owe me anything! But I did want to get it out of there, to start some greens, and in just a few days the mizuna is already up in that spot. The one good thing about it flowering so long is the pollinators love it!

 

[Rascal]

1st of spring here.im growing from seed peas, chillies,lettuce, radishes and spring onions. Wife plants out. We have seed potatoes to plant out as well. Cliff kidney. We will be eating these xmas day.

Russ

 

[pepperhead212]

I went over to a gardening (and cooking) friend - the Indian lady, that I give my extra seedlings to, along with her son, that I got hooked on peppers. It was only a couple of years ago they bought the house and the property there, so she hasn't been growing a lot there until the last two seasons, but she's making up for it! Her garden is even larger than mine, already, and discussing next season with me already, so I definitely got her hooked! And I took her over my bag of greens seeds, and helped her plant some leaf lettuce, and some greens I told her I often use in Indian food - some senosai, boc choy, and misuna - and gave her cauliflower and cabbage extras I had - about 3 weeks old, I think. She has even more Kajari and bitter melons growing, on the same number of plants I have! Her son bought a Trinidad Scorpion plant, when they were in a nursery in spring, so he grew a variety I didn't start this season, and I told him I'd dehydrate them for him. We split one today, not chewing it long at all, and it was the hottest pepper of the year, so far, but no Wartryx yet.
Bitter melon harvest from 3 plants in my friend's garden! 8-31 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Ripening Trinidad Scorpions, from a friend's garden. 8-31 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I harvested a few okra in the morning, as usual, and some more Aruna, Datil, and Big Mic peppers, which are the usual big producers. A few more of those long beans, as well, but I didn't even look at my tomatoes, as I had enough for now.

 

[taxlady]

"Bitter melon" sounds horrible. Is it bitter? How horrible is it?

 

[pepperhead212]

@taxlady They are bitter, but there are a lot of bitter things out there - where would we be without chocolate?

Seriously though, there are a lot of things we eat that are bitter, and usually we add sweet to it, to balance it. Something else with bitter in at least one of its names is bitter eggplant, which is something you can add about a half cup of to a recipe of Thai Curry - just one of the many flavors in Thai Curry, salty, sweet, sour, and bitter (and let's not forget umami!). But it seems that the bitter melon is the only main large bitter ingredient, though some, like old eggplant, gets some bitterness, that people don't usually want. And even many people in countries where these are well known, like China, SE Asia, and Japan, are not fond of these. My friend didn't used to like them, but that was before she had any of these milder varieties, or any recipes she would like - only what she had been given, and didn't try using them. I gave her some things she liked, however, so she wanted to grow it! Last year it didn't work well (plus it was much hotter), but they are growing like crazy this year! And she discovered something I learned early on - these things flower, and produce well early, then they start ripening very small when days get long, in June, and aren't edible, then they stop flowering, until in mid August, when days are shortening, and they start up again!

Here's a link to some of the recipes I've made - I don't do the deep fried things, but there aren't that many of those.

63 bitter gourd recipes | Karela Recipes | Tarladalal.com

63 bitter gourd recipes | Karela Recipes | Bitter Gourd Recipes for Indian Food most famous is Masala Bharwan Karela. Bitter Gourd Recipes for Snacks like karela paratha.

www.tarladalal.com

 

[blissful]

Flowers from the west garden and the back of the east garden.
Bee food=bee health=pollinating vegetables/fruit=honey.
I always feels so good standing close to my flowers and all the greenery.
(next year in the west garden, we won't have sunflowers, just the perennials and the self seeding annuals, we'll figure out a different place to put sunflowers)

 

[taxlady]

Long ago, a friend of mine plated sunflowers in hopes of making sunflower seed oil. It turned out that he was allergic to the pollen. Annoyingly, the sunflowers came back year after year from seed they had dropped.

 

[blissful]

I like sunflowers to paint and mr bliss likes salted sunflower seeds. We didn't grow any big seed sunflowers this year. Sunflower seeds and leaves are edible. Yellow dye can be made for wool, purple dye for baskets. We'll grow sunflowers because studies show that the bees that are near sunflower fields (north dakota) use the sunflowers for health and they are healthier than some other bee populations where they aren't available. Honey bees must be medicinal herbalists.

 

[Rascal]

I like sunflowers to paint and mr bliss likes salted sunflower seeds. We didn't grow any big seed sunflowers this year. Sunflower seeds and leaves are edible. Yellow dye can be made for wool, purple dye for baskets. We'll grow sunflowers because studies show that the bees that are near sunflower fields (north dakota) use the sunflowers for health and they are healthier than some other bee populations where they aren't available. Honey bees must be medicinal herbalists.

I grew some moulin rouge ones a few years ago..red and beautiful sunflowers.

Russ