Garden Blogger's Death Day -- August Edition

Kate and Crew over at Gardening Without Skills has deemed the last day of each month as a way to air our dirty gardening secrets to expose what really goes on behind all of our beautiful harvest photographs...ok, so it's Granny's harvest photographs, but who's keeping score.

Death this month for us came in stages. Some of the death was by a nefarious fiend who yet remains unnamed, others forceably inflicted, and still other deaths were by ignorance or behalf of the gardener.

You can see the damage to the collards in the posts below. It seems like there's a trifecta of trouble causing entities in the yard. My broccoli from a few days ago was obviously nibbled on by the dog. Later that week, some cauliflower stalks were reaped and left there whole which makes me think cut worm. Then this weekend the collards in both the other corner yard and the side yard were all eaten entirely. You can see those pictures in the previous post. It's very odd that whatever went after the collards was very particular and ONLY got the collards and not the other plants as well.

This carnage was from earlier this month. When it came time to get the fall crops in, the poorly performing peppers and the moderately successful okra had to go. I went ahead and pulled out the bush beans in the other corner yard because they were irritating me with how small and thin they were. No more bush beans for me, my friends.

Lastly, a death by gardener ignorance. Venus fly traps are not supposed to be allowed to flower. Flowering = death, I now understand. The flowers were so beautiful that who could have known the trauma that was to ensue.
Good night, Wolverine. Sweet fly catching dreams.

Got Collards?

I don't.
All 9 of my collard plants in the other corner yard and this side yard have been shorn off at the stem.

The dog has been exonerated. This last crime was perpetrated in the side yard...outside of the fence. It's odd...why single out the collards? I'm not complaining; I'd rather only sacrifice a few things to the vegetable gods and not the entire fall planting.

Oh well. More room for other stuff, I suppose.

Progress and Potatoes

You all were right! I replanted all of the kohlrabi and sure enough it sprouted perfectly. I suppose it was just too hot that first go around. The first round of radishes are bulbing up and the lettuce is getting larger and larger and will most likely get transplanted this weekend. The only problem is that even though I had a system at first, now I don't remember which of the three types of lettuce I planted where. It will be an adventure for sure, I just hope the ones I pick as the romaine go behind all of the others. ;)

I don't think I planted the rutabaga and beets deep enough because they're getting rather leggy. I'm going to try to hill some extra soil around them to see if it will help since I'm thinking they won't bulb up as leggy as they are.

The cucumbers have begun climbing which is nice, and the beans in the side yard are starting to show little beans. The zipper peas/cream crowder peas are flowering more and more each day which is just exciting. The pods are sticking out to the side like alien arms. I don't know why I thought they'd hang like beans or peas, but they're not.

I think I may have mentioned this issue with the sweet potatoes a long, long time ago. There's one plant that seems to have been mottled from the start. Ignore the holes in most of the leaves and notice the leaf in the center. All of the leaves on that one vine are mottled with lighter green skin and darker purple veins. Earlier in the season, I thought it was a disease, but it's never transferred to other plants, so I left the vine alone. Here's another leaf also in the center:

It looks also as if all of the new growth from that one vine is also of that same coloration. Anyone experience this before?

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Harvest Monday - Of a Sorts

Not so much a harvest Monday so much as a Monday of harvests to come. I did pick three tomatoes today, and I had to shepherd more little assassin bugs off to other green ones in order to pick them. The toms were small, but just enough for a salad. I keep threatening to put in three times the number of tomato plants I have, but these two give us just enough for what we use. Yes, I could use the excess for canning.....Maybe I'll plant a round in May and then another round in June to extend the harvest as much as I can.

Hopefully fall harvests will pick up soon. Here are the lettuce starts I put in little peat pots. I planted some in the ground, but it's just too hot out there to germinate. These were started inside and then moved to partial shade.
The first round of radishes look like they're bulbing up nicely.

The cucumbers are growing daily. Still no runners nor flowers, but those will hopefully come in time. Now, if I could only convince the pollinators to come back, we'd be okay.

That's how things are shaping up around here. It's just a whole lot of waiting. I replanted the kohlrabi, don't know if I mentioned that, and put in some collards. The beets didn't germinate well at all, and the rutabaga is hit or miss. I'll let those get some height and then replant the empty spaces either with either red or more black radishes. I don't much like the black ones, but they sure are big!

The morning comes early; sweet gardening dreams.

Zipper Peas/Cream Crowder Peas Part III

The zipper peas are starting to flower! At every joint there are a cluster of flowers.
The flower itself never really opens like a green pea or a bean flower. These are a beautiful, creamy, yellow mustard colored flower that stays closed until it falls from the stem.
Here's what we've been waiting for, sports fans. The very first start to what will hopefully be zipper pea heaven. Of course, I don't have many plants in the ground, so there will never be a 'bountiful' harvest, but I'm hoping for a couple of handfuls.

Maybe I should send some to Granny to grow for me and ship back. She'd get over 100 pounds easy just by standing there giving them stink-eye. ;) We all saw what she did to that pepper, didn't we?

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

The Return of the Stone Cold Killer

He lurks in the shadows. He strikes without notice and leaves nary a trace except for the occasional footprint, so light you pay it no mind until you spy a leaf with insect damage. The realization stops you dead in your tracks. The leaf on the left is severed. The leaf on the right is chewn off, the smallest shred still clinging to the stem. He has returned.



The cauliflower in the other corner yard has been visited by the same fiend. The stone cold killer knows no bounds. He attacks with abandon any small, succulent transplant left helpless by an absent gardener. This garden's terror is particular in his hunt. He chooses to concentrate his efforts and prey on solely tomatoes and brassicas. Their scrumptious stalks satisfy him initially, but he'll hunt again.



He always does.

It's been several months since he's struck with such virulent force. The tomatoes fended him off all summer, loosing only a stem or two, but he's conquered the cabbage and cauliflower once again.

And he knows he's done wrong.

At least I have two more transplants I can set out tomorrow. ;)

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Cabbage Crazy, but Who's Got the Beets?

Do all beets have such a low germination rate? I tried to grow beets this spring to no avail and I've planted them again now. They're sprouting about one per 10 seeds planted, but at least the ones that are sprouting are growing well. I didn't know if this was common with beets or just with the seed packet I bought at the end of the season last year. They've been stored well, but they are last year's seeds. I wonder if that's got a lot to do with it as well. The kohlrabi isn't germinating either. I planted a 2x3 space of them earlier this month, but only two have germinated.

Not that I've ever tried beets or kohlrabi; Granny just makes the beets look and sound so good and Dan mentioned he liked kohlrabi so it was worth a shot. If they don't pan out soon, I can plant something else there that will mature quick enough to avoid the frosts.

The square from the liberated cabbage seedling was replanted along with an additional four squares that the okra was removed from. This will be my third season trying to grow cabbage. I haven't been successful yet, but now I've got cabbage in each of the three gardens so something is bound to produce. It's just a matter of finding the right conditions, I'm thinking.

The Alaska peas are flowering nicely and a few pods are thickening up. I replanted some lettuce in cell packs that never germinated and thinned some radish seedlings today. The yellow pear tomato was chopped back yesterday. Sadly, most of it had to go for once I started removing the fallen branches, others came crashing down as well, but it does allow there to be more light on the beans, so it's not such a bad thing. I'm also getting 1-2 tomatoes a day off of the celebrity and heatwave plants. It seems like the tomatoes planted in July are producing so much more than the ones I planted in late April (and already removed). It's such a shame that the pests are greater now as well. Maybe I should look into planting the toms in May/June instead and riding the fence of production and bugs. Sounds like a plan to me!!

The tomatoes are nice, don't get me wrong, but I'm really looking forward to getting food from the garden again. I forgot how nice it was for meals to be dictated by the harvest!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.