GA: Results of popcorn ultra-early harvesting experiment = flop

The cob of popcorn that I harvested on August 20th after the tassels had turned mostly brown/crispy but everything else was still very green, and then placed loosely in a paper bag, ended up completely drying up whereby there were no kernels to be had whatsoever.

The cob of popcorn that I harvested on August 28th, in a similar condition as the August 20th cob noted above, was in a bit better shape in that there were some kernels, but they are tiny.  I decided to try popping the tiny kernels on the stove, just to see if they're usable at all.  Results:  ______

GA: Birds ate several of the popcorn cobs; have been harvesting gradually before birds or future raccoons get them

^^^

GA: Started early havesting but probably still a bit too early

My first potatoes harvested were about a week ago, to use in a recipe with zucchinis since the zucchini plants have been dropping to SVB etc.  Then harvested some more today, but still just a little corner of one of the patches.  The potatoes are so far medium size, no big chonkers yet.  Hopefully they'll keep growing, but the plants are definitely dying back, with some stems completely dried out.

GA: Broccoli harvest definitely slowing, but still some

^^^

GA: FOY leeks harvested

Not a ton of them are on the thicker side, but hopefully they'll still grow.  Today harvested 5 of the bigger ones, to have with potato leek soup.  Of the 5, one had bolted so it was useless.  Since the all the leeks are under cover, not sure how many others may have bolted, we'll see later on...

GA: FOY sweet corn harvested; but a bunch of them have zero corns forming

Ooooh YUMMMMM the sweet corn is delicious!  So crispy and perfect!  

BUT a whole bunch of the sweet corn patch has stalks with nothing growing -- the tassels thing at the top yes, but no hint of any cobs whatsoever.  Seems to be a lot of the earlier round of sowing -- maybe too shaded???

GA: Sweet corn Peaches and Cream started developing ears 1-2 weeks ago; Golden Bantam not yet; Popcorn just now starting to develop

Probably eating corn within a week!  Peaches and Cream ears definitely starting to fill in!

GA: Scotia are ripening (plants diseased like the other tomatoes but still producing)

^^^

GA: Onions horrible, all dying / several already dead :(((

Alas!  Onions horrible, all dying / several already dead :(((  Pretty sure it's due to the leek moth.  (Though I poked around in some of the dying/dead "green"s and didn't find anything but I'm guessing they've already left or whatever.)

Even the covered ones, because (a) one of the covers developed a large gaping hole a 4-6ish weeks ago that I never bothered doing anything about, and (b) the other covered area I had removed the cover for a week or twoish a while ago (because I think it too had broken) before deciding to put back the cover.  So I'm pretty sure the leek moth got all up in both of the covered onion beds.

But yeah, basically all onions look awful with thoroughly dead/dying "green"s (more like "brown"s).  And, a surprising amount flopped over / got the crick in the neck which means they won't grow any more, yet they're very small. Harvested some of the worst today.  I mean, there's still a mini harvest as they did bulb up to varying extents, but definitely small small small.  Some others not yet harvested are relatively bigger but still doesn't look like any will grow to nice sizes.

So!  Next year I will grow all onions under proper cover for the whole season.  (Except maybe one foot uncovered as a comparison.)

GA: Southern bean patch has anthracnose -- ~half beans inedible

The southern bean patch has anthracnose -- at least I'm pretty sure that's what it is -- the beans are covered in very unappealing brown spots.  About half the beans in this patch are so badly affected that they're completely inedible.  Some aren't affected at all.

The other bean patches including L's don't seem to be affected.

Still getting plenty enough harvest for several batches of the bread recipe.

GA: 2 zukes are wilting!!! SVB? ==> Update: No, not SQB!

Feels early for SVB but maybe not... I'll cut open the stems once they're fully gone, to see.

Update on August 1st:  Pulled one of those plants and inspected the stem -- not seeing any SVB evidence.  There was, however, a squash bug on it.  Pretty sure it was some type of disease, which is supported by the leaves not actually having gotten wilty as when it's SVB, but rather drying/dyring in a curled/crispy way.  Haven't pulled the second affected plant yet bec it's still hanging on for now...

Elephant garlic summary

Summarizing this year's Elephant garlic:

Last year I planted 4 elephant bulbs in the Music section.  Only one or two of them went into cloves, the others are the one big "clove".  All had the little bulbil things too which I'm keeping separately to do something with.

Additionally, ~5 or 6 volunteers came up this year in last year's garlic bed.  All but one of those were great big bulbs with cloves!  Just one was the single big "clove".  That's fun!

I've kept the corms to plant this fall.  From what I understand, next year the corns will form the one single big "clove" (a "round") -- then to pull it and cure it, then plant that round in the fall, then the following year it should split into a nice big head of elephant garlic.

Garlic harvest complete = 53 bulbs in all (excluding Elephant), which had cost $29.73 incl tax, so $0.57 per harvested bulb ---- didn't cover them at all

Harvested the rest of the Music garlic before a rainy period arrives next week

In total, the Music garlic yielded 53 bulbs, almost all of which are decent size, some of which are quite nice and big.

Given they cost $29.73 last fall, that's a cost of $0.57 per harvested bulb (not including the cost of amendments).

Those $29.73 worth of seed last year consisted, after I had broken the bought bulbs into individual cloves, of 31 big cloves and 22 small/medium cloves for a total of 53 cloves planted.  Given I harvested 53 (excluding the volunteer elephant), every clove grew, so that's great.

Oh -- and, I never bothered covering these at all, so it seems the leek moth wasn't an issue this year.

I plan to keep the biggest ones to use as seed garlic this fall to help reduce the cost.  (Google says Music will grow true to type.)  I count 16 nice big Musics harvested, and they seem to have 4 cloves each on average, so that's 64 nice-sized plantable Music cloves -- woo hoo, it wouldn't cost anything!  And that would still leave 37 bulbs to use for cooking.

Now to hope the #$%^&*( foundation gets done this year, and early enough to allow them to be planted this fall...

Stopped doing insect patrols a week or two ago -- will see how long the zukes/cukes last

I just got tired of killing things, plus all the time I spent last year constantly checking for squash bug eggs etc.  When I first uncovered the zukes/cukes I checked a few times for the eggs, and would destroy any cuke beetles.  But for at least the last week or two I stopped.  If I see any squash bugs (have seen a few so far, not many) then I'll deal with them, but not doing the patrols, and not bothering about the cucumber beetles anymore.  Que sera, sera!

GA: Weeding Wednesday -- weeded all exterior paths and full plot -- ~4.5 hours

Today was a big weeding of the east and west exterior paths.  So satisfying after!  Then, wandered the beds to wee those too but they're looking pretty good from previous weedings.

For the exterior paths, I'm learning it's best to let those weeds grow a fair amount because they're a lot easier to pull when a bit bigger and they shade / out-compete other weeds.

GA: OH NO --- PEPPERS DISEASED!!!! LEAVES YELLOWING / FALLING OFF! Some tiny fruit fell!

Argh!!!! Just when I thought the peppers were starting to look good, now the leaves are splotchy/yellowing and falling off!    A couple of home-started plants are 4-5 green peppers each growing nicely but otherwise very sparse.

This includes my home-started and store-bought (all varieties) ----- EXCEPT Witch's Stick which has produced nicely so far...

GA: FOY cucumber -- several more on the way -- BUT LOOKS LIKE DISEASE MAY BE STARTING

Wow, this is the first year of my three at GA that the cukes have looked good!  Today got my first cuke.  

However, some leaves at the bottom are turning brown/crispy... and some are wilting.... So I fear disease will be taking over!

Will see how many cukes I get...

(All cukes at GA are Straight 8 this year.)

GA: ALL 5 cauliflowers bolted -- zero cauliflower harvest :((( (this was Early Snowball) -- Next year will try a heat-tolerant variety

^^^

GA: Pulled two more cauliflowers that bolted / unusable

Only one or two left in the ground still and I'm guessing both of those will bolt next year.

Uncovered backyard zukes

The four backyard zukes, which had been covered until now, are looking wimpy and I haven't been feeling like checking for flowers etc.  So, what the heck, I decided to just remove the cover and que sera sera.