Cold weather with no snow cover

So far this winter we've had some cold temperatures and only sporadic snow cover. Will be interesting to see how the grass fares next year, and the garlic too which has sprouted when it was warmer.

Garlic sprouted! Uh oh!

Noticed today that all of the garlic along the north wall has sprouted, several inches high!

Pulled the row cover off the kitchen door garlic bed -- some has sprouted there too, but less so.

Harvested beets, carrots, and fall-planted potatoes

Soooooo many beets, nice harvest.

Carrots once again are all small, and many are hairy.  Not particularly appealing, but, edible.

Fall-planted potatoes provided a nice little harvest actually!  2.5 pounds of baby potatoes. Not bad considering they were planted on August 8th and 22nd.

Yup, first frost has come and gone

Tuberous begonia is completely kaput now, whereas it was still standing upright a few days ago. I think that plant is my best judge, as the zinnias are clearly unhappy/dying but didn't droop over. Kept the tuber of course.

First frost, sort of?

I guess we've had our first frost? The volunteer ground cherry by the gate, which looked great all along, still has integrity in the stems but the leaves are all curling in and dying. The zinnias are still standing in the yard and out front, but not looking very happy at all. So maybe not the full deep killing frost yet, but a frost?

Sowed garlic: Metechi

Sowed garlic:  Metechi

- 20 big huge beautiful cloves of Metechi garlic (bought from Ritchie's) sown in kitchen door patch, north of meter.  ~3" deep, ~6" between.  Covered with a good dose of shredded leaves.  Then covered that with row cover (weighted down with stones etc.) just to keep the squirrels out for a while.  Will remove the row cover before winter.

- 16 smallest cloves of Metechi garlic sown in the usual garlic bed along the north wall.  So, the north wall bed is full all the way from my house to the big red rock.

(This will be the only type of garlic I sow this year.)

D'oh: Bird species update

It turns out the LBBs I thought were a tan morph of some kind of sparrow are actually immature white crowned sparrows. And, score! I was right about the song sparrow guess. (Confirmed with a post on a bird identification group)

Chickadees!!!

Finally saw black capped chickadees in my backyard! There are at least two as I them there at the same time. But they kept taking one thing and then flying away, and one would come back, grab a sunflower and fly away, etc. They ate mostly from the wire mesh sunflowers, with some mild interest in the mixed seed next to it. Anyway, so happy they've finally discovered my yard; hope they'll come back for more!

Plants still alive! Car windows covered in frost, but plants didn't get hit!

Cold night last night, but all the tenders are still standing!

Unidentified brown stripey birds = song sparrows?

Unidentified brown bird ate zinnia seeds from flowerhead

Cool! (The tall zinnias by the compost bin.)

Unidentified small birds this morning -- grayish non-striped

A small handful of these birds were hopping around on the patio stones next to the fence this morning. I was in a hurry so didn't have a chance to really examine them and look them up, but I remember them being solid coloured greyish with lighter underside I think, otherwise similar in size and shape to the sparrows.  Junco popped in my head but only because the word has been popping up this fall, not that I know anything about juncos.  They were gone when I got back and didn't come back the rest of the day.

Bluejays on fence but I accidentally scared them away :(

Dang, just as I stepped out into the yard, I saw two blujays fly away -- they had been sitting on the fence. No doubt eyeing the bird cake...  I hope they'll forgive me and come back another time to check it out.

Reference: Common birdfeeder birds

https://feederwatch.org/learn/common-feeder-birds/?__hstc=75100365.e7c28484cb2fa7fb3a868df582058965.1600727523060.1600727523060.1601754698524.2&__hssc=75100365.1.1601754698524&__hsfp=1816707892#_ga=2.60479853.1535247250.1601754698-529739934.1600727519

Click the red button "View Bird List", to see page full of photos of the various common species.  Click on photo for more info.

White crowned sparrow; and, 2 squirrels and a chipmunk

Three birds in the yard at the same today, eating/hopping along on the ground (never went up on the birdfeeder).  One was for sure a white crowned sparrow:  striking black/white hat, no yellow spots on head, greyish chest wrapping around to the back, brown stripey wings, brown lower back, long tail.  At least one of the other birds there at the same time was a mottled brown bird, google says females look the same as males, so maybe the mottled one was a juvile?

White crowned sparrow:  https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-crowned_Sparrow/overview

 

Two squirrels in the yard today!  Surely no coincidence that today's the first day I made some vegetarian cake and put it in the cage feeder.  Some crumbled to the ground which is where the squirrels were eating.  The chipmunk seemed mildly interested in the cake in the cage but didn't try hard to eat it, instead went to the seed feeder.

Two immature butternuts harvested (vines dead); one immature butternut still on vine

I wonder if these two harvested immature squash will ripen. One is well on the way but definitely not there yet; the other is very green with just a touch of tan at the stem.

White throated sparrow, tan-crowned (/aka tan-striped)

Finally had a chance to i.d. one of these mottled brown birds in my yard, thanks to the binoculars and thanks to the bird posing on the feeder for a few minutes. This one must be a White throated sparrow, tan-crowned (/aka tan-striped). I noted the white throat, brown(/gray?) underside and body, and stripes on the head alternating black and a browny colour.

Cold nights, down to ~0-1! So far no frost.

Asparagus near compost bin also now infested with aphids

Oh well. I hereby declare that next year I'm going to eat whatever I can, before all three patches are permanently kaput.

Dud baby winter squashes are delicious as fried squash fingers

Dang, I should have started doing this sooner! The dud baby winter squashes (butternut and cushaw) that never took off were delicious as fried squash fingers. The relatively bigger ones I peeled first, the others I didn't peel. Next time, try not peeling any.

Used last of last year's butternut squash -- it was fine

Roasted it, for Scooter. Last year's harvest is all gone now.

Rabbit!!

For the life of me I couldn't figure out what Jasper was so excited about today while I was working. I'd go downstairs and look in the yard, but didn't see anything. Thought it was maybe one of the birds hopping around... but he doesn't usually get too excited about birds. Then I went downstairs to have another look, and ------ what did I see but the fuzzy white behind of a rabbit, between the fence and the central patch!! That deffffffinitely explains it. Rabbits and groundhogs are his favourite. The winter squash vines are all over in that area, so they provide a good spot to be hidden from view. I tried to flush the rabbit out but have no idea if it worked or not. Not sure how the rabbit got in... must have squeezed in under the gate? Well, will have to be super careful with letting Jasper out in the yard for a while.

Harvested the one butternut

The stem is still green, but the body is nice tan and I worried about something eating it if left out much longer.  It's very nice, same size as my one remaining butternut from last year.  Quite the mystery why only this one single winter squash took.  So far it appears none of the others have taken, even though quite a few have been flowering.  Well, there is one butternut that put on some initial growth, but it seems to have stalled out. Maybe it will just be a small butternut.

Last year's butternut was fine when cooked today

Still have two of last year's butternuts left, which is double what this year's entire harvest will likely be!!  Cooked one of them today, roasted, to help Scooter's digestion.

Amazing to think it's been sitting on a table for an entire year, and is perfectly fine to eat!

Ronde de nice continue to produce -- severe signs of SVB, wonder how long they'll keep going

Getting ~1-2 rondes per week the past few weeks, whereas I haven't seen a mature zucchini in quite a while. At least one or two of the ronde plants has major signs of SVB, with the vine hugely split open. So, I imagine their end is near, but given I haven't done any SVB control other than a little bit of egg monitoring last month (haven't done any BTK or other stem interference), I guess I'm somewhat impressed so far. Maybe they do have some little bit of SVB resistance, even if not fully SVB-proof. Will be interesting to grow them again next year to see if this repeats.

Where are the zinnia butterflies? None so far this year

In past years there were tons of butterflies (monarch-y-ish but with brown centre) constantly visiting the zinnias. When I would come and go from the house, they would flutter all up and around. This year, none at all. I wonder why.

Hummingbird!!!! Feeding from zinnias!

OMG OMG OMG!  I can probably count the number of times I've seen a hummingbird on one finger (and that was in the Greenbelt).  Well, make that two fingers as of today!  I heard a bird chirping in the yard, that was the woodpecker eating a sunflower.  But then -- I saw the hummingbird!  Emerald green, though not especially showy.  Eating from the backyard zinnias!  So neat.  Showed some interest in the sunflower too, especially when the woodpecker was chirping, but then went back to the zinnias.

Reference: Wild apples

https://www.theselfsufficienthomeacre.com/2013/10/how-to-use-wild-apples.html https://confessionsofanover-workedmom.com/baking-with-wild-apples/

Asparagus aphids still here, ecosystem with lady bugs and house flies

Wow that asparagus patch by the patio door is sooooooo completely infested with aphids.  Wonder what the long term damage will be.  There have been a few more generations of lady bugs, including some adult beetles who I witnessed today emerge spotless from their... whatever their previous form is called.  There are also a lot of house flies who hang around the asparagus constantly.  Can't figure out if they're eating the aphids or not.

The asparagus by the compost bin also has some starting :-(

Not doing anything about it this year, other than eventually removing the ferns later this fall.

Sunflower seeds harvested

Harvested the seeds from the two big heads on the north edge of the central bed.  The flower petals were totally dry/crispy.  The back of the heads were yellowish.  (definitely not brown, but not green either)  They were somewhat hard to remove from the head, required some force to do so.   Results:  I feel like it might have been a little early, maybe resulting in the seeds being a bit small (but still edible).

Roasted with the quick method and the longer method and found the result the same in both cases.  Would have liked them to be saltier.

Looks like no more sunflower harvest after this, as the ones outside the yard will need to be cut soon for aesthetic reasons, and the two still in the yard snapped their stem so unlikely to mature.

Trimmed tomato plants down to base

Trimmed most of the tomato plants down to a base keeping only the parts with green tomatoes. Plants really mostly dead, wonder if they'll regrow.

Bean harvest (dried)

Small harvest this year due to whatever killed off the plants early. I won't use these as seeds, only for cooking.

Potato harvest: Cherry Red; started new potatoes in their place

Today's Cherry Red potato harvest had slightly more than the other potato harvests this year: 1 lb 6 oz, or slightly more than 1 1/4 lbs. They're nice looking, nice sized red potatoes.

Planted store-bought fridge sprouted potatoes, close to the top of the pot rather than lower down.

Potato harvest: Ruby Gold; started new potatoes in their place

Same harvest as the other two potato harvests earlier this year: 1.25 pounds.

Planted store-bought fridge sprouted potatoes, close to the top of the pot rather than lower down.

 

Butternuts flowered today or yesterday

Some butternuts flowered today or yesterday. Wonder if they'll take. (Still only the one squash that's taken so far)

Ground cherries producing very well

^^^

Wild blackberries and thimbleberries at berry alley

Lots of ripe blackberries at berry alley. Lots more on the way too. Some thimbleberries, not a huge amount.

Wild apple harvest at CM

(Date was approx. August 17th, maybe a few days earlier than that). Most apples had fallen to the ground. Weird, because last year when I went on Sep 21st there were still a lot in the trees. Tons of apples on the ground, though most quite small or quite un-ideal. Brought home a grocery-bag full.

Basil is nearly dead (likely due to cold nights)

Basil is looking awful, nearly dead (brown). Pretty sure it's because of the cool nights we've had occasionally over the past few weeks. (Has gone down to ~12) Oh well, I have hardly any zucchinis to make the pasta sauce!

Harvested a ronde

Harvested a ronde. There's one more ronde that took, will be ready in a day or two. After that, no rondes/zucchinis on the horizon... Oh and a week or two ago I stopped doing any checking for SVB so likely they'll conk out fully soon anyway. Quite a change over last year, when I wrote a post on August 16th that I had 8 zucchinis in the fridge and that they were doing great.

WOW! Dig-and-drop composting works SUPER FAST!!!

OMG!  I dug up several of my dig-and-drop composting holes today, curious to see what they look like.  There is essentially no sign of the original material in holes that were dug as recently as July 25th, i.e. 3 weeks ago!!!!  Also the older holes that I checked, July 5th and July 11th, no sign at all.  They all held a full fridge-bin worth of scraps.

The most recent one, from August 8th, is definitely still there, still ample recognizable chunks.

But the others!  I would have sworn I wasn't digging in the right spot, if it weren't for the large rocks and ziplock bags with dates that I placed over the holes.

Oddly, the soil in the holes looks dry and boring, not the rich gorgeous stuff that comes out of the compost bin.

Lacewing emerged today!!

The lacewing larvae I brought inside a week or so ago cocooned within a couple of days, and emerged last night! Beautiful green lacewing. Released.

Pulled southmost zucchini which was killed by SVB

^^^

Caterpillar went wonky :-(

The black swallowtail caterpillar I was keeping inside went wonky, didn't pupate normally. For one thing, s/he attached to the stick only at tail, i.e. without the waist harness. For another, after 24+ hours of jerking around only a tiny part of the head had changed into pupa thing. Released outside like that. Good luck...

Powdery mildew: Gave up, no point since no squash/zucchinis etc. anyway

Up until last week or so, I was still applying water / white vinegar / oil mixture every few days and cutting off the worst leaves.  Now though I've stopped, what's the point fighting it, since there's still only ONE single winter squash (the vertical butternut), new winter squashes continue dying before flowering, and 3 of the 4 remaining zucchini plants look they are never going to produce anything.  There's only 1 zucchini plant I have any moderate hopes of getting anything else from; one of the rondes has some promising-looking fruit. 

So anyway, yeah, I'm going to let what will be, be with the squash.  (Though I'll keep monitoring the one half-decent zucchini for SVB)

Thimbleberries in full harvest

Nice little harvest along the Bb creek trail, north side.

Tomatoes stopped flowering, harvest will be over soon

Noticed recently that the tomatoes have all stopped flowering.  Still ripening nicely resulting in TONS of tomatoes over the past few weeks (lots of Bolognese sauce this year), but, no new ones coming along.  I assume it's because of whatever disease this is that's affecting so many things.

And for the record, they all taste the same to me!  Scotia, beefsteak (which were no bigger than the others), collected seed, all tasted the same.

SVB: First plant lost (one of the completely unproductive vertical zucchinis)

It hadn't started wilting yet, but while inspecting the stem I noticed the damage.  I had zero motivation to try to save the plant since it never produced anything and didn't look like it was going to.  So, I just pulled the plant.  Didn't go looking for the borers too much but did find one.

TIMBERRRrrrrrr! Central sunflower crashed down.

Oh my!  The huge central sunflower fell down today.  The stem snapped. Weighed the head -- 3.5 pounds.  That lower part of the stem was streaked with brown on the inside, my guess is those sunflower maggot flies' babies.

The site, so alas, no harvest from this one either.

Still a few more sunflower heads from which I can hope to get a harvest.

It left quite trail of devastation, like a tree coming down.  Ground cherry and squash banged up, but, likely will be fine (not that I'm getting anything out of those central squashes anyway!).

Cucumber plant kaput due to the disease

Yup, just a few last immature cucumbers on there that might make it or might not.  The leaves of the entire plant are crispy and diseased.  Oh well, at least there was a good harvest.

immature (nymph) spined soldier bug (predatory stink bug)

Cute.  Orange, with orange legs, and interesting horizontal stripes over butt area.  Black eyes.  Slow moving. Found on the volunteer ground cherry plant by the gate.

Potato harvest: Bellanita; started new potatoes in their place

Today's Bellanita potato harvest had the exact same amount as the Eramosa:  1.25 pounds.

^^^ font issues

 

Not highly impressive!

 

Most are very small, marble size or so, some bigger than others.  Definitely a small, salad variety as the website says.

 

Started batch #2 of the sprouted fridge potatoes.

Three goldfinches on sunflower plant (stem) while I was in chair

When I looked up from my chair today, what did I see but not one, not two, but three goldfinches on the not-yet-opened sunflower plant right in front of the chair.  Neat!  They flew away when they saw me look up.

 

I saw one or two at the birdfeeder (which I installed this year) last week.

2020 will be the year of plant viruses/diseases; insects not too bad this year

Or maybe it's because I'm not spending endless hours poring over all the winter squash etc. looking for vine borer eggs the way I was last year. (This year I'm not looking at the winter squash whatsoever for SVB eggs; the ronde de nice I'm doing brief inspections; the zucchini I'm looking at more closely but not obsessively (and yes have found quite a few eggs -- no larvae yet).

 

Still, I don't remember leaves of so many things last year having so many issues. disease

Black swallowtail caterpillar on parsley

A bit smaller than the one I brought in a couple of years ago. Brought in because there are so many wasps/hornets around, would be doomed.

Lacewing larva joining the feast on asparagus aphids

One of the critters who crawled out onto the top of the floating row cover was what turns out to be a lacewing larva.  So interesting!  Brought inside in a separate container from the ladybug larva.

 

Pretty sure I also see a lacewing larva pupa toward the inner area of the asparagus ferns -- a fluffy white ball.

 

 

Floating row cover had opposite effect for "protecting" ladybug larvae; and ladybug update

Today I tried covering the asparagus ferns with floating row cover, to keep the wasps out. Well that didn't work -- twice I saw a larvae walking around on the OUTSIDE of the cover. So, removed it. The good news is there are at least three good-sized larvae. One I brought inside today. The other good news is there's an adult red ladybug hanging around the plant. The more other good news is there are fresh ladybug eggs! (one batch) The bad news is while I was out there watching, another wasp/hornet dove in! I gently batted away before landed, didn't come back.

Sunflower OOPSY

While touring my garden, and seeing that big drooping head of the first sunflower that bloomed (west bed), my dad mentioned that sunflower heads get really stinky when they go bad.  I never could see any seeds on it, so I figured it didn't get enough sun or was a dud or whatnot -- so, I removed the plant.

 

While taking apart the head for curiosity's sake (after having removed the plant), I noticed it's FULL of seeds -- only they're white / not mature yet. 

 

D'OH.

 

So I ate the biggest ones raw, and put out the rest on the compost bin for the critters (which they appreciated).

 

Will let the rest of the sunflowers go to maturity.  (So far almost all sunflowers have opened (only the NE corner hasn't); the front-garden ones have heads forming but aren't there yet.)

 

Oh and there were larva inside the stems.  Presumably from all the sunflower maggot flies who were hanging around the whole summer.  No harm done really.

"Cucumber Yellow Vein Virus" or a Mosaic Virus -- I'm pretty sure this is what must be affecting my plants

Learned about Cucumber Yellow Vein Virus today from a post on the edible gardens group.

 

Quite sure this is at least what's affecting my cucumbers and maybe some of my other various plant issues.

 

Note to self for next year, these are the things that seem to be unaffected by this/these diseases:

 

NOT affected:

chard

broccoli

lettuce

celery

parsley

basil

zucchini

ronde de nice

carrots

beets

asparagus

zinnias

potatoes

 

AFFECTED, from worst to less bad:

 

bean* (especially west wall variety -- all of its leaves have by now dried up and crumbled away, plant did not grow to full potential)

cucumber (leaves looking bad now, but I had a good harvest, so all isn't lost)

winter squash (vertical plants worse than central bed, so far)

ground cherry (I predict leaves will start looking quite bad within a few weeks, but, I had a great harvest, so all isn't lost)

tomato (leaves starting to look badly affected by something, but might be a different issue -- anyway I had a great harvest, so all isn't lost)

sunflower* (they're all flowering nicely, and hopefully will produce mature seeds, TBD)

 

The beans and sunflowers might be a different issue, as their leaves look rusty.

Oh no!!!! Wasps are eating/removing ladybug larvae, even the big ones!!!!

Update on the ladybug larvae:

 

The outside-born ones it seems were mostly eaten / disappeared.

 

The inside-born ones:  Wow, do they ever grow FAST.  They did mostly* great, with new ferns added once or twice a day, and a wet cotton ball inside the jar, with cheesecloth lining (triple-folded).  Their shed skins were all over as they grew.  Gradually over the last ~3 days I've been setting a few loose into the asparagus each day.  It was tricky to get them take hold of a new asparagus fern and not fall off as it bounced into place, but it worked with some patience.  I could swear I wasn't seeing as many on the plants as I was releasing.  Well, sure enough, today as I was out to release the last two*, what did I see but a wasp/hornet in the plant wrestling with a balled-up ladybug larva, one of the bigger ones!!  The wasp/hornet flew off with it!  Noooooooooooooo........!!  Dang it.  One beneficial insect eating another beneficial insect.  *The last two or three seemed to have something wrong with them starting yesterday -- they seemed to lose their ability to move normally, just lying in place wriggling their legs around, unable to get up and move.  I tried placing things there for them to grab onto, but the same issue.  So today I just set them loose onto the ground near the asparagus plant.

Dig-in composting

This summer I started burying compostables directly into the garden soil.  When my fridge bin is full, I dig a hole and dump it in, and recover it with soil.

This is to avoid odours from the bin which I seem to get every year.  I don't mind the smell, but I'm sure my neighbours do!

I've put a rock over the spots, with a note in a little Ziploc bag showing the date it was buried.  Will be interesting to go digging later on to see how it's going.

So, the compost bin isn't getting much contribution this year.

The most promising cushaw didn't take :-((((((((((

The one along the east edge... that flowered and looked beautiful... now has clearly not taken, turning yellow.

wahhhhhhhhhhh

Might not get even a single cushaw, to at least know what a cushaw is like!  Crazy.

Explosion of three-lined potato beetle (x7 caught today)

Where did they come from all of a sudden?  On the central ground cherries.

(The ground cherries still look fine, I think they're healthy enough to tolerate some leaf-eating.)

Lady bug eggs hatching, outside ones getting eaten by something!!

The lady bug eggs on the asparagus ferns are hatching!  Both inside ferns hatched today.  I set one outside for a bit, but then it disappeared, I think it fell from the wind because it wasn't secured very well.  Darn.

And, one of the outside ones, within a few hours after hatching almost all had disappeared!  There was a larger grey/mottled beetle hanging around nearby, who I assume ate them.

So, I brought in another of the unhatched ferns inside.  Total of two batches inside, with the plan to raise them for a few days until they're bigger, to give them a better chance of survival so they can get busy eating those asparagus aphids!

Reference: Cucumber diseases

A good article, but I still can't find what's wrong with mine.

https://dengarden.com/gardening/Plant-Diseases-that-Affect-Cucumbers-and-How-to-Treat-Them

Mystery disease affecting bean, squash, cucumber, ground cherry, tomato, sunflower

Took photos today of a cucumber leaf, a ground cherry leaf, and a bean leaf.

For the life of me I google and google and google and can't find quite what this is.

I assume the bean thing is something different though based on leaf appearance.

Arghhhh the mystery!!  >:(

OMG!! A butternut!!!!!!!!!!!!! (vertical)

How did I miss that!  A clearly-taken butternut is on one of the vertical plants!!!  It's a great size, clearly has set and looking fantastic!  Hopefully I will have at least one butternut this year!

Tomatoes: Container Scotia stinky, removed it; Container cherry gross-tasting, removed most of it

An unpleasant odour from the yard this evening, can't put my finger on where it's coming from.  But it seemed to come at least partly from one of the container Scotias.  So I harvested its green tomatoes, and removed the plant (for yard waste pickup).

The container cherry was so diseased (pale etc.) and its latest tomatoes were foul tasting (sharp/bitter) -- so I removed it and discarded its tomatoes.  Well, I left a few inches of stub at the base in case it wants to grow back healthy.

Garlic harvest: 0.6 lb total (well a few heads still in garden)

Harvested most of the rest of the garlic.  Disappointing harvest... The Duganski are so tiny.  The German White were certainly bigger overall, but still several of those are on the smaller side.

0.6 lbs total, including the ones I pulled a few weeks ago.

Container carrots good (first carrot harvest)

Harvested two carrots from the hanging-basket-type-container.  One had reached the bottom of the container as it started to bend to the side :-) 

Flavour was kind of meh but edible.

Potato harvest: Eramosa

Decided to go ahead and harvest the Eramosa potatoes since it was the first to die.  Probably should have waited another week or two, but whatever,

Modest harvest :-(  1.25 pounds.

Hopefully the others have done better...

Planed potatoes (in fridge, from last fall's harvest)

Used the pot freed up by harvesting Eramosa, to plant potatoes that had crazy long eyes, from one of the bags of small white potatoes harvested last fall.

Garlic harvest: Yup do not plant Duganski again (too tiny) -- German White decent size

^^^

Powdery mildew is resuming again (after vinegar spray a few days ago)

Sprayed with the same mixture again this morning.  Worst in central patch.

Lady bug eggs & asparagus aphids found on asparagus ferns

Bright orange eggs drew me to look closer at the asparagus ferns along the NE wall.  Turns out there are a bunch of aphids!!!!  Not totally infesting the entire plant, but, certainly hundreds/thousands in particular areas.

Cool though that lady bug eggs were laid there!  I have been seeing several lady bugs in the garden including on the asparagus.  Hadn't noticed the aphids until now.

Brought these two ferns with eggs and aphids inside, in a jar with cheese cloth cover.

Tomato harvest now in full swing

Oh boy!!! Going to be LOTS of tomatoes this year, what with 6 full-size big-tomato plants (plus the two younger scotias in pots), plus the two cherry tomatoes!

All varieties are having ripened tomatoes now.

Young rondes once again looking yellow :-( and zucchinis also not looking great

That one ronde harvested yesterday was great, but all the other new ones are back to looking pale / will die before blooming.

The zucchini will have at least one more ready to harvest in a day or two, but not sure about the other upcoming ones...

1 zucchini (kitchen window) + 1 ronde (air conditioner) harvested

A rebound after whatever happened to all the summer squash plants.

Green and Red Shield (Stink) Bug

Found climbing living room patio screen.  Re-released.

First beet harvest

5 good sized ones.  The others need more growing.

Reference: Hollyhock seed saving

https://dengarden.com/gardening/Quick-Guide-to-Collecting-Storing-Hollyhock-Seeds

I'd like to try these next year in the front bed.  They're gorgeous in the bed next door; I'd like to collect some seeds from those ones (they're pink).  So nice and meadowy.

Powdery mildew (squash family)!!!!!! Applied treatment, and pruned more leaves; pulled west ronde completely

Argh, 2 weeks earlier than last year's start of PM season!

The last week has been hot and humid with some thunderstorms and a few showers.  Maybe this weather contributed.  But yes, alas this evening noticed it on several of the squashes, primarily the two vertical zucchinis but also most of the other squashes including the central patch just starting.

So, applied this mixture using my sprayer (recipe from this page:  https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/dealing-powdery-mildew/)

- 4 cups water
- 1/2 Tbsp regular vinegar

Will try this mixture for a few days.  If it doesn't seem to be doing much, then I will go back to the baking soda mixture I started trying toward the end of last season -- BUT MUST BE VERY CAREFUL TO DILUTE IT PROPERLY.

Pruned a bunch of lower leaves from the two vertical zucchinis, and several leaves from the air conditioner ronde and both kitchen window zucchinis.

Completely pulled i.e. removed the west ronde de nice.  It was still just a gaggle of leaves, nothing productive on the way at all, so why have all those PM-spreading leaves for no reason.

Potato leaves dying back

Only the Cherry Red are not quite dying back yet.

Looks like I need to wait 2-3 weeks after all leaves are dead before harvesting.  I did feel around in the Bellarosa (the most quickly dying one) and found a small baby potato or two, hoping there are more in there!

Broccoli harvest ongoing!

Fun, getting a nice little decent harvest of broccoli given all the struggles in the early days with the seedlings doing terribly while inside. 

A lot of side shoots come up after the main head.  They're definitely smaller, but the volume adds up to nice amounts.

DELICIOUS raw in the Green Goddess salad dressing!!

Haven't seen any more cabbage moth worms since the first ones a couple of weeks ago.  Inspecting harvests very closely before eating.

Black Seeded Susan lettuce flowers appearing, though still green

The flower buds started appearing ~ a week or two ago.

The Ruby Leaf lettuce is growing a tall stalk too but no flower buds yet.

Zucchinis / rondes rallying?

The new fruit coming in on the zucchinis are looking normal (nice yellow rather than pale), as are the rondes (green rather than pale green).

If they are in fact rebounding, my theory is either...

... the extended hot weather and/or drought affected them

or

... they didn't appreciate the pruning of all lower leaves.

Winter squash update: Nothing has taken yet (neither butternut nor cushaw)

There had been several promising ones, but they all either fizzled before flowering, or, in one case fizzled after flowering.

All but one were in the central patch.

Looking back at last year, I wrote a very similar update on July 18th about the butternut, and ended up with a great crop by the end of the season.

Sunflower update -- huuuuge flower! Really drooping! Still just the one flower.

^^^

Many of the others are sooooo tall...  With any kind of wind storm I don't know if they'll survive.... (windy today, but not too bad, and they really bend/sway)

Duganski garlic -- first havest -- bulbs very small

The Duganski garlic is further along than the German White in terms of leave browning/dying.  Some looked quite ready to harvest based on the number of dead leaves, so, I went ahead and harvested those -- 5 look healthy but soooo small, and, 1 also small but seems to lack outer covering and saw a tiny black insect wandering in/out of the cloves.

The harvested ones are from the back (north) edge of the back wall, and one from the terra cotta planter.

Last fall when planting, I remarked that the Duganski cloves were smaller than the German White.  Indeed, it looks like small cloves = small plant = small bulb.  (I had noticed these plants were about half the width of the German White.)

Didn't harvest any German White yet because they don't look ready quite yet.

Scotia tomato first harvest

Scotia is the first of the non-cherry tomatoes to ripen, despite being the last of all the tomatoes to be sowed.

Had the first two today with in a sandwich with cucumber and basil.

It was fine, but not bursting with flavour, nothing to write home about.

Common red soldier beetles (seen on sunflower leaves)

Apparently they're beneficial in both juvenile and adult stages.  That's good, because I saw several, including a couple doing their thing.

All seen on leaves of the sunflower plants.

Birds at feeder! -- and a chipmunk too!!!

Ah, saw the first birds at the feeder today!  Small brown bird, I guess a sparrow?  Saw one bird at a time, several times throughout the day.

And ---- saw a chipmunk there too!  So did Jasper and Scooter.  Jasper is now on guard...  I'd be fine feeding the chipmunk(s) too if I knew they wouldn't also start eating *my* food...  Fingers crossed.

Wild raspberries in full glory at CHM

Very nice!  So many patches, such as along the west edge of the parking field, and various other spots throughout.

Birdfeeder installed

Went out shopping looking for a bee bowl, came home with a birdfeeder post and two bird feeders.

Set it out next to the compost bin.

Hoping it won't draw squirrels/chipmunks who will then also start messing with my harvests.

Aha! Yellow-red perennial is perennial gaillardia

Came across the wildflower packet I sowed in the fence-front bed in 2018.  Image searched all the varieties listed on the packet and learned that the yellow-red perennial, from which I collected seed last year and started a new plant this year, is perennial gaillardia.  Will go back and add this label to previous posts.

I only wish it didn't grow so tall, needs all kind of support and you don't fully see the flowers because it's so tall.

Zucchini update (two of five plants producing, doing well)

The west bed zucchini continues to be the best producer.

The south one in the hydro meter bed is starting to produce, looking good.

The two air conditioner vertical zucchinis continue to be small only leaves / male flowers / nonviable teeny tiny females that turn pale and fall off.

The north one in the hydro meter bed is still small, not producing yet.

Ronde de nice by air conditioner's new fruits are yellow (ie not viable) -- likely no more rondes for a while

Oh no!  This morning I harvested another great ronde from the air conditioner plant (it's been quite productive), but, all the new fruits on it have that yellow tinge and hollow feeling.  So, I cut them off, no sense wasting energy on those.  This plant developed a second "arm" (still small/immature), I wonder if that's draining the energy?

So, there won't be another ronde for a while, it seems:
- air conditioner plant's fruits are yellow
- hydro meter plant still very immature/small
- west bed plant still only a bunch of leaves

Mall raspberries having a great year!

Lots of berries on the mall patch this year!  Last year wasn't much, so, maybe it is an every two year thing?

Quite a drought and heat wave this year, otherwise I bet the bounty would have been even greater.

Reference: Squash diseases

Handy website with descriptions and photos of various squash diseases:  https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/pumpkin-and-squash-diseases.html

(still not sure what's wrong with my vertical squash that looks diseased)

A sunflower has opened!!!! But it's facing the wall! >:(

Noticed all of a sudden this evening that the west bed sunflower, which is the most advanced / best looking of all, has opened!  Not fully open, but definitely those yellow petals are out for the world to see!  Or, they would be, except... the darn flower is facing the west wall!  Sigh.

Of the other sunflowers, the central one in the central patch is huge and tall but hardly any flower head whatsoever, interesting.  The NW one in the central patch is the second best (after the one that flowered today), decent flower head forming (not yet open).

Oh no! Something very wrong with squash, bean, and ground cherry leaves in west bed! (maybe sunflower too)

First noticed it maybe ~2 weeks ago, on the northmost vertical squash in the west bed.  Didn't do anything about it.  Now whoa, those leaves are quite yellow, and speckled all over with something, top and bottom.  I don't see mites or aphids or anything like that.

And, what looks like the same thing is also expanding in the west bed beans, the west bed ground cherry, and possibly the west bed sunflower.  All those things are all close together.  The beans have it the worst, along with the squash.

Additionally ------ now the central ground cherries are also starting to show signs!!!!!!  Just starting, though.

So, today I pruned a bunch of leaves off that one vertical squash, placed in yard waste bag immediately.

Took photos of the leaves, will post to Edible Gardens tomorrow in the hopes of a diagnosis as my internet search wasn't successful.

Ronde de nice in west bed is heavy on many small leaves but where are the fruit?

I can't remember if this one has produced any harvested fruit yet.... I thought it did, but, now it's just a mess of thick small leaves everywhere.

Spotted cucumber beetle! On ronde de nice in west bed

Lots of striped ones around, but I think it's the first time I've ever seen a spotted one except in books.

Found on a low branch / near the ground while pruning this ronde de nice.

Recipes to use up lots of tomatoes

https://www.growjourney.com/recipes-to-use-up-lots-of-tomatoes/#.Xv5qgxJ7lVc

Blue flower in front yard must be cynoglossum amabile (Chinese Forget Me Not)

I luvvvvvs it!  Small blue flowers with blue centre, self-seeded from some past year when I sowed a wildflower seed mix.  Looks so nice among the zinnias.

Will try to collect the seeds and start inside next year. 

Seed-collecting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztMp61WtKKM

If I need to buy seeds, be sure to get the ones with the blue centre, not the yellow centre.

https://shop.floretflowers.com/products/chinese-forget-me-nots

https://www.floretflowers.com/flower-focus-chinese-forget-me-nots/

Another SVB netted

Second one today.

Also saw one yesterday but didn't catch her.

They always seem to be there around lunchtime, or maybe that's just because I'm buried away at the computer for the rest of the day :D

All of the ones I've seen have been in the central patch.  Haven't seen moths nor eggs on the zucchinis or rondes de nice yet.

Vertical squash not thriving; central squash growing like crazyyyyyy

Hmmm, despite their rapid early start, the vertical squash have fallen way, way behind the central squash.  The central squash look amazing, soooooo many side shoots as I continue to wrap them around, around, around again in their little area.

Cucumber first harvest

Two nice cucumbers for the first cucumber harvest of the year.

Bellanita potato wimpy in the heat? The others look much better

Bellanita is the first one to look all droopy and unhealthy in this heat wave.  It perks up after being watered, but, still, should consider passing on this one next year.  Will see what the harvest looks like first, of course.

Pea harvest coming to an end soon? No new flowers

Yesterday and today were very good harvests, and there will be a few more days are more come to maturity, but it looks like the end is near given the lack of new flowers.  Prior to this harvest was just a few here and there, so, this seems to be a shorter harvest than last year.  Last year I wrote that harvest was in full swing July 6th, then by July 18th harvest was mostly over.

Maybe I haven't been watering enough during this dry weather.

Sunflowers are host to so many different insects

Very cool to see all kinds of insects hanging around on the sunflowers.  Sunflower maggot flies are always around, and just a variety of other things that I don't necessarily know what they are.  The huge leaves offer nice shade.

Sunflowers are ~7' tall! (some are shorter) Flower heads starting to form but not yet open

Wow, the most vigorous sunflowers are about 7' tall!  All the tall ones are in the backyard.  The front ones are still fairly short, maybe 4 or 5 feet tall.  There is a shortie in the backyard too, one of the ones that lived in a tiny "pot" for a long long time.

Squash bug

Oh no!  An actual squash bug, found on top of a sunflower plant.  Definitely not a shield/stink bug, much narrower shape.  That's the first/only one seen so far.

Beautiful Wood Nympth (moth)

What a funny name for a moth!  Google was very helpful for identification, definitely a Beautiful Wood Nyph.  Apparently the moth doesn't do any harm, so left alone.

SVB moth seen!!!!!!

First one of the year, seen over the central patch.  Used my new kiddie net to relocate.

2nd Japanese beetle

Only two so far, but it's early days yet................

Cucumber beetles in full force starting a couple of days ago

Easily 10+ per day being relocated.

The bees (squash bees) are back in town!

Woo hoo!  Every morning there they are, buzzing away.  No more hand pollinating!

Cabbage moth worms on broccoli leaves (back-filled post)

(16 July 2020:  Apparently I forgot to blog this at the time.  I think it was around July 2nd or so.)

Found several cabbage moth worms on the broccoli leaves.  I looked where there were holes and/or chewed edges, and found them on the underside of the leaves.  They seemed to be only on the fairly large/mature leaves rather than the small new leaves.

Found some eggs as well, very small but easy to see on the underside of the leaves.

Haven't seen any on the actual flowers or edible parts of the stalks.

Some are very small, others a bit bigger.  Didn't see any huge ones.

Stinky smell from beets gone to seed

Gross, I couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from at first, but I'm sure I've identified the source as the re-planted fridge beets that are well into seed now.  Google suggests it's due to their methyl content.

3rd zucchini harvested, also from the same plant

^^^

Trimmed vertical zucchini leaves

Removed the lowest leaves, mostly from the front one.

Young brown stink bug (I think)

Very cute and small.  Grey colour overall, dark patch on each shoulder and dark spots down the "spine".  Will relocate.

Pea harvest underway, a small handful per day

Not the most sweet, but nice and fresh.

First Japanese beetle found

Found on a plant in the fence-front bed.  Here it comes!

Spotted a spotted asparagus beetle on the asparagus

Very cute!  Red with dots.  Big green book says they don't do much damage at all, so, put back.

Ground cherries -- first harvest

The first ground cherries have fallen to the ground!  A small handful.

About half were still green or semi-green.

Cucumber beetles appearing daily, but still only a few -- and only on squashes

Only 1 or sometimes 2 per day that I'm seeing.  Relocating.

First ronde de nice harvested

It's cute!  Will take some getting used to though, the colour and shape.

Haven't eaten it yet.

2nd zucchini harvested

From same plant as 1st zucchini.  The other zucchini plants are far behind.

Zinnia tally -- hopefuls early in process, vs. actually planted out

Early in the seed-starting process, this is how many zinnias I thought I'd have (i.e. the ones that were transferred from paper towel baggie into soil -- v.s. -- how many actually made it into the garden:

Tall:  58 hopefuls; 48 planted into garden

Short:  27 hopefuls; 14 planted into garden

Some were tossed because they were looking suspicious for thrips.  Others were tossed because of failure to thrive.

Ground cherries look GREAT now! Maybe thanks to the hot weather?

We've been in a heat wave; they seem to quite like it.

A few more three-lined potato beetles and cucumber beetles found

Still just the occasional one though.

Haven't actually seen the potato beetles on the potatoes (they've been on the ground cherries).

The one recent cucumber beetle was in a squash flower.

First zucchini harvested!

Looks like one more is on the way soon.  Then after that it might be a bit because there's been a rash of male flowers.

First ronde female flower

And there was a male to pollinate it with.

Cucumber beetle found in squash flower

Only the one.  Removed.

Pea tops looking wilty/rotty again -- were fine yesterday

Must have to do with watering too much or too little.  I bet they'll be fine again in a day or two.

Paper wasps greatly enjoying water bowl

Wow, there is quite the steady stream of paper wasps to my water bowls in the garden!

At first I noticed them frequently in the stainless steel bowl set by the air conditioner.

Today I noticed them mostly in the small old ceramic half-bowl which is set in among the beets.  Maybe that one doesn't get as hot.

Pretty sure they're paper wasps, based on this article:  https://www.rescue.com/latest-buzz/outdoor-pests/how-to-tell-a-wasp-from-a-yellowjacket/.  The ones I'm seeing have the give-away orange antenna, and are quite long and skinny.

My garden insects book says paper wasps are great to have around, as they eat insects.  Mostly these ones seem to be coming and going only for the water, though I did see one spend several minutes flying around / landing on the beets.


This article lists a wide variety of wasps, with identifying photos:  http://www.scorpionfly.ca/plants/wildlifegarden/Beneficial%20wasps.html

Fireflies

Saw a firefly yesterday evening.  They're so nice to see.

Ack! Two types of insects -- one on chard, one on tomatoes!

Chard have tiny orange beetles.

Tomatos have what I assume are flea beetles.  Small and black and they jump way.

Still not finding any more cucumber beetles

The Edible Gardens group is full of reports of hordes of cucumber beetles... not here yet, just that one from yesterday...

Three lined potato beetle found (first in a while)

Found on the container ground cherry.

Checked all ground cherries for eggs, didn't see any.

Container ground cherry and tomato not looking so great anymore -- not terrible, but not great

The container ground cherry just looks palish, whereas all of a sudden the central ground cherries are starting to look happy.

The container tomato is having foldy leaves at the new growth, and also has turned palish compared to the central tomatoes.

Nothing too drastic in either case, but something to watch.

Downy Leatherwing Beetle, aka Soldier Beetle

Found this evening on the big central sunflower.  Adorable!  Didn't interfere.

Apparently they eat aphids, though I'm not aware of any aphids currently...hmm...

One of my photos looks exactly like the one at this page:  https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Soldier-Beetle-Podabrus

Peas starting to appear

Lots of flowers now, and the first peas are starting.  Should be harvesting within a week or so.

Third female zucchini -- pollinated this time

Also on that one great zucchini in the NW bed.  Pollinated with a male from one of the air conditioner zucchinis.

Sunflower maggot flies appearing in multiples

Saw four on one sunflower, a couple on another.  And yes, a "couple" they were...

Not going to do anything about them this year, and see if the plants/flowers/seeds make it.

Striped cucumber beetle spotted in a sunflower

Haven't seen one in several weeks... maybe they will be starting to appear again now.

American Carrion Beetle

Found in yard near the kitchen steps.  First time ever seeing one of these, pretty sure!  Placed near compost bin in case they'd like to stick around.

https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=American-Carrion-Beetle

Spiders are a garden's best friend?

Here's a great article all about spiders in the garden.  https://www.growjourney.com/garden-spiders-beneficial/#.Xupx2Dl7lVc

I know all this stuff, but, there is still nothing in this world that sends a literal shiver up my spine than spiders.

Though I have to say, after last year of dealing with so. many. insect. eating the plants, this year when I see spiders in the garden I consciously tell myself that it's a good thing, and I don't relocate the spider webs unless they're in a particularly bad spot like across a path.

Also, I thank orienteering for getting me mostly over my fear/hatred of walking through webs.  I used to absolutely hate when this would happen, but now it's happened so much while orienteering that it's not such a big deal... as long as I never have to see the actual spider who made the web!

Garlic scapes are becoming harvestable

Several of the garlic plants have scapes with a full curl.

Also, several of the garlic plants don't seem to have any scape emerging yet, especially the ones along the back (north) edge of the north wall, which according to my blog are the Duganski.  Maybe those ones are typically later to mature, compared to my other variety (German White)?

Second female zucchini flower opened, but no male to pollinate it!

What a travesty!  This female is also on the one in the NW bed (same as the first female).

Not interfering with the flea beetles anymore as of today

Will stop rehoming them as of today.  All the types of plants the flea beetles like are looking healthy and strong, so they should be able to withstand whatever damage.  Or so I hope!

Wood sorrel!! Not clover! WTH!

Wow, I learned today that all these years letting what I thought was clover grow in the garden to add nitrogen, isn't clover at all, but wood sorrel.  Who knew!

Although wood sorrel doesn't add nitrogen, it *is* edible -- quite tasty in fact, such a nice tang! 

First butternut babies

Both of the central butternuts have a tiny fruit that has appeared.  The vertical ones might too but harder to get a close look at those ones.

Sunflower maggot fly has been hanging around the sunflowers

Noticed this interesting looking fly on the central-central sunflower the other day (at first thought it was a spider).  Yellow, with bright green eyes, and a neat pattern on part-translucent wings.

Today the fly was on the big sunflower in the west bed.

They lay eggs, which eat parts of the plant.  Apparently they don't do much damage in the process unless there are a whole bunch.  So, I've leave it be.

Leaf miner: Quite a few beet leaves affected; removed eggs today

Removed whatever eggs I could find today, as well as the leaves that are already affected.

Later on I read the miners don't usually affect plant health/yield, they just make leaves unattractive for eating.

Basil leaves turned brown overnight! Cool night? Or something else?

While watering today I saw that a bunch of the basil leaves have turned brown!  What the heck!  I did a harvest yesterday and it looked good (though the west bed still have quite crinkly leaves).

Feedback on the Edible Gardens group suggests it looks like frost damage or intolerance to cold temperatures -- I'm sure there was no frost last night (went down to 8 according to Environment Canada) -- but hopefully yes it just didn't like the sub 13 degrees.

It doesn't quite look like most of the photos I'm finding on bacterial leaf spot nor downy mildew -- so, let's go with the cold.

Cool nights ahead tonight and tomorrow, didn't cover anything last night but will cover the basil tonight.

A few more leek moths found in garlic past few days

Including one today.

Flea beetles on potatoes too now

The flea beetles are still around.  I've been collecting them daily.  Today I noticed they're all over the potatoes too.  Holes in many leaves, but the plants themselves look great, healthy.

The bitty broccoli was delicious!

Steamed lightly, served with margarine and vinegar.

Zucchini updated -- first female flower opened!!

So far the best zucchini plant by far is the one in the west bed.  The first female flower opened today!  And there was a male flower in one of the air conditioner plants!  So I pollinated it.  We'll see if it takes!  This one plant hasn't aborted anything yet, looks really good.

The two zucchinis by the air conditioner both have looked wimpy, pale green.... but growing, and don't look sickly necessarily.  They came in handy today for a male flower.

The second best zucchini is one of the ones in the hydro meter bed, but still quite far behind the best plant.

(None of the rondes are flowering yet)

Fridge beets going to seed

The beets from last year that lasted all winter and that I planted back into the garden this spring are going to seed.  The seed heads are there, just not opened/flowered yet.  Cool!

Leaf miners in chard and beets

I'm not too worried about it.  Removed affected leaves or parts of leaves today.

First ever broccoli harvest! (tiny though)

Woo!  The most advanced of the broccoli plant has had a little head forming for a bit.  Today I could see the flowers are on the verge of opening, so I harvested it.  It's small, very easily fits within the palm of my hand.

Turnips not forming bulbs

I pulled 3 or 4, just a whole bunch of leaves.  Too much nitrogen?  Will leave the others for longer.

Black Seeded Susan lettuce bolting; others not bolting yet

Still tastes good though.  Will leave one or two to go to seed.  Apparently lettuce is easy to collect seed from, doesn't cross-pollinate.

3 more leek moth caterpillars in garlic; scapes are coming out (some destroyed)

I found the caterpillars by looking for new damage.

Scapes are coming out.

Some of the scapes I destroyed/removed while removing the caterpillars.  Wonder if they'll produce.  According to this article, they should be fine... https://www.thestar.com/life/2017/07/14/new-research-says-removing-scapes-will-improve-your-garlic-yield.html

Reference: Collecting lettuce seeds

Saw a comment on the Edible Gardens group about saving lettuce seeds.  For some reason it never occurred to me that I could save lettuce seeds.  Lettuce starts bolting, gets bitter, gets pulled and put into the compost bin.  Well, guess what I'm going to do this year...  Cool!

Came across this handy webpage about how to save lettuce seeds.

https://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main/seed-saving/seed-saving-methods/seed-saving-methods--lettuce.htm

Short zinnia all true to colour so far

So weird... the tall ones' colours were all over the place, whereas so far all of the short ones' colours have been true.  They're not all showing open flowers yet so we'll see if they'll be 100% or not.

Flea beetle update: Steady, not overwhelming. Rehoming daily.

^^^

14 leek moth caterpillars found in garlic!! Must look at the very NEWEST leaves, down close to the center.

What did I say yesterday?  Too funny!  Turns out I wasn't checking close in enough to the main growing stem.  Almost all the garlics had at least one caterpillar, some had more than one.

Removed the parts where they were living in, which in some cases might have been a young scape, not sure, but the leaf was tubular.

Some basils trying to start to go to seed

(So I'm harvesting/pruning them)

Basil/parsley harvest, made pesto -- &, basil leaves curly and weird

Yum.

However, all the basil in the west bed, the newest growth is curly and weird looking.  The ones in the container look fine.

No sign of leek moth on garlic yet

Have been checking.... of course now that I write this post, I'm sure to find some tomorrow!

Central squash and central ground cherries not growing much, not thriving

This happened last year too, with the central patch.

The butternut and cushaw in the central patch haven't done much, kind of yellowy, whereas the butternut and cushaw in the west bed against the house are looking great, green and vibrant.

The ground cherries in the central patch have kind of frozen in time, don't seem to be growing, not full and lush.  The best ground cherry is still the one in the container which looks great, go figure; the other two ground cherries in the west/north bed are decent too.

The tomatoes in the central patch all look good, though one is on the small side and of course the two determinate Scotias are quite small too, but look healthy (though not seeing much new growth on the Scotias).  The tomato in the container also looks very good.

The sunflowers in the central bed all look good, as well as the short, stocky, lush one in the west bed.

I'm not too worried about those wimpy looking central bed plants, since this happened last year and the squash ended up crazy productive, the ground cherry too.  So, fingers crossed they will pull through.

Broccoli appearing!

Ooooh, the biggest broccoli plant has some broccoli appearing!!

Peas look great again, the May 27th issue went away on its own

No idea what that issue was, but all the peas look great again.  I did water them that night, maybe that helped.

Give-aways

Gave away 2 each of cucumber, cushaw, butternut, yellow zucchini, and ronde de nice.

Zinnias (tall) transplanted -- short zinnias not yet because colours not yet revealed

The tall zinnias look great in their new home.  Some in the backyard; most in front of house; some at the two sides of the house.

A few were unopened so will be a surprise what colour they'll be.

Went down to 3 last night!

Hopefully everything was snug in their get-up.

Left everything covered up / inside

Mostly overcast and cool day, so left all the blankets/pots in place.

And left all the indoor-brought things indoors for the day.

D'oh -- the Scotia tomatoes are determinate

Not sure why I didn't research them before choosing this variety!

I wonder what height they'll max out at, and if they will produce before the rambling squash leaves become enormous and overtake them.

"Determinate tomato plants will reach a predetermined height and not grow beyond that height. They are relatively compact and produce a full bushy plant. The plants flower, set fruit and ripen in a short time so that the main harvest is concentrated into a few weeks. Examples of determinate varieties are Scotia, Celebrity and Tiny Tim. These are great varieties to grow in containers on the patio."

It dropped to 4 degrees last night

Confirmed by the weather website, went to 4 degrees last night, and was sub 10 degrees from 9pm through to ___am.  (placeholder...  at 7:30 as I write this it's still only 6 degrees)

Tonight is supposed to be similar, a low of 4.

4 degrees predicted for tonight -- most tenders under cover -- containers brought inside

Used old sheets, pillowcases, dog bed cover, cloches, and upside down pots to cover most of the tenders.  Sheets/pillowcases over top of upside down pots in some cases.

Containers brought inside:  big potted ground cherry (the most sunburnt one which now looks like the best one), big potted Sweetie tomato, big potted basil, all the not-yet-transplanted zinnias and squashes/cucumbers, the nasturtiums, and the potted ageratum.

Tenders not protected:
- Sweetie in central bed -- has a few tiny tomatoes on the way, will be interesting to see if the plant will be affected
- Ground cherry in north bed east of compost bin
- Most beans:  Kentucky Wax along north wall, Great Northern along west wall, and Tendergreen Everlasting at south end of west wall

Broccolis are looking good! Might produce?

Wow, the ~four broccoli plants that made it into the garden are looking good!  Healthy and vibrant.  No sign of actual broccoli yet.

Replaced the killed sunflower

Used one of the last remaining, skimpy/leggy sunflowers to replace the one that was killed yesterday.

Heat wave comes to an end this weekend, nights to go down to 4-5-6 range Sat night, Sun night, and Mon night

Nice and HOT this week, temperatures in the high 20s / low 30s plus humidity, and warm nights.

This is about to come to an end... weekend on the cool side, especially at night.

I plan to try covering most of the tender things with a mix of sheets, upside down pots, and floating row cover.

Insect report: May 28th

I will use this as a running "tally" of the various insects I've seen in my garden, mostly ones who eat the plants but a few other interesting ones as well.  For future updates I'll copy this list and build on it.

The dates indicate the first day I saw them

Lupin aphids:  May 23rd (first time I've seen these in person)
Flea beetles:  May 24th (actually I think I saw them a few days prior)
Three lined potato beetles:  May 24th
Slugs:  May 26th
Yellow wooly bear moth:  May 26th (first time I've seen one of these in person)
Clavate tortoise beetle:  May 27th (first time I've seen one of these in person)

One of the fence-front sunflowers killed!!!

Was fine this morning, then when I checked later on the east-most one in front of the fence was taken down about an inch above the ground.  Maybe cutworm?  I didn't check in the soil.

Potatoes generally growing well, but some dead growth. No insects seen.

Will have to keep an eye on this.

Many flea beetles, mostly on zinnias and tomatoes

The occasional one also on ground cherries and basil.

Ground cherries in central patch still looking sad

Funny enough, the ground cherry in the pot, for which I deliberately chose the worst looking, most sunburnt ground cherry, is looking pretty darn great (it was transplanted May 18th), whereas the ones in the central patch, not so much (they were transplanted May 23rd).

I wonder if those five extra days in their too-small pots are a factor. 

Transplanted two zinnias, and one sunflower, into front bed as test

To see if they survive (1) the lupin aphids (which are almost all gone but finding a few more each day) and (2) the groundhogs (the three sunflowers transplanted a few days ago still look fine).

Peas rotting/wilting/dying at the tops of some plants?

Oh no!  Some of the further-advanced (ie indoor-sprouted) peas have what looks like rotting/wilting/dying at the tops of the shoots of some of the plants.  The plants are about 1.5-2 feet tall.

Will try giving them a good watering in the morning in case they're just thirsty... but it looks like something else might be going on...

Clavate tortoise beetle found on tomato plant

So cute!  Looks like a miniature turtle.  I left him/her there on the plant.  (Sweetie cherry tomato in the central bed)

Yellow wooly bear moth (snow white, fuzzy) on ground cherry plant

Cool!  I might have never seen one of these before.  Google seems to say the moth isn't much to worry about. 

Slugs eating Great Northern beans as they emerge -- struggling

Baby slugs all over those Great Northern beans (along the west wall), which I didn't notice until today.  Relocating the slugs, hope the beans will recover.

Lupin aphid update: none found this morning

^^^

Reference: Video on using upside-down tomato cages to contain zucchini

Ooooh, I want to try this!!


https://youtu.be/JlRdxLTawo4

Used floating row cover to shade tomatoes and ground cherries that were transplanted yesterday

Really easy to use clothespins to attach the cover to the tomato cages.

Ground cherries in central patch look sad; tomatoes look happy

Geez, they went in only yesterday and today already the ground cherries are looking sad.  The leaves are downward, in toward the plant.  Possibly they're thirsty (I didn't water them since transplanting yesterday), and/or, they're suffering more than the tomatoes because these ground cherries were in smaller pots than the tomatoes.

Tomatoes looking good so far.

Three lined potato beetle has arrived

Found two today.  Removed.

Lupin aphid removal - day 1

For fear of this infestation spreading to the vegetables, I removed as many as possible today.  Dish soap and water, several applications.  Rinsed off later with hose.  Horrible.  Will monitor in future days.

If this happens again next year, I will remove all lupins.

The original lupin plant up against the house looks awful, but I think it will come back.

The next biggest one looks healthy and alive (though less so after today's treatment).

The other smaller ones look fine.

Flea beetle has arrived -- not much damage yet

Seen on:
- zinnias
- tomatoes (including central patch)
- ground cherries

Started removing them.  Really detesting this part of gardening.  Need to research options.

Transplanted all squashes and cucumbers

- 4 x cucumber (all on the north frame)
- 4 x butternut (2 in central patch, 2 in west bed on south frame)
- 4 x cushaw (2 in central patch, 2 in west bed on north frame)
- 3 x ronde de nice (1 in west bed, 1 south of air conditioner, 1 in meter bed though technically I haven't actually transplanted this one since it's so young, no real leaves yet)
- 5 x yellow zucchini (1 in west bed, 2 north of air conditioner (one of which I'll try to train up a tomato cage), 2 in meter bed)

Some squashes are droopy/wilty first thing this morning

Uh oh -- some of the squashes have droopy/wilty leaves this morning as I check on them at 8am.  (They're still in pots, which I placed yesterday afternoon in their individual future locations)

Their soil is damp, so it's not a matter of being dry.

I wonder if it was the temperature last night?  The past 24 hour conditions says it went down to 9 degrees (forecast had been a low of ~12), though the 9 was only for an hour.

Salad harvests! (lettuce, chard, onion)

The lettuce I started March 25th is doing very well, now at the stage for picking nice baby greens (individual leaves).  The chard are also at the nice young stage for picking leaves for salad.

Lupin plant smothered in green aphids!! Another lupin dried out, dying?

Noticed today while watering, that the nice-looking lupin along the front edge of the front bed is infested with aphids! Oh no!!!

I was watering because the grandmother lupin up against the house looks like it's dying.  Not sure if because of lack of water (hopefully, and hopefully it can be saved), or, if maybe the aphids started there and then moved on?

Sunflowers x 3 transplanted in small bed outside fence

These are three of the smaller ones.  Just to see if they do anything.

Flop: Poppies sowed March 28th (from collected seed in 2018) never appeared

Too bad...  I will buy new poppy seeds for next year.  I really like those poppies, such a nice meadow feel.

I've now dug/prepared the bed for other things, so, definitely won't be seeing any poppies come up now.

Aha! Button flower is ageratum

Came across the labels from last year's store-bought plants.  Aha!  Button flower is ageratum, specifically Blue Hawaii 5.0, or at least that was what the seed came from.  (hybrid)

The three plants look great so far.  Amazingly bushy yet compact, I would have sworn each one consisted of a clump of seeds, but no; all that growth from one seed.  Really cute foliage/plant.  One is already flowering.

Yellow-orange perennial transplanted

The yellow-orange perennial from the seeds I collected last year was transplanted today, in the small bed outside the fence.  It hasn't grown much in the past month or two.  Its companion outside is substantially larger.

Tomatoes and ground cherries all transplanted, and another sunflower

Transplanted the central patch tomatoes and ground cherries:
- 4 x ground cherries
- 1 x Sweetie tomato (cherry tomato)
- 2 x tofubrick tomato
- 2 x medium tomato
- 2 x Scotia tomato

And, in the centre of the central patch:
- 1 sunflower (the nicest one) -- supported with a stake on either side and string loosely securing it to each stake

The soil in the central patch is very, very sandy.  Not much organic matter in there, but nice and loose, easy to work with.

I made a mixture of the following ingredients.  Put some at the very bottom of the ~1-foot deep holes, then wet that.  Then placed the plant.  Filled up the whole with alternating layers of the mixture, and the soil that was there to begin with.

Mixture:
- compost from my compost bin (see previous post a few days ago)
- aged horse manure picked up last year (it's several years old)
- mushroom compost left over from last year
- leaves ground up finely
- vermiculite

EVERYTHING is living outside 24-hours a day now, fully hardened off (thought not everything has been transplanted yet)

As of last night, everything is now living outside 24 hours a day, and in full sun.  (Though once transplanted into the garden I'm trying to provide shade for a day or two using floating row cover.)

Last night was the first night with a forecast of double digit temperatures.  Went down to a low of 14.

One thing that has me a bit worried is the weather network is showing mid next week overnight lows in the 6 degree range for a few nights!  I'm hoping that will change for the better between now and then, because most everything will likely have been transplanted by then.

Potato growth appearing

All 5 kinds of potatoes are showing sprouts popping up through the soil now.

Zinnia pollinating and seed-saving references

Cool, learning stuff about zinnias here!  This year I will net some of the flowers, and those are the ones I'll take seeds from, to avoid random/cross-pollination.


- Net flowers
- Floret must be newly opened that morning

A stigma will remain yelllow and receptive for a week to 10 days, so you have multiple opportunities to get it pollinated. When the Stigmas you have pollinated shrivel and die, they are no longer receptive, but that could mean that your pollination was successful and a seed is developing an embryo inside the seed at the base of the petal.

Remember which zinnias you have pollinated and save seeds from them. I don't depend on my memory, so I attach a label to the stem of the blooms that I pollinate.

it is actually preferable to gather zinnia seeds in the green state. It takes only about three weeks for a zinnia embryo to develop to a matured stage, and the seeds are still green, with the attached petals fully alive and with color at that time. The quicker you gather the seed, the less chance seed-eating birds, like finches, have to eat them. And brown mature seeds in a brown seedhead are susceptible to pre-germination in the head if you have a rainy spell. 

I do my pollination in the morning as the pollen florets open and I use tweezers or forceps to pick the pollen florets and use them as "brushes" to apply the pollen to the stigmas. So there is nothing left for the bees on my breeders. Bees are only interested in pollen florets, and are not the least bit interested in a zinnia bloom that doesn't have any pollen florets remaining.



Excellent detail in these posts, with photos:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4576083/how-to-hybridize-zinnias-it-s-easy

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/3272916/are-zinnias-self-pollinating-how-to-produce-more-of-a-new-strain


The same fellow leads this discussion:

https://garden.org/thread/view/34248/It-can-be-fun-to-breed-your-own-zinnias/

https://www.google.ca/search?as_q=+&as_epq=It+can+be+fun+to+breed+your+own+zinnias&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=houzz.com&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_rights=

Zinnias (tall, not short) are flowering; NOT coming in true to colour! --> explanation below

I like the timing of when I sowed this year's zinnia seeds, because a good number of them are now opening into flowers, so I can decide what colour will go where.  (Well, for the tall ones, anyway.  The short ones are behind, have not started opening flowers yet.)

However, they are NOT coming in true to colour!

How interesting.

I'm going to post the following question and see if I can gain some insight.

Zinnia seed-saving question:   Is it normal for zinnia seeds collected from one colour of zinnia, to produce flowers of a different colour?  I'm getting a variety of unexpected colours. For example, some of the seeds I collected from last year's orange zinnias are producing pink flowers; some of last year's orange zinnias are producing red flowers; etc.  There seems to be a strong leaning towards pink.  All of these seeds were collected last year, from plants I started from seed by collecting the previous year (2018).  The original 2018 seeds were hybrids from a packet, so I wasn't surprised in 2019 when the colours weren't as expected.  But I thought moving forward, starting this year, the colours would be true to the colour of the flower from which the seed came.  (I carefully labelled last year's collected seeds and this year's seedlings, so it shouldn't be a case of mis-labelling)  Does it take several generations to get zinnia seeds that are true to the parent colour?  Or since the original seeds were hybrids there are no guarantees, even several generations later?  I appreciate any insight!

Edit!  Before I had a chance to post that question, I came across the following info, which explains it all.  Mystery solved!  Therefore, in future years, I will keep carefully keeping track of the colours (for interest's sake), but will also buy yellow seeds to be SURE to have YELLOW flowers each year.

"...even if the original zinnias were not hybrids, a certain amount of natural cross-pollination surely occurred in your garden as the birds and butterflies carried pollen from flower to flower. This means that almost all flower seeds you collect from a home garden will result in a mixture of colors the following year. In other words, if you save seeds from pink impatiens or petunias, the flowers won’t necessarily be pink the next year. You’re likely to get a random mixture of colors instead. Same goes for most other flowering annuals, though some cross-pollinate at higher rates than others." -- https://archive.triblive.com/lifestyles/home-garden/its-a-fun-gamble-to-collect-and-save-seeds-from-flowering-annual-hybrids/

Nasturtiums germinated in vermiculite! Transplanted into continainers

Two containers, each with two germinated nasturtiums (with great bushy roots, wow) and each with one ungerminated nasturtium.

Transplanted basils, some sunflowers, another ground cherry

^^^

Also dug preliminary holes for where the central patch tomatoes and ground cherries will go.

Great warm weather and forecast!

Days have been fabulous the last week or so, highs in the 20s.

Nights have still been going under 10, including tonight.

After tonight, though, looks like even nights will be double digits.

So, tomorrow will be a big planting day!

Beans: Started more Great Northern (white) in paper towel

To replace the ones from the jar (then moved into paper towel) that never sprouted.

Beans that I moved from sprout jar into paper towel went soft and rank -- discarded.

Stinky!!!  None of them germinated.

Will start their replacements, in paper towel from the get-go this time.

Sorrel recipes

Seeing someone mention sorrel soup in the Edible Gardens fb group made me suddenly realize I could be harvesting a lot more sorrel.  Usually I just eat some of the newest, smallest leaves first thing in the spring, so tasty.  But oooh, here's a collection of vegetarian sorrel recipes:

https://tastespace.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/41-vegetarian-sorrel-recipes/

Promix soil good, no issues (so far!)

Phew, the big compressed bag of Promix soil from Home Hardware seems to be good.  Used it for all of the squashes/cucumbers, and everything is growing like gang busters.

Of course now I'm jinxed...

Next year: Don't prune basil's main stem too early

This year (several weeks ago), I pruned the main stem of most basils at the first junction.  I don't like how this resulted.  Next year, start basil a smidge later to avoid running out of height room too early, then can prune after there are at least two junctions.

Peas: Indoor-sprouted are much more advanced than the outdoor-sprouted.

A very noticeable difference.   The outdoor-sprouted / direct-sowed ones are ~2" tall, whereas the inside starts are ~6-7" and look amazing.

Still happy that the direct sowed ones didn't get eaten.

Transplanted a few ground cherries, a tomato, and some basil

Not going all out with transplanting just yet, as night temperatures are going to 6-9 range tonight and a few more nights, but, decided to get a few things into the ground.  Daytime is gorgeous now, forecast calling for well into the 20s for the next couple of weeks, and sunny.

Ground cherries
- 2 into the west bed
- 1into a container -- I chose the worst-looking one, which is the one with the most sun burn.  If this one can "make it", then maybe containers could be an option in future.  (Last year's container ground cherry did hardly anything)  Made a nice mix for the soil, consisting of:  some of today's self-harvested compost; vermiculite; condo's free soil; dumpings from last year's containers.  Then I topped with ground leaves, with cedar mulch over top of that.

Tomato
- 1 into a container -- again I chose the worst-looking one, which is one of the sweeties (cherry tomato).  Same soil mix as above, but I don't think I put leaves before the cedar mulch.

Basil
- 3 into a container.  Chose three nice compact-looking plants.  Same soil mix as above, but I don't think I put leaves before the cedar mulch.

Compost from the compost bin!

My first decent "harvest" from the compost bin, which I bought/started in August 2016... 3.5 years ago!  (I've taken a bit from the front of the bin here and there in previous years but never really got in there as I did today)

Looks so amazing!  Full of little critters in there, doing they're thing.  Dug as far back as I could without the upper part falling down.  Too bad they didn't put a door two adjacent sides, would be so much easier to access the back.

Ended up with two containers full.  (the plastic "terracotta" round ones)

Used ~half for today's transplantings (two ground cherries in ground; one ground cherry in container; one tomato in container; 3 basils in container).  Put a lid on the left over to use later this week.

Gave 4 tomato plants to Ray + 1 ground cherry

He decided not to buy any tomato plants this year at all.  I sure hope some of these will work for him!

- 1 Sweetie (cherry tomato)
- 1 tofubrick
- 1 medium
- 1 Scotia (a late start, way smaller than the others)
- 1 ground cherry

Sun burn!

Wow, several plants are showing sunburn as part of this year's hardening off.  I don't remember ever noticing this before.

I wasn't overly careful with being super duper gradual, but maybe should next year.

The ground cherries are by far the worst affected.  A few look totally fine, one has several bleached leaves, and the others are somewhere in between.

Several of the tomatoes have a few sunburn spots, but doesn't look bad at all.  Pretty minor.

Some of the zinnias have been affected too, particularly the smaller ones.  Most look fine though.

Reference: Perennials

If I ever decide to add perennials to front garden, see info below.

https://ottawacitizen.com/life/homes/gardening/grow-like-a-pro-with-pollinator-plants

"Keep in mind that a succession of blooming times will maximize the population of pollinators. If you just plant Purple Cone Flower you will have masses of colour from mid-July through late August, but little else to show for your efforts over the balance of the season. I choreograph my pollinator garden with crocus, daffodils and narcissus (late April through early May), Lungwort (pulmonaria), Foamflower, cilantro, oregano, Columbine and sweet woodruff takes over mid-May through early June. Come early summer, I feature cardinal flower (a hummingbird magnet!), catmint, coral bells and many hosta varieties.

As the season progresses, there are many plants that provide opportunities for foraging butterflies and feeding hummingbirds, including Echinacea, rudbeckia, late flowering hostas and one of my favourites: Borage. Come September and October, butterflies and bees love sedum spectabile, asters and monarda (bee balm).

Annual flowers that are pollinator magnets right into the fall months include sunflowers, zinnias, sweet alyssum and cosmos (one of my favourite “cutting” flowers)."

 

Beans into ground (direct from sprouting indoors), with inoculant, and floating row cover to protect from birds

The beans that have sprouted so far (see other post today) went directly into the garden today.  Coated them with inoculant first.

Covering them with row cover (directly on ground) just to keep out birds until they're coming up.

Locations:

- Kentucky Wonder Wax (brown beans):  Poles behind the cucumbers. (north wall)

- Great Northern (white beans):  Poles along west bed (south of compost bin / asparagus)

- Tendergreen Impoved (mottled brown beans):  Southmost "corner" against neighbour's house at the south of the west bed (ie south "corner" of the winter squash's vertical structure) --> edit a few minutes later to say oh!  Looks like these are bush beans (google).  Oh well, we'll see what they do.

Bean seeds sprout best in paper towels (compared to sprouting jar) -- keep paper towel moist!

The results are in:

- Kentucky Wonder Wax (brown beans):  100% sprouted as of today, in both the paper towel and the sprouting jar.  The difference is the paper towel ones were more advanced, so must have germinated a bit sooner than the jar ones (or just preferred the conditions of the paper towel).

- Great Northern (white beans):  80% of paper towel ones sprouted as of today; 0% of the jar ones have sprouted yet.  Interesting difference compared to the yellow beans.

- Tendergreen Improved (mottled brown beans):  100% (3 of 3) of paper towel ones sprouted as of today.  (There were none in jars)

One thing to remember is to check the moisture of the paper towel daily, especially the second day because it dried out very quickly.

Ronde de Nice had relatively poor germination rate

Only ~50% germinated (can't remember how many I started, 3 ungerminated as of today).

Whereas, the butternut, zucchini, and cushaw had near 100% (only one cushaw seems to have not done anything).

Started 3 more Ronde de Nice a few days ago.

Tuberous begonias: Only one of the two sprouted

One is looking good, took a while in getting started but has several nice big leaves now.

The other one -- no sign of.  Will leave it a while longer.

Nasturtiums in paper towels haven't yet germinated; put them and others into vermiculite tub

The nasturtiums started May 3rd in paper towels haven't done anything yet.

So, I moved them, and the rest of the seeds in the packet, into a vermiculite tub to try that.

Hardening off is SO much easier when working from home!

There's no way I could have hardened off like this normally.  Working from home this spring (covid-19) has made it so easy.  So easy to use a break to hop downstairs to set things out once it's warm enough in the morning... move things into/out of the sun/shade...

I could definitely get used to this!

Zinnia flower buds -- some of them look weird

Some of them have what looks like kind of hollow dry emptiness as they start to open at the centre.  And some dark-tinged edges to "leaves" at the flower head.  Will have to wait and see if this is normal and if gorgeous zinnias will emerge or not...

Up-potted the two bigger Scotia tomatoes and the sunflower in the smaller pot

^^^

Beans started: Some in paper towel, some in sprouting jars

40 x Great Northern (white bean) -- 20 in paper towel + 20 in sprouting jar (new seeds bought this year)

40 x Kentucky Wonder Wax (brown bean) -- 20 in paper towel + 20 in sprouting jar (from last year's collected seed)

3 x Tendergreen Improved (mottled brown) -- 3 in paper towel (that was all that was left from the foil collection)

For the ones in jars, they'll soak overnight, then tomorrow will drain and will keep moist as if growing edible sprouts.

Planted potatoes in pots

Four to a pot, except bellanita because one was rotten -- so instead for that one I cut one in two.  Pots are 6 gallons, ___ liters.  Placed them over 4 inches of soil, covered with another ~2-3 inches.  Will cover with more soil as they grow.  This worked last year with a grocery store potato, hope it works this year too.

- 4 x ruby gold
- 4 x cherry red
- 4 x eramosa
- 4 x bintje
- 3* x bellanita (one of the three I cut in half, so total 4 "parts")

The chard, parsley, and celery I have NOT covered during cold weather looks the SAME as the covered ones

The covered (with plastic, loosely) and uncovered sections were right next to each other.  Everything looks fine, and, everything looks the same.  Some nights went down to -4, -5.  So, it would appear there's no need to cover chard, parsley, and celery at those temperatures, provided the plants are healthy to start with.

All tomatoes (except Scotia) and ground cherries moved downstairs for hardening off -- bunch of other things too

Time to get hardening!  Weather looks super for hardening off during the day now, and nights after tonight should be seasonal so plants should be able to get out fairly early in the morning.

Really needed to get those tomatoes and ground cherries out of the lights, just too tall and need the room for all the squashes coming in.

Many of the zinnias too are joining in the hardening, as well a few random things.

Last frost tonight? Looks like nice spring weather sets in day and night starting tomorrow

Long term weather forecast (14 days) looks like tonight will be the last night of unseasonal temperatures (-2 the low tonight).  And, day and night look nice and seasonal from here on in.

Fingers crossed, because... next post...

Article on powdery mildew -- vinegar + water

https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/dealing-powdery-mildew/

Article on staking zucchinis and pruning them

https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/youve-been-growing-your-zucchini-all-wrong/?fbclid=IwAR2whwcvPmhdes2Dh27V4_xl9gXdlxwwCzWio3yvfamcXFwkeeeO0njr2lY

Try making these cages using concrete re-inforcing wire

This looks pretty neat.  Maybe I'll try this next year.

https://www.growjourney.com/april-2016-gardening-tip-of-the-month-how-to-make-strong-tomato-cages/#.XrtP1c17lVc

Tomatoes and ground cherries definitely started TOO EARLY

They are so tall, growing in leaps and bounds every day.  Fortunately they can be planted deep...  (The Scotias are much smaller since they had a much later start)

But yes next year start them at least 1-2 weeks later than this year!!

This year, I started the ground cherries and tomatoes (except Scotia) on April 2nd/3rd respectively, which according to the blog is almost 2 weeks later than last year.  Wow, thank goodness for that!

So, next year start them April ~9th/16th range.

The Scotias were started April 15th and 25th.  Not sure which ones are from which sowing.

Yes, pre-soak the beets again next year -- works great

I like this method a lot better.  You know the seeds are viable, so there are a lot fewer holes to fill in after.

Sowed the touchon carrots from the indoors sprout-jar soaking

Ah yes, this method worked much better than leaving the seeds in full soak (which had very little germination rate) -- this time I sprouted them with the usual sprouting method (jar with fine mesh lid; soak overnight; then drain, and rinse/drain several times daily).

Then used the cornstarch gel method to set them out.  It works really well!  However, be sure to use a deep/long baggie, because otherwise when you squeeze, half will come out the top in a big mess (don't ask me how I know this).

I need to remember to use this method again next year!

Snow! And almost every night has been cold, around 0 to -3 or so

Definitely a cold spring.  Snow today, several blizzard flurries throughout the day.  It melted when it landed, but, still.

Last spring, I posted on June 1st that it had been such a cold and damp spring.  This year not too damp (so far), and we have had some nice days, but definitely cold as well.

Makes me want to continue not planting out tenders too early.

I've been covering most of the lettuces and peas with floating row cover, and some of the chard/parsley with plastic.  Though the un-covered chard/parsley right next to it looks perfectly fine.

Most of the outdoor in-ground peas sprouted!

Wow!  That's exciting.  In past years I had issues with outdoor in-ground peas disappearing before they sprouted.  Not this year, yay!

Knock on wood, but everything inside looks GOOD!! Really good!

Surely I'm jinxing myself by putting this in writing, but wow everything inside looks so strong and healthy.

- tomatoes
- ground cherries
- zinnias -- some have started a flower shoot or whatever!  (not bloomed yet, just emerging)
- basil

So it would appear (knock, knock) that the possible thrip/whatever issue I was worried about in weeks past, didn't materialize.  This may be because I removed the worrisome ones early on, I have no idea.

Great, simple post/video on how to prune tomatoes

Going to try this method this year, and maybe just maybe avoid a huge tomato jungle.  Never had much luck with pruning tomatoes before, because I didn't know what I was doing.

https://www.creativevegetablegardener.com/pruning-indeterminate-tomatoes/

Cushaws the last ones to sprout; ronde de nice second last

Of the big batch of squashes and cucumbers, the cushaws are definitely the late comers.  Only today do I see that some of them are starting, just starting to open up to sprout.

Meanwhile, all of the cucumbers, zucchinis, and butternuts have sprouted.

The ronde de nice are the second last ones.  Some have sprouted but not a whole lot yet.

Raised shelf AGAIN (2nd time), for tomatoes and ground cherries -- next year start them later

Raised that first shelf even higher... Cold spring lately so indoor space is at a premium since the tenders haven't started hardening yet.

Definitely start tomatoes AND ground cherries one to two weeks later next year.

Carrots: started more inside -- using sprouting jar/lid this time

Started touchon inside in a jar with the fine mesh sprouting lid.  Once sprouting, will use the corn starch gel method to sow them.

Cucumbers all sprouted and are now all in pots

Wow, great germination rate!  Really liking this paper towel thing.

Up-potted tomatoes, ground cherries, and some of the basil

Big day!  All of the tomatoes and ground cherries have now been up-potted.

Looking at their roots, it was definitely time.

Tomatoes went mostly in the big black pots, with a couple in a smaller white pot (1.2L).

Ground cherries went 3 in the big black pots, the rest in the smaller white pots (1.2L).

Also up-potted 4 of the basils.  From their roots, they could have waited longer.

Split apart some clumps of garlic -- but left some of them.

Decided to dig out / separate two of the garlic clumps which I'm not sure how they occurred in the first place.

Moved them into various spots in the garden.  Hopefully they will survive.

Left two or three of the clumps just to see what will happen.

Beets round 3 from paper towels -- planted several into ground

Basically one more square of cylindrical and one more square of Detroit.

More seeds yet to sprout so there will be another planting to come.

Shelf reduction -- LEAVE AS IS FOR NEXT YEAR

Did two things to the shelf unit:

- Completely removed the bottom shelf.  This adds ~2" height.

- Removed one shelf.

So, total of 4 levels:  table, shelf, shelf, top-shelf.

NOTE TO SELF:  LEAVE IT LIKE THIS FOR NEXT YEAR! 

Nasturtiums started in paper towel

Left-over seeds from a packet several years old. 

Haven't grown nasturtiums in a while, but I like them, so why not.  The leaves remind me of lily pads.

First -- and only -- asparagus harvest this year

Harvested two spears.  They were tasty.  Won't harvest any more this year because of the issues the plants are having.  I figure they need all the strength they can get from the other spears.

Pruned most of the other not-yet-pruned basils

And another nice harvest out of that!

Deliciousssssss on noodles with margarine and salt.

Columbine INFESTED with tiny orange insects with black spot

Noticed recently that the self-sowing columbine that has lived in the broken pot for ages isn't doing well this year.

I had noticed it looked rusty-coloured, and was small and wrinkled/eaten-looking, but hadn't really looked closely.

Until today -- a real close look revealed it's covered in tiny orange insects with black dots!

They look the same size as the ones I saw on the asparagus, but I don't recall the asparagus ones having a black dot.

I really need to get a magnifying glass to be able to have a better look at things like this.

Removed as much as I could, leaving just some roots and one piece that looks healthy.

Then moved the pot next to the fence/garbage.  TBD whether keep or not.

Also sprayed remaining with soapy water.

Asparagus problems!!! (1) tiny orange insects (2) leathery (3) dried tips etc.

Noticed earlier this week that some of the asparagus spears didn't look normal.  Indeed some of them are shrivelled and leathery; some have tiny orange insects on them (<1mm), one had a small hole drilled in it near where I found a small black fly, and some have dried tips or a shrunken midsection, etc.

Arghhhhh

So I cut off the wonky ones and sprayed everything with dish soap / water solution.

Don't remember seeing this last spring, but, I did see an asparagus beetle last summer.

I can't figure out what the cause is, though.  Maybe the tiny orange insects are circumstantial because I can't find any info on what they could be in terms a problem for the asparagus.

Started cucumbers, zucchini, ronde de nice, cushaw, and butternut

Goodness help me, I have verrrrry little space left on the shelves once these start germinating!

This is my first time trying ronde de nice and cushaw -- exciting!

Beets, round 3 -- this time in paper towels

In paper towels this time, to see if that results in faster germination/growth.

Carrots round 2: soaking in water inside for several days, then will sow with gel

Going to try this as an easier way to sow, and with quicker germination:

https://youtu.be/qZo4GpjswhU

Basil harvest while pruning! Yum

Quite a nice basil harvest while pruning!  The plants are doing quite well so far, looking vigorous, knock on wood.

Pruned most of the basils, but left a few unpruned for comparison.

Lettuce and turnips very slow growing outside -- next time consider plastic cage

They're only just starting to get their first true leaves and are all still itty bitty.

Swiss chard: I prefer Fordhook over the italian seed package

Fordhook looks strong and healthy, whereas the variety in the Italian seed package looks wimpy.

That said, the fordhook looked hungry for transplanting, or, thirsty for water -- I think it will be happy to be in the ground now.

Parsley: I prefer the Single Hardy Italian (flat) over Forest Green (curly)

They both look strong and good, but Forest Green is definitely curly (great for hiding insects) whereas Single Hardy Italian is nice and flat.

Transplanted onions, chard, celery, and broccoli

Everything is in front of the two pea/squash vertical structures.

The broccoli all look horrible but put then in the ground anyway just in case.

Brought everything back inside under the lights

So all those plants I was going to just start hardening off, read up on the internet and decided against it, just not warm enough and I feel the cold temps would be worse than the potential insect thing.  Fingers crossed.

Flying insect in kitchen today!!! (UFO)

Hoping it's only because I've had the doors open often for extended times carrying things in/out of the yard etc.

Plucked a few suspicious looking (thripsy) seedlings

Just a few small ones that looked a tad suspicious... I think they were all various zinnias.

Started round 2 of Scotia tomatoes and sunflowers today

Since round 1 was in the blue soil which might be suspect.

Started hardening off almost everything else today -- to avoid insect issue

Today was a nice sunny warm day and the forecast is somewhat decent, so I decided to heck with waiting around inside for a thrips infestation, I'll start hardening everything off.

It will be a long hardening off.  The only point is to get the plants outside during the day.  For some reason I feel less scared about an insect infestation destroying everything if the plants are outside.

When they come in, the newest pottings are coming back into the computer room for more light since they're still so small.

Mayday! Mayday!!!! FLYING INSECT IN SEEDLING ROOM!!!!!!

Argh!!!!!!!!!  While inspecting seedling room plants tonight, an insect flew away from the top shelf!!!!

(I wasn't able to catch the fly)

That's the shelf that's been housing most of the blue soil, which is the soil that broccolis were in which are almost officially an entire flop.

Pleeeeeeeease don't tell me that was a thrip or whatever and is going to damage everything!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I immediately whisked away ALL blue soil plants (I've been labelling them as blue soil, just in case).  Brought them downstairs and covered them in plastic.  They will simply have to start hardening off, starting tomorrow, so that they can get some sun.  Will bring in at night and cover in plastic.

All my sunflowers and Scotia tomatoes were in the blue soil, sigh... Hopefully they will manage...

---- Of note, this is one year TO THE DAY (plus one) that I first noticed issues with stuntiness last year!  Everything (except the broccoli) is looking so goooooooooooooooood....  please let this goodness continue!

Carrots round 1 sowed -- including some in containers

Bed:  Nantes to the west, Touchon to the east.

Containers:  One with each kind.  Haven't tried carrots in containers before.

Indoor peas almost all up; none of the outdoor ones yet

Yesterday, brought in all but one of the outdoor, to help them germinate.  Set them in the living room, wrapped lightly with plastic to keep any potential insects inside.

Snow and hail today

Glad to have not set anything out yet. 

Been keeping the hardening-off-plants in at night, and even during some days like today.

Not a very warm spring so far!

Sunflowers are up! Potted into soil.

3 are up already, potted into soil now.

Exciting!!

(so yes, a very damp paper towel works with larger seed types)

Sunflower seeds started

Started some sunflower seeds in a paper towel (the seeds from the foil package).  Don't think I've ever tried to grow these before, or if I did, it wasn't successful.

Hope it works!  Experiments are fun :D

Potted some zinnias into the first bag of soil -- monitor for issues

Since I've almost run out of the reliable(-so-far) soil and my newly acquired bag of Pro Mix is so tiny, decided to use some of the first bag of soil again.  This is the blue bag, which all those broccoli look horrendous in and the one parsley and the celery leaves look mildly curled.

I still don't think it's thrips or other insects, but, just in case... I've put them on the top shelf all by themselves.

Indoor peas have appeared

Several of the indoor peas have started poking through.

One begonia has appeared!!!

Just as I was about to write them both off.  One has appeared.  The other hasn't yet.

Thinned lettuce and turnips

They were due for a thinning.

Still not confident they'll be harvestable before the zucchinis take over the bed, but, a fun experiment.

Sowed more peas - round 2 (forgot the inoculant!)

Another package of peas sown today.  Most into outdoor peat pots with outdoor soil.  Leftovers into the ground.

Completely forgot to add inoculant!  D'oh.

Seed-collecting experiment: Planted 5 of the fridge beets from last fall

Planted 5 cylindrical beets back into the ground today.  They were from last fall's harvest, spent the winter in the fridge and still looked good.  So let's see if we can get any beet seeds this year!

Peas sowed - round 1 - some in peat, some direct outside in ground

Soaked one package of seeds overnight.

Then today:

- filled two peat pots with indoor soil, with inoculant, placed inside
- filled one peat pot with outdoor soil, with inoculant, placed outside, up on chair
- put some directly in ground, southmost vertical area, south tip of there, east of the vertical structure (leaving room for squash to go just west of there next to the wall), with inoculant
- put more directly in ground, just north of the others -- without inoculant

For the outdoor ground-sown ones, placed the two outside tables upside down to try to ward off seed-stealers... though they don't lie flat so I doubt this will work.

Started tomato "Scotia"

Forgot I had ordered these seeds along with the peas.  The arrived today, so went ahead and started these Scotia tomatoes, in paper towel.

A ton more zinnias have sprouted

And potted into soil.

Broccoli round 2 is a flop too!!!

What the heck!  Round 2 of broccoli is also looking like a flop.  The plants are just small, wimpy, and now even floppy.  The leaves don't have the speckled/browning of round 1, but, still very unwell.

Decided today to start hardening them off now.  Maybe inside is too warm for them.  Will see if they stand a chance...

Sprinkled some grass seed

To cover up some spots.  First sprinkled some soil, then the seeds, then sprinkled more soil but didn't make attempts to thoroughly cover anything.  (didn't dig the ground at all)

Some of the zinnias have sprouted; potted them

Only a few so far.   Carefully labeling each pot as I go. 

To hopefully avoid the ground cherry's problem, I mixed in some of last year's mushroom compost, and, did the vermiculate "well" at the top too.