On July 13 I was selling my wares (see www.backyardpatch.blogspot.com) so I went out the garden on Monday and Tuesday instead. There was a lot of rain this past week. So much so that I did not need to water and the weeds did grow a bit from my lack of need to go to the garden.
Everything is looking very green and really beginning to show growth. The lettuces are going to seed and some will need to be removed soon. The beans are climbing the trellis nicely and cucumbers and squash are blooming and beginning to produce.
Tasks this week
The big task this week was to tie up the tomato plants that are not in cages. We caged the better boy and the heirloom tomatoes just after planting back in May, but the smaller grape and cherry tomatoes I waited to see what they would need. We salvaged wood from a dumpster for this. I could not believe our luck but the art museum must have been cleaning out a store room as they tossed 2 x 4s and thinner 1 x 2 that looked almost new and were 6 to 8 feet long. We were able to create stakes 3 feet long for each of the tomato plants.
Chas did all the lumber cutting and placement of the stakes. My job was to go back through and tie everything up. I use a cotton twine for this. the same twine I used for marking seed rows and creating trellis for peas and beans.
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I quadrupled the twine and twisted the strands together to create a wide enough material that it would not cut into the branches of the plants. I tied each plant with at least two ties. One near the base and one just above halfway up. If the plants get taller, I have room for one more set of ties.
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Now the tomatoes are upright, you can clearly see the basil and all the weeds we missed.
I removed the arugula and the butter crunch lettuce that we had not harvested. The arugula was a target for pests and all the leaves were perforated with holes so I never harvested it in any great amount. Once it started to go to seed i removed it to the compost bin. The butter crunch went to seed when the weather turned hot after all that rain. There was only one head of it left so I removed that to compost as well. the mustard i am letting go to seed for the seed. the micro green are still able to be harvest and the sorrel will be good for another month or more of harvesting.
In place of the lettuces removed we planted some Kohlrabi that was given to us by a friend. I used the same planting technique as before, digging a hole twice as wide as the root ball, filling it with water and letting that soak in before placing the plant in and firming the soil. They will be rather late in the year before we can harvest these, but we will see how they do.
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Issues to address
The tomatoes plants are definitely dying back along the bottom. I would have said this was due tot lack of sun, but I think it is something else as this garden gets more sun than any I have ever planted in.
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There are some who say the soil suffers from a lack of calcium which is easily fixed. The large amounts of rain we have had are going to cause a few other problems too I expect, like blossom end rot and black spot.
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| taken 7-15-14 |
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| acorn squash bearing fruit |
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| Nice crop of beans |
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| peas growing well - dwarf variety still getting rather tall |
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| first zucchini |
The big task this week was to tie up the tomato plants that are not in cages. We caged the better boy and the heirloom tomatoes just after planting back in May, but the smaller grape and cherry tomatoes I waited to see what they would need. We salvaged wood from a dumpster for this. I could not believe our luck but the art museum must have been cleaning out a store room as they tossed 2 x 4s and thinner 1 x 2 that looked almost new and were 6 to 8 feet long. We were able to create stakes 3 feet long for each of the tomato plants.
Chas did all the lumber cutting and placement of the stakes. My job was to go back through and tie everything up. I use a cotton twine for this. the same twine I used for marking seed rows and creating trellis for peas and beans.
I quadrupled the twine and twisted the strands together to create a wide enough material that it would not cut into the branches of the plants. I tied each plant with at least two ties. One near the base and one just above halfway up. If the plants get taller, I have room for one more set of ties.
Now the tomatoes are upright, you can clearly see the basil and all the weeds we missed.
I removed the arugula and the butter crunch lettuce that we had not harvested. The arugula was a target for pests and all the leaves were perforated with holes so I never harvested it in any great amount. Once it started to go to seed i removed it to the compost bin. The butter crunch went to seed when the weather turned hot after all that rain. There was only one head of it left so I removed that to compost as well. the mustard i am letting go to seed for the seed. the micro green are still able to be harvest and the sorrel will be good for another month or more of harvesting.
In place of the lettuces removed we planted some Kohlrabi that was given to us by a friend. I used the same planting technique as before, digging a hole twice as wide as the root ball, filling it with water and letting that soak in before placing the plant in and firming the soil. They will be rather late in the year before we can harvest these, but we will see how they do.
Issues to address
The tomatoes plants are definitely dying back along the bottom. I would have said this was due tot lack of sun, but I think it is something else as this garden gets more sun than any I have ever planted in.
There are some who say the soil suffers from a lack of calcium which is easily fixed. The large amounts of rain we have had are going to cause a few other problems too I expect, like blossom end rot and black spot.
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