June 15, 2009

Wow, I know, it's been a while since I had something to say two days in a row.  Funny to think not long ago it was odd for me to go a day without posting.  I promise to try to get busy in the garden. 

It's actually easier now not only because I have more time, but because so much is happening in the garden.  Not only are cool weather crops maturing all over the place, but summer crops are growing like mad in this warm weather we've been having. 

I know my son will be pleased that his favorite carrots are pretty much ready to be harvested.



No, I haven't done the finger test by digging around the base of the stem to tell the diameter of the carrot, but with stems like that they've got to be close.  Of course, I've determined that that little triangular area is prime growing real estate.  It's all about sun exposure.  No place in my garden gets more sun than that little 5 SF area.  Not only does it get the morning sun, but as soon as the sun passes by the trees it shines on that spot and others as well, but no other spot gets more looks from the sun.  Does that make sense?  The carrots seem to like it.  For that matter, that bed seems to do pretty well even though the back end of the bed gets no late afternoon or evening sun.  Look at the rest of that bed.



Not only are the yukon gold stems growing a foot and a half tall, but they're starting to flower.



Not sure if you've seen this or not with potatoes (especially yukon golds), but after they flower, sometimes they grow little green tomato looking things.  Not only are they poisonous, but they are where the potato seed comes from.  Potatoes are actually just overgrown roots, hehe.  Note that planting the seeds rarely produces true offspring.  Though I've read that that's how Mr. Burbank created his famous variety.  A little tid-bit of triva for you tonight.

I see folks liked my broccoli pic from yesterday, well there's more where that came from.  Look at these beauties that aren't far behind the one I harvested...



I just hope I can make it through the one I harvested befor these start flowering.  I really don't want to freeze these (I've not had good experience with par boiled and frozen veggies), but I will if I can't get through them.

I guess I'll end with another project I tackled this weekend in my few hours of pure garden bliss, hehe.  I finally broke out my screw gun and a 1/8th drill bit and poked holes at the apex of the arch of my hoop covers and also in the cross bars.  Then at my local hardware store I looked into getting long bolts and wing nuts to solidify the hoop covers for the winter storms that are so prevalent in the PNW.  They didn't have tiny diameter two and a half inch bolts.  The longest they had was 2 inches and that just isn't long enough to fit through the bigger diameter PVC pipes I used on some of the hoop covers. I knew I should have not been so cheap as to save a buck or two with the bigger diameter PVC.  Ah well, it just means I saved $10 on the hardware now.  Instead I just used twist ties.



I only installed one because it took a bit of time to get the flimsy twist ties to line up with the second hole and it's too late in the season to need hoop covers (unless I had shade material to extend my cool-weather crops).  Hmm, I have 4 feet wide landscape fabric... Maybe I could sew it together, hehe.  We'll see.  Anyway, here's what the small bed looked like.  Very sturdy!



That reminds me.  My good friend EG took some wide angle shots of his entire garden area. I should really do that. I know I've been looking for shots like that from last year and couldn't really find any. Not only that but they're good to see growth progress. I got home late tonight, but maybe tomorrow I'll take a couple.  Anyway, you can see the cole crops in the foreground are the broccoli I harvested and will harvest next, with some peas in the the back of the bed that really need a trellis (I hope the wasp nest is dead).  Then in the middle is a jungle of tomatoes.  I've never grown a variety that gets all jumbled like that. I wonder if those aren't determinates.  Not sure. I'll have to wait until they mature to see what the tomatoes look like. Lastly, to the left of the tomatoes are the cauliflower that I showed you yesterday, along with more succession cauliflower.  My wife will be happy with all the crowns we'll harvest this year.

That's about it for tonight.  I've got more for tomorrow. 

Enjoy your garden!