September 28, 2009

Where have I been hiding?  Well, sitting at my computer.  I think I've mentioned that I have an addictive personality.  Well, when the site was down, I got hooked on Facebook and the various apps that it entails.  /sigh  Can you say time-sink? 

Anyway, I felt compelled to post tonight so I'm back.  I promise to try to squeeze in a post as often as I've got something to say.  This is the time where there is not much happening in the garden.  My tomatoes have all succumed to blight or whatever, as did my cantaloupe. 



Unfortunately the Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe never got beyond baseball size.  I know they're supposed to be small, but not THAT small.  So now I've got two seasons of growing those under my belt and have come to the conclusion that they just don't work in my climate.  I know others have made it work, but I'm guessing it's in a greenhouse.  Last year I planted late and they never got beyond golf ball size.  This year I had them in my container ASAP after the last frost date and look at the results.  It's just not hot enough for them to mature in their 57 day window. 

Thankfully I've got two tomato plants that may still have a shot.  One was a volunteer and the other was a sucker transplant. 



This volunteer basically took over the carrot section and the isle... I ran out of tomato cages.  It's got some great looking tomatoes on it, but they're still green.  I may have to pull them and let them redden inside.  It worked last year so I'm hopeful if it comes to that.

I hope you're late summer garden looks better than mine!

September 10, 2009

Alright, you asked for it, you get pics of my disasterous garden.  In my defense, I'm almost out of broccoli and caulflower seeds and they've turned into a big hit with the big people in my family (namely my wife, who is the first person to tell you she hates those veggies).  So I decided after the plants flowered that I'd see what it took to make them go to seed.  The bumblebees loved them so I let them stay.  The bees were a welcome addition to that area of my garden.

Well, now they look like this...



I think each of those pods needs to dry out and inside are about 10 seeds.  When I opened one earlier they had about that many green seeds. 

Of course I have since seen the package and thee Fiesta broccoli from Territorial is a hybrid.  Oh well, no harm no foul.  These will make a welcome addition to the compost pile. 

Speaking of which, I haven't been doing much adding to it this year.  Three years out from the last time I weed and fed my lawn, it didn't grow at all all summer.  It really didn't turn majorly brown either, just didn't grow.  I'll take that from an effort perspective, but it makes me quite shy of greens in mass quantities for my compost pile.  I figure with the kitchen compost and leaves that are bound to start falling, I'll have one more major flip before I put it to bed for the winter.  For greens I'll use these plants and some handy coffee grounds from Starbucks. 

Lastly, I thought I'd take an overview pic of my garden to scare you all into going out this weekend and cleaning up yours, hehe.  Needless to say the major winner this year were the carrots.  I swear my kids is turning into a rabbit.



Oh, and that monster in the picture is a volunteer tomato plant.  No clue what type it is, but it looks healthy enough.  I figured if I had tomato volunteers I'd just leave them and see what happened.  So far it looks like I'll have a late crop of salad makings, even if I have to ripen them inside.  Not Judy and EG kind of second crop, but pretty decent for the Pacific Northwest.

Enjoy your garden, and let folks know I'm back.  It's kinda lonely without the 400+ folks reading my blog each day, hehe.

September 9, 2009

Well, I didn't get a chance to get out to the garden tonight.  As is typical these days, I rushed home from work, changed clothes, raced to the soccer field to relieve my wife so she could go to a meeting.  After practice, I took my eldest to my folks to meet up with my youngest, had a bit of dinner, helped with a project and brought the kids home to bed.  Rinse repeat.  Frankly I've been lucky to water my SWCs because they're a closed system and rain doesn't help them.  I thought I had some pics of the garden on my phone but don't, so alas, you'll have to wait another day until I can get out and snap some shots.  Trust me, it will make your garden look good.

September 8, 2009

Wow, boy how time flies.  I can't believe it's been a whole month since my last post.  I almost forgot my passwords and how to navigate my blog.  As you can tell from the August 1st comments, my patron Judy has been working diligently over the last month to convince the host company that there was a problem on their end causing all of the FT2Garden.com sites to be down. 

I have been keeping busy with summer activities, mostly non-garden related.  Gettting my eldest ready for Kindergarten has been a chore, but now my baby is all grown up and started school today.  /sigh.

Well, short post for tonight. All I can say is YAY!  I'm so glad to not only get my blog back, but all the old data is back.  Thank you Judy for backing everything up.  So sorry that most of your backups were corrupt and you lost the last year. 

Let folks know that may care.  I plan on posting almost daily like normal.  I hope you enjoyed your summer and as always, Enjoy your garden!

August 1, 2009

Ha! And you thought I was gone.  Well, I am. The miracle of forward publishing.

I hadn't planned on posting anything, but while I was out with my Aunt doing a wet run at the watering schedule for my garden, my kids went with us.  While out in the main garden, Logan asked politely if he could pick a carrot.  Like I would say no, hehe.  I was busy filling a SWC when my Aunt made a comment about how big it was.  I turned around and saw this!



I swear that Purple Haze carrot is 8 inches long and over an inch in diameter at the stem.  Very cool.  Even cooler that he wanted me to use the hose to wash it off before he proceeded to eat the entire thing!

 



I actually got to share the little one with my little one.  He sort of likes carrots, mostly because his older brother does.  He had a few bites and I ate the rest. It was sweet and crisp.  Perfect in other words.

Have a great week!

Enjoy your garden.

July 31, 2009

Wow, time sure flies.  Long ago my mother called to say she was treating the family to an Alaskan cruise in recognition of all the hard work we put into rennovating their home.  Of course we were in the middle of the process so it didn't register at the time.  Then, over the next few months my sister-in-law who works for the line was trying to excite folks and get us to do what was necessary to book the cruise.  Again, I was apathetic.  It was the start of the hellish period in the renovation.  Time to pick excursions came and went and I still couldn't wrap my brain around it.  Finally the house was done and I had time again.  Alas, things needed to be done around the home and the weather got scorching hot, so I still didn't do anything. 

Well, it's time to head out tomorrow. I packed last night and am continuing to pack for us and the kids tonight, so I wanted to post my last blog entry for a week or so. I'm sure when I get back I'll snap all sorts of pics of what has matured, been harvested or bolted.  But for now, let's get into a marathon post.

First off, I wanted to show my stunted corn stalks.  For some reason they only got 3 feet tall rather than the 6 feet they got last year.



Despite the short stalks, I'm getting corn.  Unfortunately I think my Aunt (who will be watering) will be harvesting them.

\

Only two stalks have corn on them as I type, but this one has two ears and others show signs of growth.  Who knows if I'll taste home grown corn or not.  Someone will at least, hehe.  I recall you only have 10 days after the silks die or something like that.  They may last for a week. Not sure.

Oh, I found this shot on my camera, just to show how hot it's been here, look at this.



The top is the garden and the bottom is inside the house.  Makes me sweat just looking at it.  Oh, and the barrometer isn't calibrated right. No rain for several weeks still. Very odd for us (global warming ahem).

Speaking of the heat, that record 103 degree day did a number on my cauliflower.  This was just about ready to harvest one day and the next...



Destined for the compost when I get home.

The lettuce however hadn't shown much signs of distress despite a week of temps in the 90s.  In the back of my mind I knew I should shade them, but I left them as is.



As you can see, some of the leaves wilted due to that day.  A day late and a dollar short, I did something about it.  I removed the wood between the beds and replaced it with one of my trusty window shades and PRESTO!



Gotta love keeping junk from our window replacment project last year, hehe.  Not only will the shade protect them, but the 16 inch bed sides will help them get just over 5 hours of sun a day.  Should do the trick.  When I get home I'll plant more I guess.  Maybe I'll have time to throw some seeds in the ground tonight or tomrrow morning.

Lastly, for the grand finalle before head off into the sunset for a week on the high seas, not everything is hating the heat.  No, it's not the tomatoes, they lost all their blooms due to the heat.  It's acutally my cantaloupe!



I actually have 3 growing bigger than they ever got last year, with more on the way, but I believe you can only see two in this picture.  Can you spot them? 

Something interesting about this 31 gallon Self Watering Container.  Sure it's only got 3 cantaloupe plants in it, but it never runs out of water.  Seems like these plants don't need much water.  Very odd.

Well, that's it for me.  Sorry I haven't been around much lately, and that I'm going away again for a whole week, but I can't wait to get back and see all your blogs to see that you've been enjoying your gardens in my absence!

July 29, 2009

YIKES!  We hit a new all-time record here in the Seattle area.  Our previous record temperature was 100 hit as recently as 1994.  I personally recall playing tennis all day long in high school only to find out it hit 99, but that was when I was insane. I'm better now, hehe.

Well, today we shattered that record.  It hit 103 officially today, though it was as high as 104 or 105 depending where you were.  Again, with almost no homes having AC, and less than half having sufficient fans, it was not pretty.  Poor Logan, he had soccer for 3 hours again today.  Thankfully they played it safe with tons of water breaks and spent most of the time in the shade doing drills.  Whew.

I must say though, despite the swealtering heat that's melting my garden and bolting my spring crops, I found enough to harvest for one deliscious salad.

So far (knock on wood), my container lettuce mix has held up to the heat and did some cut and cut again rather than pulling leaves from the outside.  Then I harvested my first Bloody Butcher tomatoes.  Of course I had to pull a big fat carrot, but I was surprise to find this while harvesting.



No, not the sun burnt cauliflower, but the pickling cuke next to it.  The first cucumber of the season!

Yum!  I was so happy, I picked it and brought all my harvest in to be prepped at 6 am.  Here's what I came up with.



The verdict?  I may have waited too long to harvest the ripe tomatoes. They were a bit squishy, and the flavor was a bit off to me.  That and I can't say I'm thrilled with one or two of the lettuces.  Maybe they were bitter from starting to bolt, not sure.  The carrot was great though, and the whole thing was very edible, sans dressing, hehe.  While my good buddy EG likes a little lettuce with his dressing, I like a few cranraisins thrown in for some sweetness.  Yummy!

Of course I watered deeply today before work, but when I got home in 100 degree heat, the lettuce was wilting.  I sprayed it with water hoping to rehydrate them.  Tomorrow I'll throw them in shad to help save them.  Maybe I'll plant a few squares of fall lettuce now in case the containers die out prematurely.  Oh, and I had to fill my tomato SWCs twice today, hehe, poor monster plants, wilting despite my best attempts.  Ah well, it's gotta cool down soon.

I hope you're staying cool. As of my writing at 9 pm, the outside temp has officially dropped below the inside temp at 89/91, so I'll start the fans blowing cooler air into the house.  Take care and...

Enjoy your garden!