sb158's Valley Garden » Square Foot Gardening

Keep-It-Alive-Till-Harvest Mode

sb158 — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:31:05 +0000

We’ve had three weeks of temps in the mid-to-high nineties, with humidity to match, and heat advisories all the time. You can imagine what that does to a garden. I’m babying most things along until I can harvest whatever’s still surviving out there. Cukes and watermelon in the containers have just about had it. I do have several cantaloupes almost ready to harvest, and keep checking every day to see if any are ripe. The Gold Bar Melons do keep chugging along, but even they are looking a bit weather-worn. They better taste good, because they have set a bunch of fruit. My volunteer tomatoes still have a bunch of fruit ripening, even set a few new fruits.

Haven’t gotten so much as one zucchini; I think it’s a pollination problem, or the heat. I do hand pollinate, but still no fruit set. No green beans, either. They either get some dreadful disease and die, or something eats all the blossoms and half the leaves before I see green bean one. I did plant some Contender bush beans that are still looking good; I’m still holding out hope. Probably futile, but you have to be an optimist to try and garden, especially down here!

The jalapenos, on the other hand, seem to be enjoying the heat. Got several fruit, which is way more than I had last year! The Fruit Basket bells in the hanging baskets even have a few fruits.

So all is not lost, but it’s still very discouraging. I think that I’m done with self-watering containers. Haven’t had much luck at all to date. I’ll probably do like Annie’s Granny and use them in the raised beds like she has. They might work for a fall garden, but the summer heat is just too much for any plant to survive.

Still house-hunting, too, which kind of messes up fall garden plans. Don’t want to start fall veggies, only to have to either haul baby plants if we do find a house, or leave perfectly good veggies in the garden. What would you do?

Not much else to say, I guess. I’m pretty much in “Survive-Till-Cooler-Weather” mode myself. I have had quite enough summer already, even though it’s just barely started. Sigh…

So The Veggies Are Growing…

sb158 — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:57:55 +0000

I’ve been trying to update all week, but things have been blowing around too much. We’ve had 35-40 mph winds all week, with occasional gusts even higher. It’s hard to get decent pics in all that wind. The wind finally “calmed down” to 20-25 mph today, so took quick pics between gusts…
Pics and more

Mouseover the thumb to see the big picture.
Click for the really big pic.

This is the raised bed from one end. The zucchini is doing what zucchini is supposed to do, as opposed to staying small and puny, then dying, like it did last year. There’s even a baby zucchini already. Cantaloupe is growing up the green pole, while Gold Bar Melons are growing up the tower thingy. Lettuce and spinach are doing great so far under the sun shade. Chard is growing under the cube thingies between the zucchini and the lettuce. Baby hot peppers are under the cubes further down.

Raised bed veggies

Here’s the view from the other end; you can see the Sequoia bush beans and baby jalapenos. The jugs are my “irrigation system.”

View from the other end

I have a few baby tomatoes to put between the two melon towers; just letting them get a good set of roots before I plant them.

This is the container garden. See how everything is all tilted? The wind has been brutal. I keep turning the pots to try and keep the plants straight! The two SWCs on the far right are cherry tomatoes. I had to rig a wind shield for the taller one cuz it was getting beat all to heck by the wind. It had blossoms, but the wind broke them.
The wood container has two patio tomatoes, and some cilantro. On the far side, you can see the volunteer tomatoes, the cucumbers, and the green beans with the mums.

Container Veggies
The volunteer tomatoes are coming along nicely. There’s one that should be ready tomorrow; there might even be enough lettuce and spinach to make a salad for everybody. YUM!

Almost ripe tomato

Actual green beans!
I’ve got a bunch of small green beans, not quite ready to pick yet. Maybe tomorrow. Not sure what’s going on with the green beans; disease or bugs. Think it might be Mexican Bean Beetles. Need to do more research on it. But I’m still getting green beans, which is an improvement over last year.

Fruit Basket Sweet Peppers
The baby Fruit Basket peppers seem to be doing okay so far. They get quite a bit of morning sun, even in the tree, but filtered afternoon sun. Considering the summer heat, I think they’ll probably do better hanging from a tree than the ones exposed to full sun in the garden. Good thing hot peppers like heat!

I noticed yesterday that the same bugs, judging by the chewing patterns, that decimated and killed my melons last year appear to be trying to do it again. No idea what bug it is, but I don’t see any caterpillars, so I’m going with beetles of some kind. I read somewhere that Gold Bond Medicated powder worked for a few people. They said the bugs apparently didn’t like the menthol taste. I went to the Dollar Store tonight and bought a couple containers of the store brand and puffed it all over the leaves after I misted them with water to help it stick. We’ll see in the morning if there are new holes. Made some garlic/hot pepper tea, but it was still too windy tonight to even spray. I would very likely have ended up wearing more of the stuff than the plants; it’s supposed to be less windy tomorrow. I’ll try it tomorrow night if the powder hasn’t helped.
So that’s what’s going on in the veggie garden. All in all, doing much better than they did last year. And now it’s time to say good night, y’all…

I think it’s about time

sb158 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:51:47 +0000

I updated. I keep meaning to update, but keep getting sidetracked by my kids on FB, playing The Beatles Rockband, or just life.

Totally OT, but The Beatles Rockband is a blast!

Anyway, things are looking up in the garden. We’ve finally gotten some substantial rain and somewhat cooler temps, and the plants are very appreciative (as is the gardener). The fall tomatoes, cukes, and melons are doing quite well so far, except for eaten leaves. I’m thinking snails or slugs, since I can’t find any other bugs. I mixed up a snail and slug bait I found on the Net, consisting of 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of yeast mixed into a quart of water. Put some out today in individual applesauce cups, so we’ll see what happens.

Got lots of flowers growing in all those lovely containers Hubby bought me a while ago, and more babies sprouting in the house under lights. Time to start the wildflowers pretty soon, too, but I need to make some free-draining soil mix for most of them. Plan to go get the ingredients this weekend, but if the stuff I have here doesn’t dry out, it may have to wait till it does. There’s no doubt it’ll stop raining soon; always does here! Found alot of cool containers on clearance at Dollar General, too. Shopping for that sort of stuff is MUCH cheaper this time of year than in the spring.

So here are a couple pics I took of the garden babies:

Mouseover to see bigger pic.

San Marzano Paste tomatoes

Cantaloupes, melons and cukes…and basil.

The lantana and Blackie sweet potato vine are recovering, but the lavender was toast a while ago. I put a baby mealycup sage in its place; we’ll see how that does.

More later; I’ll try to be better about this…

I REALLY hate those little

sb158 — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:16:40 +0000

(insert vile epithet of choice)______________. Fire ants, I mean. Bungled into two separate nests of the little _______ yesterday, with very unpleasant consequences. I’ve mentioned before that the french filet pole beans weren’t doing well, but I don’t think I mentioned the sick zucchini. It’s in one of the containers by the arbor thingy, and it’s only grown a few leaves and two male blossoms since I planted it before I went to Colorado. Whoever heard of a zucchini NOT growing, at least before the squash vine borers get it? So I decided to pull out the french failures and try some scarlet runner beans. I started to move the mulch away to plant the seeds, and was viciously attacked. Got away with only two bites that time; not so bad. I read somewhere that ants don’t like molasses, so I poured about a cup of molasses into a gallon of water and drenched the container with it. I also dumped a bit of Amdro in there. The ants might explain the sickly zucchini and failing beans, at least in part.

I decided to plant the scarlet runner beans in the cantaloupe container instead.

Later, after it cooled off a bit, I decided to pull everything out of the little storage area behind my trellis. The lawn guy can’t really weed-eat in there, so I figured I’d pull the weeds and put plastic down. I’m down on my hands and knees, trying to tuck some plastic under the lawn mower (which is wrapped in a tarp and stored there, since we got the lawn guy), when….

Yea, you guessed it. Here come the little _________ again. This time they were all over both hands, crawling up the legs of my jeans, and in my shirt. I ran inside, and immediately sprayed WD 40 all over my hands. Believe it or not, that stuff stops mosquito bites from itching and swelling, makes burns stop burning, and takes the sting out of even fire ant bites. Then I ran to the laundry room, started the washer, and stripped. Threw the clothes all in the washer, then stopped it after they were sufficiently covered. Next stop, the shower, after which I put more WD 40 all over my hands and feet where I’d been bitten. Had to apply it once more about an hour later, but the bites haven’t bothered me since then. They still all blistered up, but don’t bother me at all.

So, yea, I hate the little _______.

In my last post, I’d been debating whether or not to start new pepper plants. In thinking about it, I realized that, with all the aphid damage, the ones I have might survive and produce, but they won’t be at peak performance after all the heat and bugs. I have enough room for a few, so I’m gonna go ahead and start new ones.

I’m going to pull the Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes, cracked fruit and all, in a day or two, empty the dirt out and refurbish it, then plant some new tomatoes in that container soon as they’re big enough. I think I’m going to yank the Roma tomatoes pretty soon, too, as they haven’t set much fruit and look like they have some disease. I’ll let the current fruit ripen, but unless they have a miraculous recovery, they’re gone, too. Got some new paste tomatoes started to replace them, anyway. Probably would have had more luck if I’d started the garden in a more timely manner, but that’s life…

We’re actually getting some nice, sorely needed, rain showers today. Very happy about that. Came at a good time, too, cuz it was time to give the garden a fertilizer booster today, anyway. The rain just makes it that much more effective. Hubby’s weather gizmo said the high today was 109! It’s at least 20 degrees cooler now, after the rain started moving through. So thanks, Mother Nature. Appreciate it…

Hallelujah and Thank You

sb158 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:57:47 +0000

We’re finally getting some rain and (slightly) cooler temperatures! Not nearly as much as we need, but, at this point, I’m thankful for whatever we get. I expect my plants will grow a foot overnight!

Here are some pics I took about a week ago that show how much the garden had grown while I was in Colorado. Compare them to these pics.

Pics within

The raised bed with tomatoes, peppers, cukes, and basil

The arbor thingy with tomatoes, cantaloupe, zucchini, watermelon, and pole beans

Heatwave and Silvery Fir Tree Tomatoes

Heatwave tomatoes living up their name, setting lots of fruit even in this heat

Hubby’s picnic table, WIP

Hubby’s picnic table, another angle

As I said, these pics are about a week old. In a couple days, after it stops raining, I’ll take some more, just to see how they grew after the rain. You can water all you want, but even a little bit of rain does so much more…

Monster Mud, Rosemary, and Jasmine

sb158 — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:40:38 +0000

Much better day today, since the guy fixed the AC first thing this morning. Good thing, too, cuz hubby bought this gadget that collects weather information. The gadget said the high today was 101. Felt that hot, for sure.

So I finished my two Monster Pots, as I mentioned. Here’s a pic of the jasmine pot:

Yes, I know, the poor thing looks sad. It was so root-bound I had to prune the roots, then prune the foliage to balance the root reduction. I planted a Moonlight nasturtium, one of my clearance creeping sedums, a dichondra, and two teeny baby verbena in the container with it. Hope it does okay.

The other Monster Pot is for my rosemary. Here’s a pic of the finished pot and the rosemary for which I made it:

Big pot for a not-so-big rosemary, I know. Just like kids, it will grow, though. Until it grows into the pot, I put some broken styrofoam pieces that were in the new coffeepot box into the bottom. I filled it to about an inch or so below the plant level, then covered it with landscape fabric to keep the dirt from sifting down into the styrofoam. That way, the plant will have some room to stretch it’s roots and grow, but not too much. If all goes well, I’ll probably have to repot again in fall or spring, but all I have to do is remove some Styrofoam and we’ll be good to go. It was getting dark by the time I finished transplanting the rosemary, or I would have added a pic of that, too.

Here’s a pic of the baby peppers and basils sitting in their eventual garden homes, getting used to the sun. It took about an hour and a half, again, before they started looking wilty and I moved them back.

Didn’t get the SWC’s made, as I had other stuff to do today. And I seem to have an infestation of leaf miners, so I guess it’s Google time to get rid of them. Couple minor holes in the bush bean leaves, too, could be slugs or snails, or any number of other unsavory critters. At least the rabbits and birds haven’t managed to get through the bean cage yet…knock on wood.

Trying To Keep Up With It All

sb158 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:59:43 +0000

Whew! This is really the first chance I’ve had since I last posted to post again. I’ve either been busy doing, instead of writing, or too wiped to even type. That heat out there is gonna kill me yet, I swear.

I’ve been planting babies into the garden, like cukes, stevia, and bee balm, or tomatoes into SWCs. I’d already put the two Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes into the 18 gal SWC, but this weekend I went to HD and bought 4 of the ugly, but cheap, orange 5 gal buckets. I also bought some white spray paint to cover the ugly orange, but mostly to help with heat reflection. So I built, painted, and planted those two with the two Heatwave tomato babies. Then I put the two watermelon babies into the milk-jug SWCs that the Heatwave were in. By next weekend, no doubt, I’ll have to make 2 more for the watermelon.

Here are a couple pics of the garden as of yesterday evening.

Here are the tomato SWCs. The Heatwave babies are under the mini-milk crates to shade and protect them in the afternoon heat until they get established.

Made a ladder trellis of sorts for the moonflower vine. I’m hoping it’ll grow right up the tree and make a cheap old ash tree look like a moonflower tree eventually. There’s a Mexican Mint Marigold, or Mexican tarragon, plant, a dichondra, and 2 baby coleus in there too. I’m waiting for some hyssop and a Moonlight nasturtium to sprout and grow big enough to stick in the empty spaces.

This bed beside the stairs is where I keep all my container plants and babies until I have their permanent homes ready for them. You can’t see it too well because of the harsh sun and shadow, but the morning glories are growing, ever so slowly, towards the strings and up. the nasturtium I planted on top to trail down are doing okay, too. There are two shrubs for which I need bigger containers, as well as some herbs, including the rosemary for which I’m making the Monster Pot. Speaking of which, it only needs maybe one more layer and water-proofing before I’m ready to try planting in it to see what happens.
I bought a styrofoam beer cooler at the grocery store that’s about 14″ tall and 12″ wide. I’m covering the outside of that with a couple layers of Monster Mud with Mortar, to cover the advertising, but mostly to make the container heavier. I’m sure, with the winds we get here sometimes, the whole thing would blow over if I don’t make it heavier. This one’s for the night-blooming jasmine and a couple trailing annuals. Will do another one for the other shrub next.

The peppers, bell and hot, that I’ve been presprouting in paper towels and baggies keep sprouting in dribs and drabs, so I’ve been putting those all in yogurt containers. Ran out of room under the lights, so I moved all the growing peppers outside into the shade to start hardening them.

Trying to start flower seeds for containers, and have a bunch of those in yogurt and applesauce containers, too.

I love the smell of chamomile almost as much as basil, but if you’ve ever tried to grow chamomile from seed, you know how tiny they are. I sprinkled a bunch of seeds, and ended up with 36 tiny chamomile babies in one container. What is it with 36, anyway? Nevertheless, I had to VERY carefully transplant 36 teensy tiny chamomile into separate containers. Since I was almost out of yogurt cups, I put 4 in each, spaced as far apart as I could get them. I figure when it comes time to plant them out, I can just stick all 4 of them in the space I have for them, and they should be okay. I hope.

The basil babies were begging to be transplanted, but I had to go buy 3″ peat pots, cuz I have used all the yogurt cups. Thought I had enough, but I was obviously wrong. Tonight I transplanted 12 of them, and they are under the lights with the chamomile. Couldn’t do more cuz there’s no more room. Getting seriously short on space here lately! I’ll carry the chamomile and transplanted basil out into the shady spot tomorrow, just to make room for more transplants. Don’t know what I’m gonna do when I run out of space in the shady spots, too! LOL.

What else? Oh yea, I came up with a good idea for my pole bean trellis, and bought the stuff for that, too. It’s gonna require an extra pair of hands, and getting hubby out there to help hasn’t worked so well yet. I’ll post about that, with pics if I remember, when I get it done.

There’s a ton more stuff buzzing around in my head, but the post is already long, and I’m ready for bed. One more thing, I bought the ticket to Colorado Springs for my eldest daughter’s graduation from Jr College in May. I’m looking forward to seeing her and the grandsons I haven’t seen in ages, but I’m also afraid hubby might forget to water the garden while I’m gone, and all my hard work will die! I plan on leaving written instructions, and hope for the best.

This, That, and Monster Mud II

sb158 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:44:32 +0000

The previous post should have been put up on Saturday night, but I was too exhausted from the miserable heat to finish it. This is a continuation thereof, with all the stuff I should have already posted.

So Saturday evening, I planted a few of the indeterminate tomatoes (ie, Roma, Big Beef, and TripLCrop) after it cooled off some, but before it got too dark. You know, for all the misery and threat of impending T-storm, another front blew in and chased the rain away. So, no rain and no relief from the heat.

Sunday I planted the rest of the indeterminates along the long side of the trellis, as well as some borage, dill, sesame seed plants, stevia, and a hot pepper called Pasillo Bajio.

This morning I finished up all the plants that were big enough to go in the garden. Got some more peppers, cukes, etc, to go in soon as they get big enough. Cukes and cantaloupes will go on the short side of the trellis. They’re outside hardening now, but aren’t ready to face the heat yet. Speaking of heat, it got up to 100 degrees again briefly today, about 5pm or so. What kind of lunatic gardens in this heat? Please don’t answer that, rhetorical question…Still way too early for that crap!

Was going to take a pic of my newly planted garden, but all you would have seen would have been those miniature-milk-crate-storage-cube thingies I used to cover the babies to give them a bit of shade and protection from the heat. I’m sure I’m gonna need those for a few days yet.

What else? Oh, the lavender in the container with the lantana and Blackie Sweet potato vine has joined the bloom parade. And, the sweet potato I’m sprouting in the house for slips is getting a sprout, just barely.

In between giving myself heat stroke and recovering from same, I have been slowly working on my Monster Pot. I put on a few more layers and waterproofed them, then decided to try mixing a little mortar mix in with the joint compound, just to see if it made the pot stronger or broke it! Did my first layer tonight; I’ll see how it looks in the morning after it dries a bit. If you look at the pic, you can see the gray mortared area in contrast to the white joint compound part. I mixed up my usual amount of mud to play with, but it didn’t go very far. Usually I get two and a half layers per batch, but this time, only got about 3/4 of a layer. And it was very stiff and dried a whole lot faster. May try more paint this time, see if it helps. The pot will be the eventual home of my rosemary, after I waterproof it thoroughly and paint it. I’m still debating between a terra-cotta color or some of that cool Krylon spray paint that looks like stone. Leaning towards the Krylon, but this is subject to rapid and dizzying change.

What else? Oh yeah, I mixed up some “dirt” for my first SWC and filled it today. Waiting till tomorrow to plant it, just to make sure the dirt got thoroughly wet. I used Al’s 5-1-1 mix from the Container Gardening forum on Gardenweb. It gets rave reviews, so I thought I’d give it a try. This one is for two Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes, couldn’t resist planting tomatoes with such a cool name. They’re very different-looking than most tomatoes; we’ll see how they do.

I’m gonna put two Heatwave tomatoes in the next one I build. Right now they seem very happy in milk-jug SWC’s I made for them, so there isn’t that much of a rush.

Okay, I’m done for now. Long post already, and I am very tired. Night, all!

Planting Time, Finally!

sb158 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:17:06 +0000

I finished my bed Friday, then fertilized and watered it really well today, despite the ugly hot humid nasty weather. There’s a Pacific front coming in, and it’s been “thunderstorm weather” all day today. You know how it gets still and muggy, and you can feel the sky just waiting to explode? Yukky. I did not even want to go out there today, but I did. Self-discipline, right?
Anyway, my tomatoes and the other stuff that’s big enough is going in tomorrow. Got some more babies almost ready, and more behind them still too small.
Before I got all stinky and sweaty, I went to the local feed & seed to see what they had. The guy who runs the place is evidently quite a gardener, and has a bunch of all kinds of plants in his store. Had a nice visit with him, and bought a night-blooming jasmine and another shrub. It’s supposed to be new, starts with an “R” and is supposed to attract hummingbirds. Can’t remember the name of it, gonna have to go back to the store (oh, darn!) and ask the guy. I want to see if he has a tri-color sage, anyway; it’d be the perfect finish to a container I’m working on.

Before I close for now, here’s a pic of my garden bed all done, but not planted yet.

And here’s a pic of my two new shrubs. The shrub whose name I forgot is the one with the funny-looking reddish flowers. Anybody recognize it?

Almost Done

sb158 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:48:21 +0000

I finished most of my garden bed today, despite the higher temps and humidity. Surprisingly, I didn’t hurt quite as much as I thought I would. The bath in Icy Hot must have helped. LOL.
I have only about 10 sq ft to finish, but I don’t think I have enough “mixers” to finish. Gotta run over to Lowe’s and grab a couple more bags, and some lime, since I forgot it the last time I was there. Would’ve been much easier to mix the lime as I was mixing the dirt, but…
So I guess I’ll run to the store when hubby gets home, so I can finish the garden later tonight or tomorrow.
On another note, the lantana and Blackie sweet potato vine I planted with the lavender are both blooming. Here’s a pic.