by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. July 26, 2015 post here. July 27, 2014 post here.  July 28, 2013 post here.

A quote from the 2015 post:

2013 total weight to date:  24.6 pounds

2014 total weight to date:  22.3 pounds

2015 total weight to date:  56.4 pounds

I believe we’re at less than ten pounds of produce so far this year. My guess is that 2015 was the “sunny and hot” outlier, and that 2016 is the “cool and cloudy” outlier…  The weather this week is supposed to be sunny and warm, so hopefully the yield will start to look a little more normal soon.

I think the pictures this week are similar to last week’s — only a few peppers are really starting to show color.

The overview:

The “Marketmore” cucumbers:

The “bit of color” — Gypsy peppers:

 

“Verde” Tomatillos — the fruits are starting to fill the husks:

Basil and Marigolds:

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

by A.J. Coltane

Previous post here.  July 19, 2015 post here. July 27, 2014 post here.  July 21, 2013 post here.

We’ve been thinning out some of the Tromboncino zucchini with the idea that the plant only has a finite amount of energy to pour into fruits.

A photo of a few small zucchini and the first cucumber:

I tried to bend the Tromboncino over the top of the 8′ trellis. I’ve done it in previous years. This time I bent a little too hard, and the plant now has a 90 degree angle turn at the top. Hopefully it won’t die above that point:

Some of the basil became part of a pizza Margherita:

The Basil plants pose with Marigolds. Peppers back left, cucumbers back right:

The Taxi are getting close:

The Tomatillos continue to produce huge husks:

The Jersey Knight asparagus and strawberries now have a fence between them and the weeds. The strawberries came with the house. They were in a bad location, so we moved them. They’re loving the new place it seems:

 

An overview. Tomatoes on the left. Peppers front center. Basil on the right. Zucchini back left. Tomatillos back center. Cucumbers back right:

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.  July 12, 2015 post here.  July 11, 2014 post here.  July 14, 2013 post here.

More wet. More clouds. It’s been an overcast spring and summer. In comparison to 2015 we’re waaaay behind, and I doubt we’ll catch up.

Though taken in isolation we’re doing ok.

The overview photo:

Standing near the leftmost pepper box:

The basil looks better at this point this year:

The cucumbers are not digging the rain:

Continue reading “Container Garden Update — July 10, 2016” →

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. June 28, 2015 post here. June 28, 2014 post here.  June 23, 2013 post here.

Looking at last year.. we’re well behind. For comparison, in 2015 the zucchini was already over the top of the 8′ trellis. It’s not 5′ tall yet this time.

Today has been one of the nicest, sunniest days we’ve had in a while. There are supposed to be at least a few more nice days coming up. I doubt we’ll equal last year’s overall production, but the improved weather should help pick things up.

A few of the plants are doing at least ok. The Oregon Spring are first on the scene, as usual:

The Tromboncino are growing. Hopefully we’ll be able to start harvesting in a week or so:

Standing next to the cucumbers, looking north at tomato plants:

The flowers in the whiskey barrels are doing well. The nasturtiums have completely overrun their container:

The tomatillos have lots of flowers too:

 

The boy cat hanging out in the shade:

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. June 14, 2015 post here. June 21, 2014 post here.  June 16, 2013 post here.

The weather lately has been all over the place. Looking at last year, overall we’re a little “behind”.

An overview:

[Tomatoes on the left, peppers in the front, basil on the right. The tall plants in the back center are tomatillos.]

It’s not super easy to see, but the Serranos (front right, rear right, center left) have gotten much much taller than everything else in this box:

Something ate a hole in one of the Gypsy peppers this week. I suspect earwigs again. In addition, a few other peppers had their leaves chewed on. As a remedy attempt I dosed a very few grains of Sluggo Plus at the bottom of each pepper plant. Normally I wouldn’t use that around veggies but I’m sort of out of answers. In any event, it was only 2-3 grains per plant.

Onward — We paired Taxi and Oregon Spring tomatoes again. They’re doing great:

They’re of comparable size and they’re both very early. No reason to mess with what works.

The cucumber plants are almost to the size where they can be threaded through the netting:

In the meantime, the cucumbers are sort of flopping everywhere.

Finally, we didn’t wind up with two Tromboncino this year. The smaller plants in the picture below are lemon cucumbers. Assuming that the cucumbers are allowed enough space to climb the trellis I think it’ll be fine. The sun came out from behind the clouds just as I took this photo:

More sun would be appreciated.

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

by A.J. Coltrane

The summer garden layout from the 2nd-story deck:

Top left row (L-R):  Basil, peppers, peppers, peppers, determinate tomatoes, indeterminate tomatoes.

Center row (L-R):  Marigold whiskey barrel, trellised cucumbers, indeterminate tomatoes, indeterminate tomatoes x2

Bottom row (Trellises (L-R)), Tomatatillos. The far right box has Lemon Cucumbers and Tromboncino.

From the “front”:

To make room for everything the garlic had to be harvested:

I think overall the cloves were slightly smaller this year. It may be that they need more space, but it wasn’t a bad harvest.

Finally, the Super Sugar Snap peas that didn’t get eaten as they were harvested:

I count ten. I’m guessing we ate about half of them before the photo. It’s a good start.

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Plant list here.

Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

by A.J. Coltrane

On May 7 we showed up early for the May Tilth Edible Plant Sale. Unfortunately they actually held the sale on April 30(!)

Every year the sale had been on the first Saturday in May. Not this year.

Improvisation time. We had twelve EarthBoxes to fill, and time to go to two nurseries–

The Tomatoes:

The Big Idea	What Happened
Black Krim	Black Krim
Sun Gold	Sun Gold
Oregon Spring	Oregon Spring
Taxi	Taxi
Roma	Roma
Yellow Pear	Yellow Pear
Paul Robeson	Paul Robeson
Cherokee Purple	Cherokee Purple
	Tigerella
	Valencia

Not bad. We had hoped for a small, short-season melon called “Minnesota Midget”. Neither of the nurseries we hit had a melon like that, so we chose to cut bait and grow an “extra” box of tomatoes instead. It all breaks out to two Cherry Tomatoes (Sun Gold and Yellow Pear), three “Purple” Tomatoes (Paul Robeson, Black Krim, and Cherokee Purple), two “early” tomatoes (Oregon Spring and yellow Taxis), one Sauce tomato (Roma), the striped Tigerella, and a pink/red Valencia.

Ten tomatoes = five boxes. That left seven boxes to go.

The Peppers:

#	The Big Idea	What Happened
1	Anaheim College 64	Anaheim
2	Early Jalapeno	Jalapeno
3	Hungarian Hot Wax	Anaheim
4	Numex Highlander	Anaheim
5	King of the North	Orange Bell
6	King of the North	Red Bell
7	King of the North	Melrose
8	King of the North	Red Beauty
9	King of the North	Baron
10	King of the North	Ace
11	Iko Iko	Orange Sun
12	Iko Iko	Serrano
13	Carmen	Carmen
14	Carmen	Carmen
15	Carmen	Serrano
16	Carmen	Serrano
17	Gypsy	Gypsy
18	Jimmy Nardello	Gypsy

Well, sorta. I was happy that we got Serrano, and the King of the North was replaced with other assorted bell peppers… I’m fine with the way the peppers shook out. Three boxes of peppers makes for a total of eight boxes filled.

The Cucumbers:

#	The Big Idea	What Happened
1	Marketmore 64	Marketmore
2	Marketmore 64	Marketmore
3	Marketmore 64	Marketmore
4	Marketmore 64	Marketmore

Which Marketmore did we get specifically? Who knows. Hopefully “in the ballpark” is close enough. I feel ok with it, and we’re down to three boxes to go.

The Tomatillos:

This year Tilth didn’t offer either of the types that we’ve grown in the past — “Mexican Strain” or “De Mipa”. We selected “Verde” as the replacement. It turned out that the first nursery that we hit had “Verde”, so…

#	The Big Idea	What Happened
1	“Verde”	“Verde”
2	“Verde”	“Verde”

Ding! We’re down to two boxes to go.

One box with basil plants will be a gimme. We’ll buy starts in the next 10-14 days. We’re going to try basil from seed this year too. We’re covered regardless. One box to go, and it’s intended to have Tromboncino Zucchini…..

And today a nice woman at the nursery helped me find one of the two Tromboncino plants for the last box. It was labeled with the alternate “Rampincante” name. With any luck they’ll have the last plant back in stock on Tuesday.

by A.J. Coltrane

The backyard garden hasn’t yet fully transitioned to “summer”. Maybe next week. The whiskey barrels have some energetic flower starts — Territorial Seed’s Bee Mix, Bug Mix, and Nasturtiums (Jewel Mix).

As of March 2nd, these containers only had gravel in the bottom. They’re in the coldest, shadiest part of the yard that will eventually see good sun as the season progresses:

(Front to back — a container of Bee Mix, a container of Bug Mix, a container of 1/2 Bee Mix and 1/2 Bug Mix, a container of Nasturtiums. We’re now planted Marigolds – “Brocade Mix” in the spots that haven’t germinated.)

Next, a close-up picture of the Nasturtiums. We planted about nine seeds. Seven of those germinated. It looks like seven plants is going to be plenty:

The raspberry plant (with a blooming rhododendron behind it):

The raspberry plant needs some pruning. I’m holding off until I’m dead certain nothing is going to grow out of the older stems.

As far as everything else:  The mache and chard bolted at the first sign of warm weather. I’m hoping we can harvest mache seed at some point — they’re blooming now. The carrots continue to size up, and it looks like we should be able to harvest those in the next 30 days.

The garlic will need to be harvested in the next 30 days to make room for the summer vegetables as well:

 

The actual work on the backyard garden starts soon.