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11/02/04 Pictures Voting day! Go vote! It’s been warm lately with high temps in the low 70s and high 60s and the rye has been loving it! It’s quite lush and filling in nicely. And the radishes are looking good too. I also noticed that some lettuce of the one variety came up! Maybe it was just to cold for it to germinate before? But I didn’t think it was that cold. Shrug? 10/26/04 Pictures More pics of the rye! It’s getting bigger and looks like it should do the job as a cover crop! I also have pics of the strawberries which have been mulched with straw to protect them over the winter. I probably mulched them to early but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I also threw some straw around the rhubarb and raspberries just for good measure. Turnips are also looking good but I think maybe I shoulda fertilized them with bone meal when I planted the buggers but then again, I’m not sure I wanna use fertilizer with cool weather crops since they aren’t aggressive growers and their food needs aren’t great. The soil should be able to meet the demand. 10/12/04 Pictures Pictures of the rye! This is really exciting! 10/7/04 Well, it’s fall. The days are getting shorter and even worse, it’s getting cold! But now for the good news! Gardening for the year isn’t over yet! Last week I cleaned up the garden by pulling out all the weeds and remaining garden plants. In the past I left everything in but I wanted to get out all the weeds because they are filled with seeds now and I don’t want weed seeds in my garden. And the remaining garden plants that were healthy were composted to keep the garden free of weakening veggie plants that could become diseased and cause me problems next year. After I got everything cleaned up I rototilled and then planted annual rye! This is the first year that I’ve tried a cover crop. I have high expectations for the stuff too. Every spring the soil is rather compacted and really hard to rototill and the roots of the rye should keep the soil loose. It’ll also add organic matter to the soil. Now for my concerns about it. The first is how hard will it be to rototill the stuff under? I’m hoping I can mow it down right after it flowers and then rototill but if the vegetation and roots are to think I’ll be in trouble. Next concern will hopefully be taken care of by mowing after it goes to flower and that’s having the stuff not die and competing with my veggies. Supposedly once the stuff goes to flower it won’t grow anymore. Next problem (wow, there’s getting to be a lot of concerns) is that I won’t mow it soon enough and it goes into seed and then I’m dealing with rye taking over for awhile. Ok, and one last one. I’ve read that rye can retard germination of seeds so I might have a low germination rate. That’d suck too. I guess I’ll find out in the spring! Ok, enough about the rye. I also planted some leaf lettuce, spinach and turnips (10/1/04). It’s kinda late to get stuff planted but I did it anyway, I’m a rebel like that. I’ll probably cover them with plastic once it starts getting really cold at night. So I check this afternoon and saw the turnips have sprouted but nothing else. So far I’m happy something came up! Raspberries look good with a lot of new horizontal growth, meaning there are a lot of new bracts. In the spring I hope to dig some out and transplant them to the end of the raspberry row, doing so will keep my raspberries in a row and not a patch. The strawberries look good too although they are now a patch instead of a row but I’m going to let them stay that way. Only problem is that it’s taking over the rhubarb! Ooops! I think I’ll plant my dad’s rhubarb to somewhere high in the garden because it’s to wet where they are. Hopefully they’ll fair better elsewhere. Oh, the strawberries need mulched with straw too but I’m not sure where to get straw… Ok, that’s all for now. Maybe I’ll be back before I start my 2005 edition of Kenny’s Garden! 7/19/04 Pictures It seems that my beetle trap is a very good beetle attractor. My raspberries are covered with beetles! I’m amazed at the number of beetles that the trap has caught and has brought to my raspberry plants! I have thought about the situation and have decided that I should locate the trap in the center of the source of the beetles and not up wind from like the instructions say. When I do that I have the beetles moving from a high beetle concentration area, then right past my raspberries to a low beetle concentration area where my trap is. It needs to be where all the beetles are coming from. And in other news, my dad has planted some mint tea in three rows. My parents love making tea (and very good tea) with this stuff but they have problems with weed over running it. We’re hoping this will make the weeds easier to manage and give us a good supply of tea leaves. 7/11/04 Since the raspberries have been the culinary choice of Japanese Beetles I decided to do something about it. What did I do? I got a Japanese Beetle trap. Does it work? Right after I put it up I saw a beetle flying around it! Coincidence? Nope! About half an hour after I put the trap up we got a down pour that lasted for 30-45 minutes and about an hour after it stopped I check the trap and there were already around 15 beetles in it! How can this be? Well, it has bait that uses a sex attractant so that pretty much explains it. There’s a lot of horny beetles around my garden. And in other news. I have a tomato that’s red and nearly ripe! Woohoo! My first tomato of the season! Egg plants are now huge and starting to flower and it looks like my pepper plants are finally starting to come around. Could it be that it was to cold for them before now? I’ll have to do some research on that. The red beets are doing quite well. I ate one the other day and it was delicious! So I grabbed two more today. My mom and sister are going to go through and get the largest ones for canning and leave to smaller ones to grow some more. They really do need thinned. I also grabbed an onion but I think the onions can go a little longer. They are still on the small side. Oh! We also tested carrots today! Also delicious! And the corn; it’s growing quickly and should get tassels in about two weeks. Did the fish emulsion do any good? I’m not sure but I do think I should’ve used more but I’d rather not have used enough than have used to much so it’s all good. That sums it up for now! 7/5/04 Pictures Ugh, word crashed and I lost my last entry. So I’m gonna do it shorter this time. Spent lotsa time weeding over the past week. I’m all caught up now! w00t! Pulled out bolted (lanky and flowering) lettuce and finished peas to give the red beets more air since there’s a problem with leaf rot. Tied tomatoes up some more. Tomatoes and egg plant got a boost from the addition of sludge from the bottom of our garden pond. My parents did some pond cleaning over the weekend. I’m interested to see if it makes a difference. I also fertilized the corn with fish emulsion. Wasn’t’ sure how much to use so I kept if weak and spread a couple tablespoons with a liquid hose spreader. And I took pics! 6/23/04 Pictures Wow! It’s been one month and one day since I last posted! I’ve been busy so it’s not that surprising. I’m home shopping and between looking at homes and doing the loan stuff it can take up quite a bit of already limited free time. But don’t fret! I haven’t left the garden overly neglected! I managed to plant 8 rows of corn since we were last here. Four rows were planted about 3 or 4 or 5 days later. Doesn’t sound like a big deal but there is a noticeable size difference. I fertilized with Espoma Plant Tone which is heavy on the nitrogen side which is good for corn in it’s pre tassel stage. However, the corn isn’t a dark green which it should be for the amount of Plant Tone I added and the extra bonus of the horse shit I applied earlier. (I like saying horse shit.) Last year the corn was dark green so I’m not sure what’s up. I don’t think I over fertilized because I don’t see the tips of leaves burning. It may be possible that it’s been to wet lately since we’ve been getting heavy thunder storms rather regularly. I’ll probably dose it with 5-4-1 Alaska Fish Emulsion once it gets larger and see if that helps. Everything else is looking good. Tomatoes didn’t get staked early enough but they are still ok. Got a lot of nice tomatoes and the plants are just filled with tons of vegetation. I expect a good harvest this year! I think I’ve finally gotten the tomato thing figured out. They like lime, fertilizer and shouldn’t get dry while flowering. Following those three rules has also worked for the Burpee Northern Exposure tomatoes on my shaded patioas well! I should take pics of them too. Snap peas looked wonderful but didn’t’ produce many shells. I had the same problem last year but the years before I had bumper crops. Suspected problem? Too much fertilizer. The years before where I had good harvest were the years before I realized the importance of fertilizer. But I guess some nitrogen fixing plants such as peas don’t like fertilizer, however some do such as beans. I didn’t even give the peas much fertilizer but it’s the only thing I can come up with. We’ll see next year when I don’t use any fertilizer on them. Lettuce is scrumptious! It’s started to stretch now that the days are hotter but it still hasn’t bolted (flowered) so that means fresh lettuce for salads and sandwiches! I’m hoping it stays nice well past when the tomatoes ripen but that might be asking to much. I forget what varieties I planted but two of them will be used again next year. Seems ideal for this climate. It hasn’t needed additional fertilize either. I also added Garden Tone to some of the onions. Their bulbs are already large but with this added boost they should get HUGE! My mom has been picking away at them and she says they taste great! I can’t wait till this fall! Oh, when I fertilized I also pushed dirt over the tops of the exposed bulbs. That should keep them from getting green and strong tasting on top. That or it’ll cause them to rot. I only fertilized part of the red beats and can definitely tell a difference…a big difference! Guess they like Garden Tone. J I also sprayed them with pyrethrin since I saw some worms on them. The worms have been sticking to a certain type of weed but they’ve about consumed that food source and are starting to work on my beautiful red beats! Ideally I would have used BT powder on them but my mom and dad don’t like pesticides so I stuck to the invisible pyrethrin I also sprayed the raspberries to get the Japanese Beatles and the Egg Plant since the plants look great but something is nibbling on the leaves. Tomatoes got a light spraying just because. I’ll have to see what happens; I’m new to the pesticide world. Strawberries have stopped producing and they are supposed to produce all summer. Not sure what’s up with that but the plants look healthy and have tons of runners. Weeds continue to be a challenge but I have a pretty good handle on them for now! I’ll have to be persistent to keep ahead of them but I think that can be done. I never did get green beans planted and guess it’s to late now. I didn’t get any zucchini planted either and it’s probably still not to late…I just have to get around to it! 5/13/03 Pictures Sorry I haven’t written anything in about a month but I’ve been busy but at least I’m getting pics! Take notice of the fence we put up to keep hungry critters out! 5/4/04 Pictures 4/22/04 Pictures 4/20/04 Today I was back in the garden and finished roto-tilling and weeded the strawberries. I didn’t think many strawberries were left but amongst the weeds I was surprised to find little strawberry plants! Last weekend my niece, Alysha, and I planted peas I had left over from last year. The variety is Mammoth Melting and didn’t do well for me last year but I’m going to blame that on to much rain. Hopefully they’ll do well for me this year. My seeds have sprouted and they are getting their first true leaves so it’s soon time to put them under the medal halide light. Germination rates were good and out of 25 seeds I only have 2 that didn’t sprout. It did take the Northern Exposure tomatoes forever to germinate. I thought the seeds were no good but they eventually came around. 4/08/04 Pictures I finally made it into the garden this morning. There was an earlier attempt but the roto-tiller thwarted my efforts to get an early start by not starting. Much thanks to my dad for fixing it. So, back to today. I added compost to the new section of the garden, since it hasn’t been used for anything other than grass covered yard for the past decade I figure it needs all the help it can get. Oh, I added some pulverized lime also especially since the mulch smelled sour indicating it was acidic. After the mulching and the liming I proceeded to roto-till. The ground wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be considering it baked under plastic all last summer to kill off weeds and seeds. Once the roto-tilling was done I started on the important part, planting! I was running short on time so I didn’t get to plant as much as I would have liked to but the onions and a few leaf lettuces left over from last year made it. I try not to use old seeds but most seeds are good for two years before there’s a noticeable decrease in germination rates. If it’s an important plant I use new seeds, if it’s not I’ll use leftovers. I also fertilized and once again I used an organic fertilizer. This year’s choice is Espoma Garden Tone with a 4-6-6 nutrient ratio. Last year I used Espoma Plant Tone (5-3-3) which I was happy with but I found the Garden Tone ½ off at a hardware store that was going out of business. I like that it has a lower nitrogen level and a higher phosphorus level which will produce better flower and fruit sets as well as a better root system. If I have plants that need more nitrogen I’ll add Alaska Fish Emulsion later or use the Plant Tone when planting. After the onions and lettuce were planted I ran out of time and I still had carrots and red beets to plant! But once again my dad came to the rescue and said he’d plant them for me. This will be of great help since it’s supposed to start raining tonight and last for awhile. I hope we don’t have a repeat of the non-stop rain that we had last spring. That really put a damper on planting and germination. As for hot weather plants I have Black Beauty Eggplant, Burpee Sweet Pepper hybrid and a variety of Burpee tomatoes (also seeds left over from last year, I’ll plant enough to make up for the possibility of a lower germination rate) to start indoors. I acquired a heating pad, and a plethora of Jiffy Peat Pellets that’ll I use to start the seeds. I got the Peat Pellets because they were cheap (also acquired at the going out of business hardware store) and convenient. I don’t think they are by any means better than putting seeds in dirt and letting them do their seed thing au naturale. I also have a 400 watt metal halide light to give the buggers light once they’ve sprouted and developed their first true leaves. (Don’t mistake the first leaves, which are actually cotyledon and not leaves! The cotyledon only store food and not make it like real leaves so they don’t need light.) I’ve yet to plant anything but I’m getting the Peat Pellets ready by letting them absorb water and absorb water they do! I’m amazed at how much they’ve soaked up so far! Oh! And one more thing…as usual I forgot my camera so there aren’t any pictures right now. I’ll try to hook us up with some this weekend! (Update: I made it back the next day and took pictures) Copyright © JungleBoogieMonster
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