Spring Garden Cleaning and Planting

Wow, these last few days have been just beautiful and I've managed to get most of the spring garden totally planted.  A few things might be going in a tad early, but I think I can battle any small frosts with mulch and/or row covers.

This is the first time I've ever tried growing lettuce or chard, so it's a total unknown.  I was extra careful to pull out every inch of invasive root growing through my beds in the hopes that I won't have as bad of a weed problem this year.  It's mind-blowing that those roots were even growing into the clay level about 10 inches down...

Anyway, I'll put up the garden plan soon, but in the mean time here are some pictures of progress from the last few days:

Part of the cleaning was pulling up the remains of last year's brassica bed.

Mr. Smiley in front of the garlic bed.

Baby Nugget just sat around eating crackers while the rest of us worked.

Picking rocks out of beds was a popular task.

At one point we had some music in the garden.

The carrots will again be grown in buckets and were actually the first things we managed to plant.

Digging out weeds.

Watering carrots.

The triangle bed will have lettuce and chard this year.

Cabbage and brussel sprouts (a tad close since we will probably lose a few).

Harvest Monday: Short and Sweet

The last few days have been a little crazy so I haven't been able to do much actual gardening or write ABOUT gardening.  We did take pictures of our harvests this week though, and you'll notice quite a few massively split tomatoes.  We've been getting a whole lot of rain, which is great but some of the plants don't really know what to do with it.  The volunteer Black Prince tomatoes from last year are splitting the worst, which ironically is exactly why I didn't purposely plant any this year.  Ah well.

We are also totally done with all of our early planted summer squash and zucchini varieties, and the ones I've planted more recently are showing signs of the same yellow downey mildew that killed the others.  I just planted two types of squash in potting soil out in the back yard to maybe get a small crop in before frost...it all depends on the weather, and after this spring and summer I believe anything is possible.

On to the harvests!  After checking out this week's haul, please scoot on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what the rest of the blogosphere has harvested this week :)

August 9th Harvest

August 11th Harvest

August 13th Harvest

August 15th Harvest

The way of the garden...

The zucchini dies out from Squash Vine Borers and Downey Mildew...

Just as the new crop of zucchini across the yard sets it's first fruit.

New things are germinating in every corner, like this replacement crop  of cucumbers.  White Wonder, Burpless Hybrid, and Lemon.

Fall carrots will soon need thinned.

And icicle radishes are growing strong.

Spring pests like aphids and flea beetles are growing fewer, while the fall plague of stink bugs is  finally here.

The dominant colors in our harvests have shifted from all shades of green to orange and red.

And eagerly awaited tomatoes like this pineapple variety are ripening daily when just a month ago a single grape tomato was cause for celebration.

Some veggies pulled through after they were given up for lost, like this little eggplant.

And a few surprising volunteers are finally letting us know what they are.

Fortunately, for little boys who get bored easily, nature keeps things exciting for us!

Planting Carrots in Containers

One of our goals for Fall planting is to actually get a good crop of carrots.  As you can see from this Harvest Monday post a few weeks back, our Spring planted carrots didn't really get anywhere due to the overly wet spring and partial clay ground being too hard.

We decided to try growing carrots in containers to avoid the hard ground and the bugs that bored into our other root veggies last fall.  Here's is the general outline of our plan of action:

• First, we bought several bags of high quality potting soil that is now on sale, plus several packets of carrots and 3 of those big rope-handle tubs with straight sides that people use for beer at barbecue parties.  The potting soil is half the price it was in the spring and will be a nice loose medium for our carrots.  The brand we got had plant food already mixed in.  You will also need burlap, which we already had for free from a coffee house that would otherwise have thrown it away.
• Second, we drilled a ton of holes in the bottom and around the bottom 2 inches of the sides of our buckets with our biggest drill bit for drainage.  Drill way more holes than you think you need.
• Third, we filled the buckets 3/4 of the way with the potting soil.  We found that three of the buckets took four bags total of potting soil that contained 1.5 cubic feet each.  Reserve about a gallon of soil in a bucket...maybe a little less.  Make sure you break up the soil clumps if you just pour it into the buckets.  Lightly pat down.
• Fourth, we sprinkled about half of a packet of carrot seeds on the top of each bucket.  Make sure you get good coverage as you will be thinning in a few weeks.  Carrot seeds are usually clearanced this time of year and we got ours for a few cents.  Spring carrot seeds will cost a bit more.
• Fifth, we evenly distributed a 1/4 inch layer of potting soil on top of our seeds and lightly patted it down.  Try to make the coverage as even as possible.
• Finally, we cut a square of the burlap and pressed it down on top of the soil.  We wet it down thoroughly and will keep it moist by watering a few times a day if needed until the seeds germinate.  Be sure to check FREQUENTLY and remove the burlap as soon as you see and carrot greens poking through the soil.  

The straight sided buckets are important for maximizing space if you'll be growing long carrots, but slant-walled buckets and containers can be used as well if you don't plant so much near the edge.  There are also a whole bunch of shorter carrot varieties that might work out well in shallower containers.  Just remember that the tap root will be quite a bit longer than the carrot itself, so you can't just go by the expected carrot length when deciding on soil depth.  

Good luck to anyone who decides to try it!  Here are what ours look like now...I'll keep you posted on the results.

Our carrot buckets.

Carrot bucket number two.  We have three total.

UPDATE:  It was a HUGE success!  For the first time ever we got LOADS of perfect carrots!  Here's the post with pictures of the results:  http://www.awesomeburgh.com/2012/01/end-of-season-garden-pictures-you-may.html

Fall planting time!

It's a little late for fall planting in Pittsburgh, but I still feel pretty accomplished since this is the first year I managed to get a fall crop in the ground at all.  Getting everything planted meant pulling a lot of what was there, even some things that might have produced more if left in the ground.  Ultimately, I pulled anything past it's prime, diseased, or too crowded to really be worth the space.  Things I removed include:

1)  All bush beans - The yellow Arikara beans CAN be picked young and eaten in the pod, but we found them to be pretty fibrous and unpleasant.  We didn't plant enough to shell though, so I decided to pull them and plant the space with fall broccoli.  The other bush beans were past their prime, though it seems like the purple might have produced again if allowed...I decided to try and get a fall crop from new seeds instead.  We'll see if this gamble pays off.

2) Yellow Squash and one of the Pan Patty plants - The yellow squash were just covered in disease and the last few fruits had rotted on the plant.  The pan patty seemed generally healthy but was HUGE and showed many signs of Squash Vine Borer damage so I pulled it in favor of planting beets.  The area taken up by the plant can double the planting space for beets, plus I have 3 pan patty plants left.

3)  All cucumbers - These were pulled due to the unlikelihood of getting any kind of solid crop.  The leaves on many plants were wilting and several vines were killed by some type of bacteria.  The vines were also all clumped together on one end of a chicken wire trellis because I didn't properly direct them at the beginning.  There are several free buckets in which I will be planting cucumbers to possibly get a fall crop and I'll use the now vacated trellis for peas.  I have seeds but it might be a better idea to swing by Garden Dreams to see if they have any seedlings left.

Anyway, today we planted 3 buckets of carrots, 3 types of bush bean, 3 types of beet and 2 kinds of pea (snap and snow).  I also did a general clean up of the garden, pulled a bunch of weeds, and moved some things around.  I'll have bigger post after the fall planting is done tomorrow, but here are some of today's sights:

A mini watermelon cut from the vine by a bunny...a bunny that should be living in fear of me ever catching it.

The nest over my composter is now empty, but this little birdy was roaming among my hay.  It seemed young so I think it's one of the chicks, but I have no idea if this is normal bird behavior or not.

Okra!  No idea when to pick it, but I don't think it's ready yet.

This little yellow lemon cucumber was left behind after I pulled the plants.  I have to cut it out of the wire.

Harvest Monday ~ Eyeball Cucumber Edition

  This week will see the last of the beans, cucumbers and yellow squash unless the seeds I plant over the next few days actually grow in time for a fall crop.  It may be a little late in the season, but last year we wore T-shirts while trick or treating with the kids so we just might just be OK.  We got maybe 4 cucumbers total from the 12 seeds I planted because their bed gets irregular sunlight and the vines all crowded into a thick mess on one end of the trellis.  I could have guided them more and maybe it would have worked out better.  Who knows, but I'm giving that area to the fall peas and trying a few fall cukes in buckets that have been vacated by jalapenos and broccoli so it's something to think about for next year.

On to the harvest!  Thanks again to Daphne from Daphne's Dandelions for hosting harvest Monday!

July 19th brought us our first ever broccoli!  The kids were out of their minds with excitement.

(also from July 19th) This has been the week of peppers.  Last year we had maybe 2 peppers a week starting sometime in August.  What a change!  We have noticed more and more of the banana peppers with necrotic spots that could be blossom end rot, plus the leaves are getting kind of pale, so I will be amending with blood and bone meal plus a little powdered milk.  

We got our first small black krim tomato this week!  The plant seems to have beaten back the blight a little bit...I know I committed garden sacrileg by letting a sick plant stand, but my growing area is so small that it's pretty impossible for me to beat things by isolation and crop rotation.  Next year we'll be looking for resistant varieties and growing a surplus to hedge our bets.

The second broccoli cutting!  We have three plants total and were floored to have a harvest at  all considering the heat.  All three plants were harvested this week and we are now eagerly awaiting side shoots.

This is the harvest from Sunday.  I pulled the beans up completely after that and will be planting more beans and other fall veggies.  Probably half of those banana peppers have a small brown dead spot.

Today's harvest.  That green tomato is a black krim knocked down by yesterdays storm.  The red tomatoes are Early girl  and that yellow ball is the ONLY cucumber set on our tangled lemon cucumber vines.  It's quite creepy looking in person but was the best tasting cucumber I've ever grown...very mild with thin skin.

Our one lemon cuke before slicing.  It's like a peeled eyeball (thank my 6 year old for the description).

A side view of the eyeball cuke.  I totally hope I get some of these from the seeds we just planted by the end of the year.   It was SO good.

My First Black Beauty Eggplant EVER.

While trying to clean up and organize the garden in preparation for fall planting, we discovered that the black beauty eggplant that has been the biggest victim of the flea beetles has set fruit!  There are two of these little guys growing right now, which isn't too bad for a plant I gave up for lost a few weeks ago.

Baby Black Beauty Eggplant

Tomorrow we should have everything weeded, cleaned up, trimmed, pruned, and pulled.  This means I'm making some difficult decisions on what to pull and what to let go for a little while longer.  The fall weather here in Pittsburgh is a total crap shoot (last year t-shirts were almost too hot for trick-or-treat night if you can believe it) so I would really rather pull things a bit early in the summer where production has slowed anyway than leave it in a week too long and lose everything else to a fall frost.

I just noticed tiny heads on my ground broccoli (WOO HOO!) so they will stay, but the one broccoli transplant in a bucket will be pulled in favor of something else.  All the carrots and beets were pulled today, and the two volunteer tomatoes growing in that bed will be tied up and caged, but otherwise left alone.  I may pull all but one cabbage...we'll see.

I'm not sure what's going in yet.  I have a ton of carrots that never got planted in the spring, so the three big green tubs will probably be planted with those.  Something tells me that carrots in the ground are WAY more trouble than carrots in a container when you're talking the compact space I have available.  Red and golden beets, as well as peas are a given but I do not know where to put them yet.  We'll also be starting several small pots of cucumbers, summer squash and zucchini to replace the ones in the ground as soon as they are killed off by the Squash Vine Borers that I KNOW are just waiting to strike.

I really have no idea what I am doing.

Really.  This is sorta the third year we've had a garden here, but only the second where we'll actually get a harvest since that first year we lost our whopping 8 plants to late blight.

So far the missteps haven't been as profound as last year, and we seem to be on the verge of getting a good amount of food out of our front yard, but I love seeing people around town who are doing it better.  Last year I found a few random people with really neat urban gardens scattered around Pittsburgh.  This year I want to actively seek them out because they let me know that what I'm trying to do is possible (and also because they are just so cool).

Today I managed to get out to Wilkinsburg to FINALLY try to get new eggplant seedlings from Garden Dreams.  They did NOT have any Turkish Orange left (damn) but I found several other varieties of eggplant as well as seedlings for ground cherries, green tomatillos, purple tomatillos, and a bunch of cherry tomatoes.  I also picked up some variety of white tomato...not because I need another tomato, but because I've never grown a white one and I couldn't resist.

They occupy two city lots and the whole garden is just amazingly landscaped.  There are several areas full of potted seedlings for sale which make up the bulk of their business currently, but later in the season they will also be selling their naturally grown produce to the public.  There were so many different colors and types of pepper, tomato and eggplant seedlings available that I can only imagine the rainbow that will be their harvest.

But enough words!  Here are some pictures I took there earlier today...if you're ever in Pittsburgh, they are definitely worth a visit (even on a gloomy day such as today):

(A haunted house.  Or a non-haunted house doing a really great impression of a haunted house.)

I can't wait to go back in a few months when the veggies start to ripen!  Next time I'm bringing the kids.