Garden Update - May 2015

I haven't done a garden tour in 2 months so I'll try to do a quick tour to show how things have come along.

Let's start with bed #1. This bed has been 2/3 filled with alliums and 1/3 with brassicas.

May 6

Not a lot has changed since the last tour on March 18. I pulled out the Atlantis brokali plants which had filled the corner at the front of the photo and I replaced them with Spigariello Foglia Riccia. The Purple Peacock and Spigariello Foglia Liscia remain. Purple Peacock is slowly putting out side shoots and Spigariello Liscia is in full production right now.

May 6

The empty space shown above was full of cabbages, the last of which were harvested on April 28. On May 9 I moved the young leeks into their final positions there.

May 9

The onion patch has filled in quite a bit since mid March. These are Candy, Red Candy Apple, and Superstar from Dixondale plus Rossa Lunga di Firenza and Tonda Musona Bianca that I started from seeds.

May 6

The rust infected garlic shown below is holding onto life with the help of multiple treatments of 70% Neem oil extract and a couple of feedings with fish emulsion. They look like they are producing ok bulbs so I won't be entirely without garlic this year. The Gray Shallots (Lower right) are struggling along but also seemed to appreciate a couple of feedings with fish fertilizer. The seed grown shallots behind them are doing great and starting to produce bulbs.

May 6

Not much has changed in the past week, the garlic still looks grim, but I'm happy it's still alive.

May 14

The onions, however, are doing great! This is Superstar and I'm hoping that it will live up to its name this year. Superstar wasn't quite so super last year, by this time last year a lot of them were starting to send up flower stalks. The Candy onions were even more prone to bolting. So far this year neither one of them has flower heads showing, not yet...

Superstar, May 14

Red Candy Apple is also fattening up. It was the only one of the 3 varieties from Dixondale that didn't bolt last year. All 3 onions should do well in my area, they're all intermediate day length types which is appropriate for the latitude here. I decided to give them another chance this year because last year was such an unusually warm and extremely dry year and I wanted to believe that that stress was what pushed them to bolt. So I've got my fingers crossed that I don't see any flower stalks poking up in the next couple of weeks.

Red Candy Apple, May 14

The seed grown onions are also starting to form bulbs. Rossa Lunga di Firenza is a torpedo type and is a short to intermediate day length type. The other seed grown onion that I'm growing is Tonda Musona Bianca which is top-shaped and is supposed to be a fair keeper so I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep it in storage as I use up the sweet onions. It's also an intermediate day length type.

Rossa Lunga di Firenza, May 14

Bed # 2 was where I had overwintering vegetables such as kale, cabbage, chard, romanesco broccoli, and such. All of the overwintered veggies except for the chard are now gone, but the chard is bolting so it's on the short list for removal. I set up a couple of tunnels in this bed to protect cutting greens and lettuces from the birds. There was a lot of lettuce coming along and greens to cut back in mid March. The lettuces are finished and I'm starting to set out new plants. The cutting greens, except for some baby Tuscan kale, are finishing up (bolting). There's a couple of sowings of radishes coming along. Other than that the tunnels are a bit empty so I need to get some new cutting greens sown.

Here's the patch of chicory, arugula, mizuna and cress (hidden by the mizuna) just before a haircut last week.

May 6

The chard in back has been putting out HUGE leaves and I haven't been able to keep up with it. I'm trying my luck with cauliflower again this year. Last year I harvested some beautiful heads of Amazing Taste cauliflower, so here's the latest round of the same variety.

April 3

It's growing well and probably appreciates the cooler than normal weather we've been having for the last couple of weeks. I sowed the seeds for this planting back on February 5, multiple seeds into a 4-inch pot. Potted up the best seedlings some time in March and set the plants out on April 1.

May 6

I'm also trying another cauliflower this year. These are Sicilian Violet, which are not as neon colored as the hybrid purple cauliflowers but supposedly tastier. I started these at the same time as the Amazing Taste plants but didn't set them out until April 18. They seem to be catching up quickly.

May 6

In another part of the bed, some Little Jade napa cabbages which were sown at the same time as the cauliflowers but are such quick growers that they were ready to set out on March 21.

March 23

And now they are ready, more than ready to be harvested. You can see some leaves sitting on the soil to the left, those are the outer leaves from the first head that I harvested yesterday. The only problem with these is that the earwigs have taken up residence. Fortunately, the critters seem to be partial to the green portions and haven't gotten to the hearts. Earwigs really give me the creeps, I'm not afraid of bugs and don't usually mind them, but earwigs are just yucky. It was not fun harvesting, trimming, and cleaning the first head, so I treated the rest of the heads with some Spinosad and hope that knocks the earwigs back. Regardless, the remaining heads are being harvested tomorrow. There's kimchi in my future!

May 14

The far end of the bed is the new strawberry patch. I mentioned a while back how some critter munched the ripe strawberries right through the tulle that I had draped over the patch. So I started to set up a cage around the patch, which I've not completed, but so far the cage/mesh is doing the job.

Here's the patch mostly cleared of the Golden Corn Salad that I had interplanted for a quick harvest of salad greens. That worked quite well, it actually produced more greens than I could use.

May 6

 There's a bit of sweetness about ready to harvest.

May 14

Bed #3. I made the mistake of not lining this bed with a fabric to slow the invasion of roots from the oak trees. You wouldn't believe how they can take over a space when they are unimpeded. So instead of sowing a cover crop and pretty much ignoring this bed through the spring, I got out the shovel and started moving soil. I dug out one end of the bed and moved the soil to the driveway. Then I started lining the bed with a landscape fabric and shifted the soil over, doing it in increments until I got to the end of the bed. It took me two months to accomplish the chore, I did just a little at a time so I wouldn't strain my back. At the very end, when one end of the bed was empty and there was just a pile of soil sitting in the driveway Dave took pity on me and volunteered to man the wheelbarrow. He moved all the soil from the driveway into the bed. That last bit got done this past Sunday afternoon. And by the way, my back is just fine.

May 6

May 14

At last, bed #4. The main activities in this bed through the spring have been fava beans and a mustard cover crop. I sowed most of the favas on December 13 last year and then finished sowing the row on the 23rd. The first harvest was on April 10. I sowed a cover crop of Kodiak mustard in the other half of the bed on December 23. It was ready to cut down and dig in of February 16 which is when I covered the area with newspaper as a mulch. I probably should have planted it with peas or some other quick cool weather veggies, or even some other quick cover crop.

April 3

I know I said that I wouldn't grow the amazingly overproductive Romanesco zucchini again this year, but when I realized that I wouldn't have a spot in the garden for the Tromba D'Albenga squash until late May I relented and started a plant. There it is getting an early start.

April 3

Aphids started to proliferate in the favas in late February and early March. I was watching them advance through the tender new growth but I didn't do anything since I generally wait and watch and hope that the good bugs find the feast and take care of the problem for me. By the time I was ready to leave for more than a week of hiking in Utah I figured I'd come home to a sticky icky mess. The aphids were proliferating with no good bugs in sight. So I was really surprised when I got home and found almost no aphids. I did spot three different kinds of lady beetles (Convergent, Seven-Spotted, Multicolored Asian), both adults and larvae. It wasn't long before there wasn't an aphid in sight and they didn't come back. It's amazing how quickly they got the job done - from the verge of a sticky mess to nary a bad bug in sight in about 10 days.

Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle Larva

That's not a fava leaf that the lady beetle larva is working on it's cilantro. Early on I sowed patches of cilantro along the length of the fava planting. I also sowed Golden Corn Salad amongst the emerging favas and allowed some other volunteers to grow. So I ended up with a bit of a jungle with wild arugula, chamomile, Monticello poppies, California poppies, and bolting cilantro and a carpet of corn salad growing in and around the favas. It doesn't seem to hurt, I harvested slightly more beans this year from an identical space as last year. And I do think that the variety of plants and the flowers they produced helped to draw in more good bugs and probably gave the soil microbes a more varied diet to feast upon.

Cilantro and corn salad amongst the favas.

Do you see the bright blossoms of the California poppy down the row?

May 6

The other side of the bed is now home to a planting of Purgatory beans, and a few Purple and Slenderette snap beans. And of course the Romanesco zucchini.

May 6

Here's the young Purgatory beans. I've interplanted some Speedy arugula in hopes of getting a quick crop of salad greens. I've been doing a fair amount of experimenting with interplanting to make better use of my space and because I think it's good for the soil.

 The first zuke coming along.

May 6

Say goodbye to the Favas. The project this week is to get the transition from spring to summer veggies started.

May 11

On Monday I start going down the row of favas, removing the cages, harvesting the remaining beans and cutting the plants down.

May 11

I nearly finished the job yesterday. There's one big Monticello poppy that I've left in hopes of enjoying some blooms. The fava roots are still in the soil, I'll try to leave them in place and plant around them if possible. Because I don't have time to grow a cover crop in bed #3 I shredded the fava plants in my chipper shredder, scattered them over the soil of bed #3 and dug them in.

May 14

Harvest date tomorrow...

I've already got some seeds sown that are destined for this bed, including my first ever attempt at garbanzos (chickpeas), Monachelle Trevio pole dry beans, Rattlesnake & Purple pole snap beans, and Stortino di Trento pole snap beans. And I've got the seeds for Tromba D'Albenga and Honey Nut butternut squashes out and ready to go as well. As soon as the weather clears up (rain today!), I'll get part of the bed ready to plant some flour corn.