What's Growing in the Garden

Still loving the greenhouse, one benefit that I did not expect is my transplants do extremely well with almost no transplant shock. Any time it's warm enough I roll up the sides and let the wind blow through, I think doing so helps harden them off. Yesterday I transplanted cabbage and broccoli in the middle of a dry 85⁰ day. I watered them well and they didn't wilt at all.

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Just about got the "Cage" done. I went with this instead of an electric fence. Didn't want a cord running 60' out to the garden and solar was more expensive. All these materials were free and what I had on hand.
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Two parallel sets of fence panels with two lattice panel (hog) fences inside. Each lattice row has two rows of beans or peas along it. Like what Sprucegum posted last Fall. Runs North to South, so I may leave the red material on the West side to give a little shade.

Put in soaker hoses and mulch to help out with germination. The pole beans came up strong. I only had to recently replant a few spots. The telephone pole peas were dismal. Only a couple of plants, so I replanted on the 23rd. Still no new plants. Wait a week? and replant?

Ran the soaker hose for maybe a hour today and I flooded out the garden. It's all covered with mulch so I don't know if I popped some holes in them. Try it out again once everything dries out.

Okra was replanted on the 23rd also. Still no plants. Guess I'll plant again (3rd time).
 
On the pole peas, you could try presoaking/pregerminating the peas before planting. Take several layers of paper towels and wet them put peas in a single layer and fold the paper towel over on top. Put the whole thing in a zip lock bag, but leave the bag unzipped. When the peas swell, plant them about an inch deep being gentle with them. This speeds up the process and reduces the chance of seedling diseases killing them. Watch the overwatering, seeds require less moisture than you'd think to germinate and emerge.

I suggest also digging up some of those that didn't germinate to see if they are hard, or soft and rotten with rusty brown lessions on them. I'm guessing if you find some, they are probably rotten.

Seed/seedling diseases are the biggest problem with peas and beans.
 
Man, I'm having trouble getting things started this year. Pepper plants planted and watered on the 23rd are dropping leaves. Maybe too much water?

I've got 5 okra plants poking through now and I scratched the surface and found a few more. Check again early next week before replanting. The peas will definitely need replanting though. The asparagus hasn't sprouted yet. Looks like it could use a little water though.
 
All of our transplants appear to be doing well. Some seem to have had a boost in their growth since going in the ground Monday. A few of the tomato plants are being a little dramatic, but it seems that tomatoes do that sometimes and they'll be just fine. Seeds are sprouting. Most of the beans are up. Corn is up. The first cucumber seedling is just poking through. So far we're off to a good start!
 
djg said:
Man, I'm having trouble getting things started this year. Pepper plants planted and watered on the 23rd are dropping leaves. Maybe too much water?

I've got 5 okra plants poking through now and I scratched the surface and found a few more. Check again early next week before replanting. The peas will definitely need replanting though. The asparagus hasn't sprouted yet. Looks like it could use a little water though.
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If you think the peppers are overwatered, they may very well be, however, it is not unusual to see lower leaves of plants yellow and drop after transplanting. If you think they are too wet, stick your hand into the soil and feel how wet it is. Peppers can take quite a bit of dry weather.
 
The garden has been a challenge the last few weeks after a good start. We are in a bad drought with at least another 10 days before any significant rain is forecast. Been a challenge to keep things watered and I'm delaying planting more sweet corn and beans until we get a little moisture. The corn and beans I have planted had to be watered quite a bit to germinate, but they are finally coming out of the ground.

It's so hard and dry right now I had a heck of a time getting a T post driven into the ground.

All of my vine crops are ready for transplanting, but think I'm going to wait, otherwise, I'll be dragging 200 ft of hose twice a week to water all of them.

I've also got about 10 flats of flowers I haven't planted yet as I don't want to add to areas that need water. Even hostas sitting in full shade are wilted and dropping in areas I haven't watered yet.

Yard is brown where it's been mowed anytime in the last three weeks, but I've got some that hasn't been mowed in over a month. Waiting until I need more mulch for the garden before mowing/bagging it as once it is mowed, it's not coming back.

Never seen this kind of drought this early in the season. Corn leaves have curled up and the beans are just sitting there with a sickly grey/green color.
 
It's been very dry here too. Been 3 or 4 weeks since we've seen a drop of rain - long enough that I've lost track. And nothing in the forecast here either. We've been doing a lot of watering too, but have nowhere near the amount of watering you have to do. We mulched around all the transplants, which has helped with moisture retention. Thankfully we're also only seeing daytime highs in the 70's at our house. We need rain so bad, that I would've been excited if it rained while we were camping this week...
 
If you don't like the weather in the NE wait a min. We have been dry with a mini heat wave, Wed. and Thurs. were in the 90's yesterday was high 80's and humid. I had the sides of the greenhouse wide open and was considering removing the end panels. This morning is 52 and not expected to break 70, the good news is that we got some thunder showers last night to help with the drought. In general things are growing great.
 
The biggest problem we have in our garden right now is the neighbors... They run inside and draw the blinds when they see us coming...

This is what I picked Friday. We picked that again today. I didn't take a picture of the green beans...

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Great looking bunch of tomatoes!

Do you can or dry any of them?

My tomatoes are about knee high right my now...
 
We don't dry or can, but we do freeze... Our weather oscillates between high and low humidity and my attempts at drying have always ended with a new crop of mold. We know how to can but are lazy... So, we cook the paste tomatoes and the early girl types and just eat and give away the rest. The ones in the back are Better Boy and Thunderbird Rodeo. Back left are Cherokee Purple and front right are Black Prince. Romas in front, Juliets on the left and Red Cherry and Yellow Pear on the right. The cucumbers are the last of the remotely edible ones and the okra is Cow Horn and just started. Couple of banana peppers stuck in the middle.

I always over plant on tomatoes. There are some years when we are begging the plants to make one or two and the next year we're overloaded. But, they're easy and we love them Love Apples!

Alan
 
Alan R McDaniel Jr said:
The biggest problem we have in our garden right now is the neighbors... They run in side and draw the blinds when they see us coming...

This is what I picked Friday. We picked that again today. I didn't take a picture of the green beans...

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What a beautiful sight. I've had crops like that but not recently and never before August. Last year was a little sparce and we were still ripening them in house well past the killing frost.
 
Tilled for the rest of the sweet corn yesterday, and it was like trying to tear up asphalt! I've never seen the ground so dry and full of bowling ball size clods. Put the sprinkler on the ground last night for an hour, and was much better to till today, but was still like powder when I finished. Got the last two varieties planted and am watering it in tonight.

Here are a couple views of what the garden looks like now.

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With the extreme dry we've had, been seeing 40° swings in temp from day to night, but not been below 50° at night.

Hard to accumulate degree days when your lows are in the 30's...
 
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