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I haven't been up to speed on your updates but I will tell you... you will appreciate these even if nobody replies. It's so awesome to look back even years later and see how it was going. Learn from mistakes too. Hope all is going well. I heard Denver has been having some crazy weather with hail and the cold & snow last month.
Starting to get into the thick of things now. Mid Summer is only a month away
Yeah, Cam, I do it more for the fun than tons of responses. I refer back to last season's notes periodically just because it's fun. Someone, somewhere along the line, will be looking for something specific and I hope they'll find a bit of what they're looking for in the posts I've written.
We have had some insane weather, though not completely unprecedented. Berthoud (about 20 miles north of us) had an EF3 tornado last Thursday (June 04) that leveled 3 homes and damaged dozens of others. Areas to the east of Lyons had 8" of rain in 3 hours. No injuries, thank goodness! We only had some light rain and intense wind, but not much else. Had the storm set up 20 miles further south in more populated areas, it could've been far worse. Many hailstorms have come through the Denver area in the past month, but we've only had two quick hitters at our house. This is our time of year. Going into later June and July, things should calm down a bit and return to more normal monsoon type thunderstorms with torrential rain and wind, but little in the way of hail (knock on wood)..
Hope to be harvesting peppers in a few weeks and tomatoes by mid-July! First tomatoes last season weren't until late July into early August.
Yeah, Cam, I do it more for the fun than tons of responses. I refer back to last season's notes periodically just because it's fun. Someone, somewhere along the line, will be looking for something specific and I hope they'll find a bit of what they're looking for in the posts I've written.
We have had some insane weather, though not completely unprecedented. Berthoud (about 20 miles north of us) had an EF3 tornado last Thursday (June 04) that leveled 3 homes and damaged dozens of others. Areas to the east of Lyons had 8" of rain in 3 hours. No injuries, thank goodness! We only had some light rain and intense wind, but not much else. Had the storm set up 20 miles further south in more populated areas, it could've been far worse. Many hailstorms have come through the Denver area in the past month, but we've only had two quick hitters at our house. This is our time of year. Going into later June and July, things should calm down a bit and return to more normal monsoon type thunderstorms with torrential rain and wind, but little in the way of hail (knock on wood)..
Hope to be harvesting peppers in a few weeks and tomatoes by mid-July! First tomatoes last season weren't until late July into early August.
Nickman, I'm with you about taking notes. From your posts, you are way more diligent than I am. To get over my laziness, I take lots of pictures and post them to my Facebook account. I organize them into albums by year. Since all the pictures have dates, it's easy to refer back to see things took place in previous years. It's not as good as notes, but it keeps me mostly on track.
Nickman, I'm with you about taking notes. From your posts, you are way more diligent than I am. To get over my laziness, I take lots of pictures and post them to my Facebook account. I organize them into albums by year. Since all the pictures have dates, it's easy to refer back to see things took place in previous years. It's not as good as notes, but it keeps me mostly on track.
I've gotten a little lazy on note-taking over the past few weeks. I was meaning to note the date I started seeing first blossoms, first fruit, etc., but now I will have to wait for next season to actually write it down. I also take a ton of pictures, as well as a video, every weekend to keep in my long-term archives. I figure the pictures and videos will at least give me a one-week time frame as to when these things happen, which is really probably enough. One thing I absolutely won't forget to write down, though, is my harvest count. That's the most fun to look back on. I did remember to write the transplant date on all of my tags, though, so at least I know when I planted them (most on 05/26/15)..
Compared to last season, I'm about at the same point with the tomatoes as I am this year (all tomatoes are flowering now). Ahead of last season are the peppers, eggplant, squash, snap peas and herbs. The cucumbers are a bit behind because the first seedlings to merge decided to do so when it was cold and cloudy, then got hit with sun and heat. Withered and died. Now they're doing well, but are now about two weeks behind last season. Part of the reason that many of the plants are ahead this season is because I started everything from seed for the first time, so the plants were all larger and more mature when they were transplanted.
Nick, you say you are ahead of last season on a lot;I am behind, but I got started about a week later than usual and we have had so much rain. I guess it is a blessing, but seems to have slowed everything down.I have noticed a few of my tomato plants have a lot of dead leaves and some leaves turning yellow, with brown spots. I removed most of them this morning. I don't think it is affecting the growth as we have a lot of tomatoes and lots of blooms. I do think I might have the tomatoes a little crowded. Next year I will not crowd any of the stuff so much. It is certainly a learning experience.
Well, we got four or five pea pods off our accidental plant. Then I harvested our first Cubanelle pepper.
We're thinking of getting it bronzed.
I will say I love home-grown peas, I just don't plant enough of them to make them worth it. I need to dedicate a larger container to them so I can get more.
I so wanted a Cubanelle in the garden this season, but I ended up tossing it because I just had too many peppers. Next season!
Nick, you say you are ahead of last season on a lot;I am behind, but I got started about a week later than usual and we have had so much rain. I guess it is a blessing, but seems to have slowed everything down.I have noticed a few of my tomato plants have a lot of dead leaves and some leaves turning yellow, with brown spots. I removed most of them this morning. I don't think it is affecting the growth as we have a lot of tomatoes and lots of blooms. I do think I might have the tomatoes a little crowded. Next year I will not crowd any of the stuff so much. It is certainly a learning experience.
Hey Nita, we've had a ton of rain, too. Of course, only my containers that aren't self-watering get the benefit of rain water. I find they tend to slow when we get periods of heavy rain, too, but then explode after a day or two of hot, dry weather.
Gardening is never a constant and everyone learns something new every year. Everyone also experiences different issues, even 20 feet apart. I don't know enough about tomato diseases, so I can't provide any insight into what might be going on with your plants. I would Google "tomato plant yellow leaves brown spots" and go from there. I am sure you'll find plenty of information! I had some similar issues last season (leaves dying, but they didn't turn yellow), but still had more than enough tomatoes to make me and my family happy. One of the benefits of gardening here in Denver is that the humidity is typically very low, so moisture-oriented diseases aren't usually too much of a concern. Hail does more damage than anything.
Another garden update! The weather has been fantastic for the past week or so with temperatures in the 80s and 90s and a welcome respite from thunderstorms. There is a chance of an isolated storm here and there throughout this week, but we should remain hot and dry for the most part. Our daytime highs are averaging about the same as last year (80º month to date), but our overnight lows are averaging about 5-6º warmer than last year (56º month to date this year compared with 50º last year), so the plants are responding a bit more favorably this year.
I have had ZERO issues with ANY pests so far, knock on wood! Not even an aphid! I think planting larger, more mature plants has something to do with that. My plants last season were a bit small and weakened by aphid infestations when I first planted. The only "issue" has been my dog, who likes to eat any and all vegetable matter, so keeping him out of beans and peas, in particular, has been a challenge. Oh well, he has to eat, too!
As far as harvests so far:
1. The lettuces are finally finished after two full months of harvesting. What a fabulous season for lettuce. I will set the 6 containers aside and use them again for fall lettuce plantings.
2. The Sugar Ann snap peas are almost done. My dog got into the barrel several times and wiped out about half the plants. I also neglected to thin them, so they got a bit crowded. Only got about two large handfuls. Heat is doing them in - might get one more small handful. I have planted Cherokee Purple and Paul Robeson tomato plants in the same barrel, as well as a few small rosemary and lavender plants.
Tomatoes:
1. The Paisano is the weakest tomato plant I have (spindly and thin), but is still green and healthy. It just hasn't grown much, although it is putting on flowers.
2. The Rosso Sicilian tomato seems to have physiological leaf roll, which is common when plants are stressed from cold, excessive heat, excessive pruning, too much moisture, etc. I don't really know what's causing it because it's the only plant out of 21 with this condition and is in an Earthbox with another tomato which is not exhibiting the condition. It's still growing and setting flowers, so no worries there.
3. Both Sweet Millions and the Stump of the World are setting their first fruit. There may be other plants with fruit set at this point - I last checked two days ago. The Sweet Millions grew 13" in 5 days this past week with the onset of hot, dry weather!!
4. All tomato plants have set flowers, which is always a good sign! As long as Mother Nature behaves herself, we should be eating ripe tomatoes by the third week in July, which would be a record for me. I normally don't get ripe tomatoes until August.
Peppers:
1. Only the Roumanian Rainbow appears to be "struggling". It's still only about 6" tall and hasn't done much since planted. It's healthy and setting flowers, but it's a gigantic runt of a plant. We'll see!
2. The Shi$hito peppers are putting on small peppers like nobody's business. One of the two plants has over 15 peppers on it and is flowering profusely. The Jalapenos, Serranos, Sweet Banana Peppers and Polostra-Rokitas are also setting fruit in earnest!
3. All 34 pepper plants are flowering, some more than others (the Jalapenos and Sweet Banana Peppers always rock!).
Eggplants:
1. Both eggplants are finally setting some flowers, the Fengyuan (15+ flowers) much more so than the Rosa Bianca (2 flowers). Both were hit hard by our earlier hailstorm, but are recovering nicely.
Squash/Zucchini:
1. The Eightball zucchini is setting fruit already. This plant, like all squash plants, grows mind-bogglingly fast. Within 5 days it went from 12" across to 30+" across (leaf tip to leaf tip) and is loaded with flowers and its first zucchini!
2. Cocozella is beginning to set flowers and should fruit soon.
3. Fordhook is slightly behind Cocozella, but should be setting flowers in the next few days.
4. Butterbush is putting on its third set of true leaves, but no sign of flowers or fruit yet.
5. Sugar Baby Watermelon/Hearts of Gold Cantaloupe are also just putting on new leaves right now. No flowers or fruit set, but very healthy plants.
Other:
1. Onions and garlic are both doing well. I removed the scapes from my hardneck garlic and used them in fresh pico. SOOOO delicious. The garlic should be ready for harvest in about 3 weeks.
2. Herbs are doing just fine, as herbs typically do. I need to start harvesting and drying the sweet basil marjoram, as both are trying to bolt.
3. The various bush beans (lima and green) are doing okay, but not great. They were beat up pretty good by our hailstorm, but are recovering, especially the lima beans. The green beans seem to be having a hard time, but it's still early. Maybe beans just aren't my thing.
4. The cucumbers (Lemon, Dragon's Egg, Tendergreen & Wautoma) are putting on their second sets of true leaves and appear to be doing well. They have been very slow to start, but they should pick up once they really get going. I remember them growing exceptionally fast last season, so..
5. Swiss chard is blah. I haven't eaten any yet because it keeps getting scorched by the sun. Perhaps I need to drape a shade cloth over it to keep it from burning. It's trying very hard and it grows super quickly, but I can't seem to get any good leaves to harvest because they grow and scorch all in a day. *sigh* Maybe once the weather cools they'll do better..
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So that's it for this update. I'll do another in a few weeks once I start harvesting peppers (which should be in a few days). I'll begin my rambling "harvest count" series at that time..
Hope everyone is having fun with their gardens! I am having a blast! Nothing better than cracking a cold beer and heading out to the garden for an hour or so after getting home from a long day at work. I can't think of any better way to spend an evening.
We got two loads of yellow and green beans, but something is attacking the leaves, and we forgot to get some of that insect dust.
The Cubanelle peppers are growing before my eyes! We may get a dozen or more of them. The first one was pretty good.
The potatoes seem to be doing well enough in their bags, though I wish I had put more soil mix on the bottom of the bag to start. Next time!
But the indeterminates in the earthboxes...we moved the Adirondack chairs and substituted a ladder, but after the last heavy rain, they completely flopped over onto the ladder, bending the tomato cage and stakes along with them.
I have no idea if we will get other indeterminates next year, or what we'll put them in.
nick, sounds like you are on your way to another wonderful year. I sure am frustrated this year, but think I am learning a lot and hope for a better next year. I am harvesting tomatoes now, not a lot but some. My cukes look healthy and I am getting a few peppers. Of course mom, dad and kids with those cute little white tails are still a pain in the tail or near the tail. My herbs are the best of all. Now, to add insult to injury the damn squash bugs are in the squash. I have trouble with them every year. I am almost thinking I am not going to plant squash anymore. I can get all we can eat for almost nothing from friends, hubby isn't crazy over it and if I have to buy it from local farmers, it is really cheap.
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June 22, 2015 Garden Update!
