Posts in category: Garden

I’ve been way too busy to write about what I’m doing.  I’ve picked and preserved almost 300 lbs of tomatoes.  I’ve canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, marinara, mexican sauce, salsa, bbq sauce, ketchup, tomato chutney, taco sauce, tomato butter, and I’m sure something else I’ve forgotten.  I’ve also dried several batches of the tomatoes.  There are still some tomatoes on the vine and I’d like to make more salsa.  Other than that, I’m about done.

I’ve picked, frozen, refrigerated or dried other things, too: corn, beans, peas, carrots, onions, garlic, basil, thyme.  I didn’t get much summer squash this year.  One by one, all the plants died after a slow start to begin with.  They had trouble starting due to cold weather, then cucumber beetles.  They were finally growing ok, but the squash bugs got them one by one, then some powdery mildew on the last two survivors.  I pulled them up and trashed them, as they were also being eaten by the squash bugs that wouldn’t die from the organic pesticides I tried.  I guess next year I’ll be more proactive with bug control!  After working to get cucumbers to grow I had two plants, until one shriveled up and died.  The last plant produced two cucumbers before its end.

The raspberries and blackberries are giving us their first fall crop of nice berries.  I got ONE honeyberry off one of the two plants–hopefully next year they will bear more!  The older strawberry plants have been producing a fall crop after a midsummer rest, but the newer plants (planted this year from starts I bought from the nursery) haven’t produced at all.

I did more beans to dry this year, and they are hanging up drying–ready to shell now, I’m sure, but I’m too busy to do that just yet.  After I see how many I get and cook them, I’ll decide whether I want to do that again.  They are so cheap to buy, it may not be worth the bother, unless the quality is much better.

Soon I’ll be digging up potatoes and sweet potatoes.  The butternut squash is still on the vines, although I suppose I could pick it any day.  For all the vines, I only got about five delicata squash, which are picked and curing.  The buttercup didn’t make it at all, I fear they also suffered from cucumber beetles and squash bugs.  Dang!

I’m already beginning to sketch out next year’s garden, deciding what to grow and where to put each thing.  I’ll be planting onions and garlic soon, so needed to know where I will put them.  I’ve planted a few things in the area that will be a fall cold frame.

Tim is beginning to construct our greenhouse, and I’ve begun some seedlings in the house that will go out there for the fall.  Hopefully I can grow some salad items, kale, leeks, beets and kohlrabi for an extended period of time.  Then, I should be able to start a few things early in the greenhouse, and use it for growing seedlings and hardening things off before going outside.

Whew!

Hornworms

I found a hornworm looking thing wandering across the concrete, and thought, “Oh, no!”  I looked around on the tomato plants and didn’t see more worms or any obvious damage, so I was puzzled.  I expected to find some tomato plants defoliated near the top with just stems and leaf spines like I’d seen a couple of years ago when I found the nasty worms.

Defoliated grapevine

Later, Tim hollered “What happened to the grape?” and one of our grape plants was COMPLETELY defoliated.  Not one leaf left!  We looked at the others (we have three grape plants) and found a few more of the creepy worms.  We picked them off, sprayed some neem, and will keep watching for them.  I’ll also be spraying the tomatoes with neem and hope that keeps them away.

Where do these things come from???

These grape vines are being grown tall to grow overhead on a trellis that is not yet built.  It will be a roof over a small patio area.  Hopefully this poor grape has not met its fate, and will survive this ordeal!

With all this emphasis on our new ducks, I haven’t mentioned the garden, but it’s growing great, for the most part.  This week we’ve been enjoying PEAS.  We have Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, and Shelling Peas.  I made a nice stirfry with the snow peas last week, and enjoy the Sugar Snaps raw.  I’m freezing some for later.  I’m wishing now that I had planted more of them.  Perhaps I can plant some for fall harvest.

We’ve also been eating kale and kohlrabi, and I made a pretty good quiche out of that combination, along with some extra large scallions I didn’t harvest in their prime.  Right now I’m dreaming up some sort of kale-kohrabi lasagna.  Sound good?  It’s really fun going to the garden and thinking, “Hmmm, this can be harvested today.  What can I make out of it tonight?”  Oh yes, some of the beets have been eaten, others were turned into pickled beets for winter salads.

After bad weather just after planting, I really had thought I’d have a disappointing garden.  Yes, there are some disappointments, but all is not lost.  My tomatoes have bounced back and I have many huge, lush plants with lots of flowers, particularly the bush, or determinate, type.  The tomato harvest will be late, so hopefully we won’t have early frosts, but I should have plenty of tomatoes.  Some of the indeterminate ones are odd and short, but hopefully I’ll get something out of them as well.

My squash and cucumbers suffered some setbacks as well due to the weather and the cucumber bugs.  Those dang bugs kept eating my young plants, and I kept planting new seeds to replace the damaged ones.  I finally have as many growing plants as I had planned for, but they are much smaller than they should be for mid-July.  I’ll have a late harvest with these as well, but I still think I’ll have enough to enjoy, especially considering I normally have more squash than we can eat.

The peppers are the most sad.  I love my peppers, but unfortunately fear I won’t have much of a harvest.  The plants are small, but finally coming back with new growth.  Some have peppers growing on them even with few leaves.  Some peppers began to grow then dried and shriveled up.  I’m bummed that I didn’t follow my own plan, which was to leave them under the cold frame for the first couple of weeks.  Had I done that, they would have flourished.  I took off the cold frame because it was difficult to water them (lifting the cold frame for each watering) and I wanted them to have the benefit of rain.  Instead of nice rain, they experienced hail, extreme wind, and temperatures that were too cold for them.

Potatoes, beans, herbs, carrots, basil, corn, strawberries…let’s see, what else?… all seem to be growing along their merry way.

This year I tried several new varieties, mostly of peppers and tomatoes, and hoped to find out which were “keepers”.  With the extreme weather, I may not be giving them a good test.  On the other hand, I’ll certainly know which can survive the worst conditions!

This summer has been very rainy, more so than normal.  We have forecasts of thunder showers almost every day, and many days we do get the rain.  With our soaker hoses on timers, we frequently have a guessing game of whether to leave the timers on or off, thinking we may get rain.  With 60% chance of heavy rain today, I think I’ll turn them off for now.

Well, it’s been a difficult planting season!  After all my planning, it seemed like everything went kaput the last few weeks.  The week I’d intended to plant (starting May 15, our “average last frost date”) turned cold and rainy.  I knew that there was questionable weather coming, but due to our plans for a trip I needed to get things into the ground.  Also, the things that were “hardening off” in the cold frame were getting too big for the cold frame, and at one time a couple of things were damaged when the cold frame fell on them during watering.  I was tired of them being in the cold frame, so I went ahead and planted.

Planting the tomatoes and peppers went pretty well.  Within a couple of days after planting it was quite windy and rainy, and they sure got beat up.  A couple of the tomatoes snapped in half right where they had been tied up.

Squash and cucumbers went in the ground also, but got beat around in the wind a bit as well, not looking very happy.  I lost the cucumbers and some squash.  At least it is early enough to replant and they should be fine.  I also have seen a lot of cucumber beetles, so have begun to spray for those with spinosad.

Now we’ve returned from vacation, and with so many plans to work in the garden immediately, I came home very sick, and won’t be able to get out to the garden.  It will just have to wait.

I think most plants will survive, but they sure aren’t in the best condition.  The peppers were damaged by hail, and many leaves were left dangling or in bad shape.  The tomatoes are small and thin, but still alive.  The cucumber seeds I planted after the first ones died did not come up.  The squash that was still alive and in fairly good condition before I left have been chewed up, presumably by the cucumber beetles that are still everywhere.  There are weeds everywhere as well.  Hopefully soon I’ll feel well enough to get back to work!

This week many gardeners in the Fort Collins area were plagued with a large amount of marble-sized hail and lost a lot of their crops.  Fortunately, the hail here wasn’t as bad and my plants aren’t much worse than they were already.  I guess all the locals are now pretty much in the same boat!

All year I have planned on planting my seedlings outside this week.  After all,  even though the “average last frost date” is May 15th, the last two years have had great weather in May and I guess I was fortunate.  NOT THIS YEAR.  As mentioned in the last post, I went ahead and planted, even though the weather has been questionable.

All week we’ve had lots of rain and cold (but not freezing) nights.  Most everything is still alive, but I wonder how much damage I’ve done by planting them out so early.  I’ve lost a couple of tomato plants that have snapped off in the wind.  With 52 tomato plants, I suppose it is not a big deal to lose a few!  Most of the week I’ve had the peppers covered with the cold frame and they’ve done well, but yesterday when I took it off and left home it hailed.  There are a few holes and rips in the leaves, but all still seem to be alive and they should recover.  I don’t think the cucumbers have survived, but that’s not a huge problem, I’ll just put more seeds directly in the ground–starting them indoors was merely a head start and not necessary.  The squash still looks good.

Perhaps all will be well and everything will turn out ok.  The garden is looking good, with plants in almost every bed.  I still plan to plant the basil, which hasn’t even liked hardening off in 40+ daytime weather–the leaves have turned brown.  Later I will sow the bean seeds, carrots, more corn and greens.

I’m very glad we’ve covered most of the pathways with woodchips.  It allows me to walk through most of the garden without collecting mud on my shoes.  We still need to finish up a few pathways, but it’s looking pretty good.

There is a nice article about when to plant seedlings outdoors on the GrowVeg website.  Too bad I didn’t read it earlier!  I did grow extra things, I just didn’t save any to replace what died after transplanting outside.

Tim remembers hearing that “farming is the ultimate act of faith.”  Perhaps true.  For those who depend on growing things for their food or livelihood, it would be very nerve-racking.  For me, I can still survive and buy food at the store if the weather turns and kills everything, and I’m still fretting, hoping things will survive the weather and my mistakes.  I shouldn’t worry…for Father knows my needs and clothes even the lilies of the fields.

4:20 pm: It has just begun to rain and it’s about 46 degrees.   The forecast the next few days/nights is for rainy days in the mid-to-high 50’s (not so bad), but 40-ish each night (not so good).  The past few days have been off-and-on cold with cold nights.  We’ve had some nice rain, so things are greening up.  It’s just frustrating not knowing when to plant or what’s ok to plant.

I guess I’m getting more exposure to Colorado unpredictable weather.  I know that May 15 is the “average” last frost date, meaning there’s a good chance it will still be cold and/or frost after that date, but the last two years have been warmer and I’ve been too optimistic.  Next year I will start things later and not plan on being able to plant by May 15, as I have the past two years.

I know that tomatoes and peppers need warm weather, and have heard not to plant them until it is consistently 50 overnight.  However, I’ve had them out hardening off all week inside the cold frame, even the nights that were 30.  It was just too difficult to carry them in and out each night & morning.  Yesterday I went ahead and planted the tomatoes and today the peppers.  I’m keeping the peppers covered, at least overnight, until it warms up–the cold frame fits nicely on top of the peppers and should keep them well protected.  Some of the tomatoes have hoops over them and are ready to cover with frost cloth as need arises. So far, I’m leaving the tomatoes uncovered during the day.  Not sure what to do with them overnight.

I’ve read that there is really no advantage to getting the tomatoes out too early–that bigger tomatoes grown inside and planted out early aren’t ready to harvest any earlier than those done a little later and planted when warmer.  Apparently warmth is the key, and it’s possible that tomatoes planted in >40 degree weather won’t produce as much fruit.  We shall see.  At any rate, next year I plan to start them later, and won’t plan to plant them out as early.  If there’s really no advantage, why bother?

There is progress being made, and we’re in the final countdown in the last two weeks until “last frost”.  I’ve sown seeds for beets, rutabagas, peas and planted my seed potatoes.   I started my corn seeds indoors, as I did last year.  It worked well last year starting them in the mini blocks, so I’m doing it again.  So far the long-range forecast looks pretty good, warming up and fewer freezing temps at night.  I’ve also planted more leeks and scallions, and eaten some delicious asparagus.Last night it was Asparagus-Smoked Salmon Crepes, which turned out delicious.  


I’ve begun to “harden off” the bee balm and alpine strawberries for planting soon–I think they can handle some colder temps, but I’ll watch the weather more closely before I plant. I’ll be using the cold frame, moved to an empty bed, for my area to harden things off.  It’ll be a walk to get the heavy trays there, but I think helpful–after a few days I should be able to leave things there overnight.


We’re getting the beds ready for planting.  This year I’m trying out Steve Solomon’s homemade “Complete Organic Fertilizer” (COF) to see how well it aids garden growth.  I’m leveling out the beds, mixing in the manure that was on the top of each bed over the winter, and adding the COF.  Some of the raised beds still are not framed, due to lack of materials, and difficult to keep them enclosed in the area I want them without some of the soil falling into the pathways.  I’ll just have to make do and make the best of it.


Tim has leveled out the area where we plan to put the greenhouse and it’s ready for concrete, which we hope to get this weekend.  It’ll be bigger than I had imagined!  It’ll be nice, particularly in the spring, for getting the seedlings going, and I’ll be able to do that process without all the electricity we’re using for the light bench.  We’ll also put down a concrete floor for the duck house, so we can wash it off for cleaning.


Tim is also working hard to fix our upstairs porch, which needed new posts for supports.  The old ones had warped and were pulling the porch and its roof away from the house–not good.  He’s working hard, and all these projects on top of his “real job”.

 This weekend we finished covering most of our pathways between beds with woodchips.  Last year Tim had found (at a local recycle place) some plastic stuff that’s meant to go under cement.  He cut it into widths the size of the walkways and put it down to act as a weed & mud barrier.  It worked well.  After our “trial” period, we finished most of the garden that way.  After we ran out of the plastic, we used leftover roof shingles to act as our weed barrier on the rest of the paths. 

The City of Fort Collins had advertised wood mulch at $5 a load this weekend, so Tim took four trips to pick up four loads of the stuff.  It’s nice, and we’ve got lots of it.  It turned out to be two different batches, and therefore two different colors, but I think that in time they’ll all look the same.  The garden will be so much nicer this year with the pathways covered and the weeds easier to control.  There will still be weeds at the edges and in the beds, but they’ll be much easier to handle than the ones that took over on the pathways.  Our other experiment with weeds will be a flame weeder we got.  We should be able to use that for weeds outside of the bed areas.

We’re still looking for cheap, recycled materials to frame more of the beds.  At this point, it looks like that will have to wait.  If they don’t get framed before planting, they won’t get framed!