Garden Diaries, 2020

[labradors]

We had our first tomatoes! A micro variety from Russia who's name I cannot remember or pronounce, abbreviated to O.K. I started it, along with a couple of other varieties, on Feb 18 and grew it in a 1 gallon container. The lettuce was pretty good and we've been enjoying salads made with spinach (bolted now) lettuce, cilantro, and perpetual spinach. The tatsoi took ages to get big enough to cook and then bolted.

Tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and beans are all coming along. I decided to plant the cukes later in an attempt to fool the cucumber beetles into thinking there's nothing here. One is in, the rest are still a bit small. Apparently, my garden is full of cutworms .


I've had big problems logging on here and have been unable to post for months. I don't really know what happened to change that, but am happy to be back - if I truly am. I've still been reading PTO every day and enjoying the funnies :).

Linda

[Happy]

I've got several blooms on my cucs and considering installing some lattice to intermittently shade them for the same reason OC mentions. KB's squash has gone crazy and if half of the buds I'm seeing become squash it will be a wonderful harvest! I pruned 22 tomato plants last weekend and have tons of tiny tomatoes coming. I think I'm most excited about my first few cantalope flowers though.

[kenya]

Your first tomatoes and cucumbers, I'm jealous!!!

[Killerbunny]

Well @Farrier1987 is correct, those strawberries don't travel well at all. None have made it as far as the house yet!
Grew a new lettuce from Baker Creek free seed - Merveilleux des quatre saisons. Terrific taste, very slightly towards arugula, bronze, growing well. Also a nice spinach which is the first I've had good results with here. https://www.rareseeds.com/gigante-d-inverno.

[Farrier1987]

Earing strawberries, salads, beet greens etc. Squash, melons and sweet potatoes starting to vine, pea pods filling. Seems Like TomK's advice for the parsnips worked, have two twenty foot rows doing real well it appears. I hoe and weed a row or two a day.

Got two inches of rain on Friday night, we needed it, things should really jump now. Planted some more carrots, where the beets have been picked out of the raised bed. I think they will do well in the damp soil.

Cath gone to her mothers for the weekend. Monday we expect we shall have a feast. New potatoes, peas and carrots, and perch, with strawberry shortcake for desert. And cream poured over it. I think whipped cream is a ploy that mothers used to make the cream go further. I like it soaked into the cake and running off the berries.

[WLLady]

i have my first small spaghetti squashes maturing! jealous about the tomatoes...mine are looking great but green still. i keep asking them to hurry along...lol. BLTs here were come! spinach has ants. sigh. apparently my ants like spinach. who knew. so borax and molasses is going out now that theres no rain (again) in the forecast. we got 3/4 inch and needed it badly! but yesterday the rain went all around us again. potatoes are just blooming. bad year for colorado potato bugs. gah. handpicking daily....but found the adults in the act and did in 6 pairs so that should help lessen the eggs....also squished up hundreds of eggs....very few very small strawberries here. but the raspberries look like an incoming bumper crop. no plums. no cherries. few apples. but the mulberries are doing amazing. the bees have made a huge difference. summer squash flowers are fertilized immediately and so are the winter squash. there are even a couple of cantaloupe and watermelons starting! again my peas are having difficulties....second year in a row. hm. need to get on mulching now....

[Ontario Chick]

Peas just starting to come in, very small kohlrabis, one bloom on the cucumbers, although I have been standing over them going ohhhhhh come onnnnn doesn't seem to work.
slowly getting tired of lettuce, beens are now heading for the sky nary a bloom in sight.
Interestingly haven't seen a potato Beatle in years, doing a 4 year rotation wonder if that makes a difference?

[Killerbunny]

No potato beetles so far but saw none last year or year before - turkey poults eat them! Cuc beetles nasty. Sugar snap peas great but nearly done. Letuce I mentioned before is still going strong and second seeind is doing well. Second seeding of spinach has gone nuts. OK folks, what do you do with kohl rabi? It was my free seed!

[labradors]

Want some potato beetles? Try growing tomatillo's! I only have two, and a friend said that the chipmunks LOVE them so I planted them far, far away from my main garden and it's a full time job squishing potato beetles on them! Fortunately, they haven't found my pot of potatoes. Since I missed being able to order seed potatoes online, I saved a bag of "little" potatoes that looked as if they were going to sprout. I kept them for ages, and only 5 of them actually sprouted so they didn't need a very big pot. At least it saved me having to give up half the garden for stupid spuds! :).

Linda

[KimChick]

I kept finding little indentations in the soil in my flower garden like something had started digging, and they didn't look like footprints (thinking deer stepping in). But there are chipmunks. One early evening, DH discovered a toad sitting in one of the spots. I have a garden toad! And it has lots of shade and daytime cover under our veranda.