Got to LIve in Your Garden!
If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s, you’ve got to live in your garden! I was gone for about 36 hours to San Mateo County, CA, but since I got back late last night, that translates to two garden days. It’s amazing what can happen in such a short time in the garden. A couple of my starters popped. There had been no sign Sunday morning before I left.
This purple bean is a very strange looking sprout. Looks like a white worm, but when I touched it, it didn’t move.
This is either a Japanese melon or cucumber. I somehow labeled the stick with both names.
This succulent’s blooms are opening.
My potatoes are getting huge. There are white potatoes and sweet potatoes growing in this pot. The long pointy leaves are the sweet potato.
You can’t even see my little orange tree in the middle of this photo, dwarfed by zucchini, tomatoes and a tall lettuce spire. The empty bed bottom right is my third failed attempt at carrots.
What happened to this new bean plant? Not enough water? Too much?
The new sweet peas are looking healthy and growing fast.
As is the new zucchini planted on Memorial Day.
My second round of sunflowers exploded since Sunday. This is the plant I was staking in the current “Sunny Sunflowers” episode of “Late Bloomer.”
The amaranth is finally taking off after a rough start. It’s only got about six feet to go.
Some of the radishes are looking like all the energy is going into the leaves and the vegetable looks like this.
I guess this cucumber is going to fill out at the end? Or since the end is yellow, maybe I should cut it now.
This new cucumber plant is looking pretty good.
And this may be the last yellow zucchini. I’m thinking about yanking out the plant to give the cherry tomato a chance. I thought it had powdery mildew all this time, but, it may have been white spotty mold. Since I’ve chopped off so many leaves, it’s hardly producing, so I think it will have to go.
I learned so much on my trip to Woodside, CA. I met a number of master gardeners and I am eager to act on and share their advice. Thanks for reading! – Kaye
Category: Vegetables, Warm Season
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Kaye, radishes are day length sensitive so you may not get ‘radish’ from yours now. The cuke is past…when they get yellow they are over done so to speak. Also looks like a water issue when they don’t fill out all the way.
*anna
Anna, do you mean the days are too long or short for radishes now? Cause the days are long, but they are not in sun all day. A water issue for cuke means I skipped a watering or two, they got too dry? Any thoughts on that bean plant? Thanks for the advice!!
Kaye, 12 hour days are optimal for good root production. Usually, (at least in NY) radishes are only a spring crop…with the growing length of the days up to the summer solstice, could be you just missed out on the radish crop. We usually only companion plant with carrots to break soil…
Cukes are sensitive to either too much or too little water…fickle even before being a pickle! Hard to say about the bean, too little water likely, or not sufficient nutrients. Also, never pick beans when wet or dewy diseases spread that way pick in mid afternoon when plants are dry.
Gardening is an adventure 🙂
*anna
How do you get that cute smiley face? Thanks for great advice! I guess I won’t bother planting more radish seed. I planted them with beets and I’ve got a few coming along. Maybe it’s the same thing. I learned yesterday that carrots are hard to germinate in So. Cal (they take two weeks to germinate!) and you have to have a sprinkler system on a timer and keep the soil moist till they germinate. The only reason I had success in April was because of all the rain in March. I had no idea!
So helpful to see the progress of your garden, Kaye! Gives me ideas for my own little balcony. Thanks!
Peace
Cat
Thanks for watching, Cat! Also, check out http://www.urbanorganicgardener.com/ and sign up for his fall gardening course. Brooklyn native and now L.A. apartment dweller, he has good ideas for container gardening.
You touched something you thought was a white worm. Yikes! This is why I have a hard time getting excited about gardening. I really don’t like the creepy crawlies.
My brain knew it was a sprout. Anyway, after my battle with slugs and snails in March, I don’t mind a nice worm.
Last year, we had a few cucumbers that looked like your misshapen, yellowing specimen. We concluded that the yellowing was due to over-watering (easy for us to do with an automatic timer). I read somewhere that the non-uniform shape was likely due to poor pollination (the now-forgotten source did not elaborate on what this meant or what, if anything, could be done about it). Regardless of the reason, the small end is malformed—not under ripe—and will never fill out.
I concluded that waiting for picture-perfect cucumbers (or any vegetable, for that matter) is counterproductive. Usually, they will become overripe before attaining perfection. My goal is to harvest them when they look ripe and enjoy! (My feelings might be different if my plan were to enter them in the State Fair.) Also, with cucumbers it is best to pick earlier rather than later to keep the plants producing.
Thank you! I’m going right out and harvest what I find.
Hi Kaye, wow where to start? Pick your cukes and zukes to keep more flowers/fruit coming – (Your cuke looks like it might’ve been damaged?) even if mildewed(sp?), the zucchini plant will regenerate given time. Watering deeply, EARLY in the day to prevent water stress and loss through evaporation also ensures plants are thoroughly dry by nightfall to curb spreading disease.
Was it only one bean plant that died? Perhaps, if that’s a stake that I see at the edge of your frame (for climbers?), you just got too close and impaled the roots? We use fishnetting hung from a (chain-link stretcher) pole and supported between 6′ tall “A” frame/tripods for our Blue Lake and Scarlet Runner Beans. Oh, scratch that – I can see beans on – you’ve left them too long, they’ve matured and your plant has said “That’s it, I quit; my job is done!” You’ve gotta keep things watered and picked off to keep things moving; but, I’m guessing, where you are it’s ‘way too hot for that now anyway.
(So, what local crops are in season?; )
Oh, and to make a smiley face you just type colon, right bracket 🙂 for a winky face it’s a semicolon, rt bracket 😉 or if you’re like me and actually like the originals, just put a space in between ; ). Cheers!
Deb, I tied up my cukes and got them off the ground and they seem better. I have 3 cuke plants and one has little ones coming. One bean plant never really got going, didn’t do much of a job for me at all. I got 7 beans for tonight’s dinner, the most yet. No, it’s not that hot at all. We have June gloom till noon every day almost and my sunflowers are now getting powdery mildew or white spotty mold, whichever it is. I’ll post a photo tomorrow. I’ve got a boat load of tomatoes coming and baby watermelons, and one blueberry bush producing, a new squash looking strong, one blackberry vine and green zucchini, as well as a handful of strawberries every couple of days. Not much, but enough to keep me encouraged.:)
When I type a colon and right bracket, I don’t get the smiley face, or 😉 winky face.Maybe it’s the theme I’m using?
Oh, wait, it did do it!