More "What's Goin' On"

peas in cages in the back yard

Snow peas have been on the menu for less than a week.  Plantings were staggered by probably 3 or 4 weeks - March 31 in the front yard and twice in April in the back (wish I'd made notes at the time) - and the pods all came out at the same time.  I have seen this with pole beans before; I finally give up on the first planting, poke some more beans into the ground, and watch them all come up at once.  Lesson learned: peas can be sown "as soon as the ground can be worked" (March), but they won't feed us any sooner than if we sow in late April. Any fine weekend in between will do. Strong wind a few days ago knocked over the vines that had grown beyond the tops of their cages. They are still alive and well, but won't stand erect again and are going to get all tangled up in themselves now. Barry has been picking the pods and reports that front yard pods are smaller than backyard pods. Less sun, more wind, shallower soil - I'm glad they are doing so well. Shell peas in cages have blossoms now, those on the fence, sown later do not. They also haven't climbed nearly as high, a difference I am not sure is due to their respective ages. I'm curious to see if the two groups eventually reach the same height.

scarlet runner beans

There are six pole bean structures this year, the most we have ever had.  New poles had to be found.  Though I did anticipate using the stalks of a few tall sunflowers from last year, they were  broken before I had a chance to get them out of the ground.  They grow in the alley, so are vulnerable to misfortune at the whims of deer or other creatures.  I'll try pulling them up before winter this time around.  Meanwhile, I'm trying out some lengths of plastic conduit (used as row cover support last year).  They appear to be acceptable for climbing, but don't contribute to a stable structure.   Anyway, I sowed two structures with scarlet runner, three with Ina's white, and one with rattlesnake beans.  The first two are well underway, winding toward their respective peaks and revealing petal colour in their axillary buds, while the rattlesnakes are slower, just starting to find their poles and having rudimentary buds.  There was a bit of a slug problem in that area.

scarlet runner bud

Bush beans - Maxibel French Filet and Orca - grew up fast and are now looking crowded on opposite sides of the pea fence.  Those were sown in May and and the buds are about to open.  Yesterday I filled an empty spot at the end of the Swiss chard with two rows of each.  I'm pretty sure there is enough time.

garlic from bulbils

garlic from cloves

The garlic patch has three sizes of plants this year.  I haven't a clue what the varieties are (they could all be the same one), but they are different stages that were planted last fall.  The smallest are from bulbils, the seeds of the flowers (or scapes), the medium stalks are from teardrops, the root bulb that grows the first year from a bulbil, and the largest are grown from single cloves.  I pulled up one of the latter recently and wish I hadn't.  It was interesting to see the tiny cloves forming inside the root bulb, but now we won't have that full-sized bulb in August.  The teardrops should produce small bulbs.  The bulbils may even produce small bulbs instead of teardrops.  It depends on the variety.  Surprises await.  Scapes are growing and curling on the two larger groups.  Today I cut a few that had done a full circle and will try them in an omelet tomorrow.  Generally, leaving the scapes on is expected to reduce bulb size, because plant energy is going into making bulbils instead of bulbs.  I will leave a few scapes in place and check whether this is true for my garlic.  Plus, I want some bulbils.

walking onions

Also in the allium group, we have yellow onions, shallots, chives, and walking onions.  Yellow onion sets were poked in the ground between carrots and parsnips in one bed (see the Parsnips post) and much later inserted into the area left unclaimed when some zucchini plants failed.  The later ones are still less than finger height, and may, like the ground cherry, require some protection from encroachment.  Shallot seeds went into the end of a raised bed meant for peas and beans.  The legumes still followed, cutting short both ros of shallots. I'd say only half of the seeds germinated and they are now a few inches tall, thin and delicate, like baby chives.  Onions and legumes are said not to be good companion plants, but we have volunteer peas coming up among the garlic and neither are visibly suffering.  Chives and walking onions carry on beautifully, tough perennials that they are.  The chive flowers have mostly lost their colour and the walking onions have scapes on scapes.  Very interesting formations.

We also have two onions in a container: one was found this spring in last summer's onion patch, the other had begun to sprout out of boredom during a long stay in my father-in-law's refrigerator.  That one has already made a scape, the other is just being.

More to follow.....

Time now for "What's Goin' On"

The post title is amusing only to those who received cable tv channels from Maine in the 70's and 80's.  If you are hoping to read about upcoming events at the Bangor Mall, you are going to be sorely disappointed here.

It's just over a month since my hasty post about what was going down (and coming up) in the garden, so here is an update.

Tomatoes were all transplanted by the first weekend of June and all except one have survived the onslaught of flea beetles.  Another one, planted upside-down, appears to have succumbed to a broken stem suffered during high winds.  All others are looking sturdy.  They always look terribly weak and vulnerable after transplant and toughen up incredibly fast.  They have already had their first axil pruning.  Peppers, melons, cucumber and basil are all in containers.  I've put one container of watermelons, one of peppers, one tomato in the greenhouse to see how they like it there in the summer.  All potatoes successfully sprouted and have blossoms already.

defiant tomato

potato bed june 24

costata romanesca
 june 9

Only three zucchini plants made it to transplant and they are now hanging over the sides of their bed.  (The grim hue of the early photo is a result of me forgetting I'd been playing with the white balance on my new camera.)  I'd better remember to measure the full grown diameter this year; one plant has already shaded the ground cherry I thought was a reasonable distance away from it.  Fencing and a guard iguana have been installed to protect the ground cherry.

costata romanesca june 28

red kuri getting a grip

Four winter squash plants made it to transplant: one Uncle Dave's Dakota Dessert and three Red Kuri.  We got one large and excellent Red Kuri gourd last year and would like to have more.  Uncle Dave's is there for back up.  The squash ladder worked out okay in 2011, but had to be moved for the sake of crop rotation.  Squash are in the "heavy feeder" group.  In moving the ladder, I also turned it, for some reason I don't recall, and the plants were place on the south side of the mesh they are meant to climb.  Of course they all tried to vine south, away from the mesh.  I applied some encouragement yesterday and hope they soon get a better grasp of what they are supposed to do.

beets and chard undercover

Beets and Swiss chard are lush and almost blemish free in their covered bed.  It's not a tight seal, but enough to drastically reduce access for leaf miners.  It has been years since we have been able to just rinse and slice the Swiss chard without first tearing away the scabby bits.  With the row cover protecting it from heavy rain and pests, we barely need to rinse it before eating.  Downside, the bed would look more beautiful without the cover (but only until the leaf miners found it).  The section with beets (foreground) has grown especially bulgy. I might have to start eating around the edges.

To be continued......

Parsnips everywhere

the parsnip that started it all

It started in 2008, when I sowed my first parsnip seeds.  I wasn't that excited about it, associating parsnips with turnips, which I don't care to eat.  We dug up most of them the following spring but I left one in the ground to see what would happen.  In spite of my lack of experience, I knew it was a biennial plant and that something would happen.  Very much to my surprise, it grew to be almost as tall as me and branched out with great umbels that grew seeds.  I was in awe of it, much as I had been of bolted lettuce plants the first time I saw them.  It was some time after the seeds had developed sufficiently to produce new plants that the flower blew over in a storm, falling directly south toward the the fence.  No doubt there was a great scattering of seeds that night, but there was also the dragging of the plant off to the compost after we realized the stalk could not be righted.  Still, we had no idea how far those seeds had been flung.

In the spring of 2010, parsnips sprouted from the lawn.  They still do.  They emerged around the two bee balm plants where the flower toppled and along the periphery of that side of the garden.  I let them grow, thinking of them as potential food.  One of the volunteers growing right next to the cinder block border of the garden was our prize parsnip that year.  It was a huge effort to uproot it from where it had burrowed under the brick.  Others weren't worth picking; the next year they became flowers.  We let a few of them go, if they weren't in the way.  We had to remove one that grew to overhang a narrow pathway.   This was due to the ant hazard.  Ants find parsnip flowers to be great range land for their aphid herds.  You don't want to have to brush past a plant where defensive ants loiter at neck height.

What happened with the 2011 flowers, I don't know.  I thought we carefully removed all the seeds before they had a chance to escape.  Still, seeds got around.  The wind may have blown them off when we weren't looking.   2009 seeds from the distributed compost could have germinated.  I wouldn't put it past the ants; they love to carry stuff around just to show off their impressive jaw strength to body weight ratio.  There are now parsnips growing in every bed of the main garden.  I don't think they have infiltrated the new raised beds.

parsnip in bee balm

This is the smallest bee balm plant with a tiny parsnip.  It's difficult when they get in among the roots of perennials.  We pull parsnip leaves from the larger bee balm plants every week.  One even managed to make a flower before we caught it.  The root has to be exhausted eventually, I hope.

parsnips with lettuce

This is one of the beds where I sowed parsnips in 2011.  They did not do well.  I can't tell yet whether these are first or second year plants.  Though it's logical that last year's planting would yield second year plants here, I don't see any sign of a flower yet.  I think it would be happening by now.

parsnips with brussels sprouts

  Now here is a nightmare for some children: two of their not so favourite vegetables side by side.  I feel quite confident that these are growing from seeds this year.  I had snow peas and carrots in this section last year and was weeding like a fiend to keep sow thistle from going to seed here (for all the good that did).  Would have noticed parsnips.  I haven't checked The Vegetable Gardener's Bible to see if these two are good companions.  They are both doing fine.

parsnip with sunchokes

The sun chokes are growing so thick in this bed, it may be difficult to see the parsnip that is happily situated on the sunny side of the rectangle.  It's huge.  For a while I was thinking that anything that got that big that quickly had to be second year.  But I don't remember when this one started.  Another wait and see.  It will be interesting to see how deep it can grow.  The bed was created on top of lawn, so the root only has about eight inches to go before it hits the lovely hard packed clay substrate that we enjoy so much in Lethbridge.

They are found among the peas and pole beans and tomatoes, and growing out of the sides of the mounded beds. They are not fussy about where they grow or how deeply the seeds are planted.   All they need is water, light and space. With all the pests we find in the garden, nothing goes for parsnip leaves or roots. I have come to enjoy eating the roots, especially if prepared with butter and garlic. Somewhere I read that the leaves were edible, but then Barry (after I encouraged him to try eating a leaf) found several sources that say they are poisonous and can cause burns on contact with skin. I always wear gloves in the garden anyway.

parsnips with intent, and onions

I did sow a bed with parsnip seeds in May, from 2009 seeds.  Intended to do more when I figured out where they could go, but never did get it done.  This will not be enough.  Though there is space available, there is not enough growing season left.  Therefore I am leaving all the volunteers in place until they sprout stalks and umbels.  They may even do better than the mass planting, which is due for a thinning.  So why not just shake a couple of flowers over the entire garden in late summer and let them grow where they like?  Mainly because I want to know exactly where to dig for them in the winter, and because once I find a parsnip growing in the spring, it's hard to sacrifice it to make room for a beet, and because they might take over the planet.

Animal Farm

"Indy, why does the floor move?"  In Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was snakes.  When the ground moves on my street, it's usually ants.  Sometimes I dig them up by accident and a shiny black slick rises to the surface. What's the going commodity price on a barrel of ants? I wonder.  Occasionally there is an almost imperceptible wave across the rock garden.  Something is in motion, but you have to look closely to see that it's ants on the move.  I suppose they get restless by times.  The other day I lifted a bucket that had been left too long in one spot.  The ants have no sense of the temporary nature of a plastic bucket.  The underside had an outer rim that elevated the bottom of the bucket just enough to make it the roof of a lovely ant nursery.  I ruined everything.  Well, not quite.  I could have ruined everything, but instead of viciously stomping on their baby sisters (which look very much like toasted puffed rice cereal), I took a video of the ants hurrying them to underground safety.  That's about all the attention the ants have received from us lately.  If they want to distract us from the other animals in our yard, they will have to be a lot more trouble.

It's caterpillar season again.  We find forest tent caterpillars ascending the trunks of green ash trees on the boulevard.  Barry has banded these trees with fiberglass insulation and tanglefoot, and ventured as far as his ladder will reach to remove any visible (and accessible) clusters.  But the trees are huge.  Out of reach, thousand of caterpillars munch through the leaves and defecate on the ground, the sidewalk, vehicles, formerly clean laundry hung out to dry, flowers and foiliage in the front garden.  I suppose the vegetable garden is getting a little more sun this spring, with most of the leaves of the big shade tree having been processed into little black granules and dropped to the ground.  There is a green ash not far from here that has been completely defoliated.  A few crispy rolled up leaves dangling from one twig were the only evidence that it wasn't dead.  It is said that trees can recover from complete defoiliation, and we have seen some new healthy leaves emerging.  But can they do it year after year?
It's not just the huge trees.  The apple tree is a wreck and the pear tree is better but still mangy.  The critters are also into the haskaps, strawberries, and even the new cotoneaster hedge, whose tiny leaves you would think are not even big enough to roll up into a shelter.  And the dangling of the younger larval instars (as seen here on the water tank)!  The air is thick with them by times.  They are unavoidable.  As we headed out on a bike ride (it was nice to have a few hours away from tall trees), Barry observed a mobile of caterpillars spinning and swaying, glowing in the morning sun.
We are trying to do our bit to stop the devastation, with the afore-mentioned tanglefoot plus Btk and Trounce and a knife and a fly swatter and electric bug zapper rackets and our shoes, even fingers in a pinch.  Greenhaven was sold out of Btk today, but there are rumours that Country Blooms still has some.  How long before it's only available at inflated black market prices?

Leafhoppers sucked the life out of our grape and Virginia creeper leaves last summer.  I can't see in past blog posts that I recorded this, which is quite disappointing because I would like to know when it was they overwhelmed us and caused us to resort to using the Shop-Vac.  This photo was taken mid-August and looks to be early in the battle.  They made short work of the leaves at the time, but the vines were still able to produce grapes.  Now we see them in June.  Barry has been diligent with the soap spray, trying to nip this plague in the bud.  The tricky part is getting to the underside of leaves (where the hoppers feed) of vines making their way across the greenhouse roof.

Another pest that seems to have shown up early is some form of flea beetles.  These have always shown up en masse late in the summer, usually on squash leaves or bolted radishes, where they weren't going to have much effect on garden production.  I don't recall seeing them in June before, and not on tomato leaves.  It is likely a different kind than we have had; there do seem to be species that go for different plants.  Anyway, there they were last weekend, chewing holes in the wee tomato plants.  More work for the insecticidal maniac.  I left straw mulch on the garden beds over winter.  Is this a kindness to pests?



There has also been some clandestine eating of pole beans and bush beans, but these are one-plant-at-a-time type attacks, and they were due for some thinning.  May be we should just grow onions and parsnips.  They seem to be invincible.  Or maybe we should give in and call these animals "livestock" instead of "pests".