The pepper plants are naked

The red radishes are coming up very quickly.  NONE of the lettuce came up, so I essentially wasted 4 dollars of lettuce seeds trying to sow it outside in the middle of summer.   I'm guessing that a much better approach would have been to start it inside.  

I pulled up all of the Asian stir fry mix.   We have barely touched it since the collards, kale, and the spinach greens have been in full effect.  It was acting as a great mulch for the pepper plants, but the bugs were starting to pick it apart and it was all bolting.   My plan is to plant the winter rye and hairy vetch as a mulch around the peppers now so that they will be in place when it is time to pull the peppers out.

Random shot of some cucumbers:

I have some peas planted right in this little area, and a volunteer squash, which I am almost positive is a butternut squash based no the leaves and the flower.  I must have dropped a seed at one point.  

Here we have the mystery plant in the back corner.  It is definitely not a squash plant.  I have narrowed it down to cantaloupe or watermelon.  

This picture is a really good visual of what happens to some of my pepper plants (the one in the back).   This happened last year to one of the 4 that I planted, and this year to about 3 of 15 plants.    The leaves and  the fruit start to turn yellowish.  You can tell how yellow when you compare it to the healthy pepper plant in the foreground.    I read online that his could be related to over watering, so I put a 72 hour delay on the timer in the hope that it helps.

A random shot of the asparagus tops and the rose bush in it's third big bloom of the summer.

Finally took some new pictures

The side garden (Butternut & Acorn Squash, Cantaloupe, Mint)

The vines just keep on growing. Pretty impressive.  

Acorn Squash

An acorn squash just starting out

A little bigger

The biggest one so far

Cantaloupe

This is the biggest one so far.  A bit behind the squash plants

 Cucumbers

The ones that catch on the chicken wire curl up.  Kinda cool

It is actually hard to find the cucumbers in the middle. The ones that grow towards the outside on the easiest to keep track of.  

Peppers

Poblano

Anaheim

 ???

 

Mid-week update

Once again I have not had time to take many pictures, but here are the updates:

Squash/Cucumbers
There are 2 or 3 acorn squashes growing now, with the biggest one the size of a softball already.  There are maybe 7-10 different butternut squashes growing at this point.  Looking good.  As for the summer squash, I actually have not looked recently, but still no fruit from what I can tell.  It really doesn't get much sun at all, so we will see if we get anything out of it.  The cucumbers are definitely starting to come. Have picked 3 so far, and there are lots of little ones.  Lastly, I have a new hunch for the mystery plant.  I think that it is a watermelon or a cantaloupe.  I think the tiny little fruits have stripes.

Peppers
The anaheims are doing fantastic.  Some are as hot as a jalapeno, and others are only mildly hot.  Each plant has between 1-6 peppers on it at this point.   There are at least 20 out there and we have used at least 4 or 5.  The poblanos are also doing well.  Not as prolific as the Anaheim, but there are maybe 10 out there currently.  The skins are still thin, but they are tasty and we have used a couple so far.  There are 3 jalepenos on the one plant, and one picante chili on that plant.   The picante chili looks a lot like the Anaheim, so I'm curious as to how it turns out.  

Tomatoes
The mortgage lifter plant has ripened another 5 big tomatoes that we are in the process of eating now.   Still very good, but they are splitting and they have lesions on them.  The super 100 cherry tomato plant is essentially done.  There are a few left, but it should get pulled soon.   The better boy and the patio plants are also basically done.   There are a few green ones on the better boy, but they don't look that great.

Collards  
The collards are holding on.   I don't think they have gotten much worse, so maybe the garlic/neem spray worked.   I'll have to look more closely this week and record what I see in more detail.

Bush Beans
The first few plants in the second bean patch have beans finally.  Should be less than a week until we start getting beans again.  

Wrapping up

An updated shot of the Basil, Marigolds, Dill, and Cilantro.   The marigolds are ready to transplant at this point.  I transplanted some of the basil already, and the rest of it is not far behind.   The Dill and the Cilantro failed miserably.  I have one tiny cilantro plant, and 2 dill plants, both of which look very weak.   I'm hoping it was because I had to revert to some really old seed.  It might also be a result of mid-summer heat.  

Lastly, here is the shot I forgot to take last time.  Those are the sweet potato vines and leaves.   I cut the vines that shoot out into the paths. Everything that stays in the raised bed gets to live :).  Amazingly, ALL of those leaves fit into that salad bowl.  It was heaping over, but I got them all in.   I'm pretty sure you can eat the vines as well, but I'm not there yet.

A close up of the cool heart shaped leaves:

After blanching all of the leaves, I used half and made a shrimp stir fry for 4, and froze the other half.  I probably said this last post, but they have been such a nice surprise.  The stir fry was delicious.      

Cucumber and Squash update

I wanted to document what seems to be a more and more common occurrence lately.  The pictures below show the mystery squash/melon plant, and then the cucumber plants.   As you can see -- some, but not all, of the vine strands just start to shrivel up and die.   

The list of what it could be is so long, I can't wrap my head around it just yet.   Some random guesses:

• The result of my moving the vines around and breaking a stem
• The result of me spraying with either Neem oil or garlic extract
• The result of too much water
• The result of some disease or bug

All of these seem plausible to me at this point.  

On to the good news.   The first Butternut squash is doing great, and there at least 4 or 5 more that have started:

 

Also, here is the first acorn squash.  Interestingly, the acorn squash vine is twice as large as any of the Butternut squashes, but the first fruit is just setting now.   

Harlequin bugs, eating my collards

harlequin_

bug

I tried to ID this bug with a few of the bug identifier sites that ask you color(s), how many legs, etc.  Unfortunately I came up empty.  Luckily, when I did a Google image search for "orange and black spotted bug", I found the link above, and some others, all pointing t other harlequin bug.  

Are they having bug sex on my collards? Also, you can see the damage they caused to the leaves on top right corner of the picture.  

I remember seeing them last year and I have actually seen them this year for the past month or two at least.  For the past few weeks they seem to be multiplying.  Actually, they are definitely multiplying, because when picking the collards this weekend, I saw dozens of tiny little guys in the act of hatching on the leaves.

The picture below shows the eggs, and an even more significantly damaged leaf.   You can see how this leaf is whitish compared to the normal looking leaf behind it.  

Anyway, I harvested a huge amount of leaves (half of a kitchen garbage bag) yesterday.  They are in the fridge now, waiting to be blanched and frozen tonight.

For control, I bought this stuff today.  It is OMRI listed, which means it complies with USDA organic standards.

Here is a cool site that actually talks about the harlequin bug and how it causes this whiteness on collards.

http://www.ipmcenters.org/cropprofiles/docs/scleafygreens.pdf

Here are a few more pictures of the damage and of the bugs:

Weekly update - August 10th, 2012

I have not had enough time to take many pictures this past week, but I wanted to log what has been going on before I forgot it.  

Bush Beans
I sowed another round of Bush beans in the new patch.  About 6 more plants. I'm not sure if I mentioned this  already, but I am sowing the seeds differently than I did last time around.   In the original bean patch, I spaced the first planting out evenly over the whole patch.  A few weeks later I planted the next batch in the spots that were bare.  I did the same thing for another one or two plantings until the patch was full.   We had ton's of beans, but I realized that the beans sowed towards the end never really matured.  They were too shaded by the established plants.  
This time around, I'm planting them in thick rows.  I sowed one and a half rows on the first planting.  Another one and a half on the second planting, and then another 1 on this last planting.  I think there are about 18-20 plants now, and room for another 4-6.  I'm think this makes more sense, but only time will tell.  

Pole Beans
So about 1-2 weeks ago I started to notice the Dean's Purple beans were starting to come in on the string in the front of the house.   Unfortunately, all of the beans are about 10 feet high!.   So between the height, and the fact that plant is mostly sick and dying anyway, I'll gonna throw in the towel and say that beans in the front this year were not a success.   Maybe I'll stick to flowers in that spot next year.   I still have more pole bean seeds -- I just have not found the time or the place to plant  them.  The one Selma Zesta that did make  it in the front is producing beans now.   They actually taste really nice.  On the one plant, I have picked about 20 beans so far, mostly in the morning as I leave for work.

Basil 
Wednesday night I transplanted 5 of the 8 basil seedlings that were ready into the herb garden.   I have been  saving a spot for this planting for a while, so hopefully the do as well as the first batch.  The spring basil is all doing very well.  We made one batch of pesto already.  Definitely time for a second batch.


Onion bed
Also on Wednesday night (and I really do mean night.  I was out there until 11:30 with a head lamp), I pulled all of the weeds that enveloped the onion bed within the herb garden.   I put down some leaf compost and raked it into the soil.   Now we just have to figure out what to plant there.  It gets a lot of shade, but some sun, so I might try some lettuce and some cherry belle radishes.

Winter Squash/Cucumber
I had one butternut squash plant and one cucumber plant wilt away and die this past week.  I am not sure if these two things are related, or if either is related to the Summer squash that was eaten by vine borers.  I checked all of the stems on the butternut and acorn squash plants, and even the cucumbers, and I don't see any damage, but maybe I just don't know what to look for.   I sprayed all of the remaining squash and cucumbers with a neem oil and garlic spray mix (dumped both of them into the 3 gallon sprayer and added water).  Hopefully this will help.

Squash

I thought the summer squash by the front door was going to make it, but I was wrong.  It looks like the vine borers ate right through the stem and severed the entire plant:


The result:


Note for next year:  Try and be more vigilant about vine borers -- use the flashlight at night to try and find them inside the vine so that they can be killed right at the start. 

Now on to more positive things:   About a month or so we found a squash or melon plant growing right in the middle of the collards.  Not having any idea where it came from or what it could be, we left it alone.   As you can see below, the first fruit is starting to mature.  The vine looks a lot like a cucumber, but the fruit does not.  Not sure if this is a squash seed I dropped (the second picture shows a yellow fruit) or a melon seed from the compost.  Only time will tell.

After being so pleased with myself for training the Cantaloupe, Butternut Squash and Acorn squash plants to climb up the wood fence, I have to admin that maybe it was not the best idea.  As soon as the fruit started setting, the weight started to really pull the vines down.  I assumed that I would be able to just support the fruit with some netting or something, and this might have been true.   But now that the plants are so big it seems like a much better idea is to let the vines just climb on the concrete. 

Our neighbors have a similar setup, where they let the vines and the squash grow through their chain link fence so the fruit is on the outside of their fence.   I'm not sure if there are any negatives to letting the fruit grow on the cement, but I don't think there are.  The best part is that we are finally getting some squash.  They look awesome:

And the squash flowers are pretty awesome also.  Every time I look in the flowers, I see bees.  Actually now that I think about it, I never see honey bees.  Just these black bees and some bumble bees. 

 

The onions are ready for storage

The onions are finally done curing, so I took them in from the shed and cut the tops off.   You can either braid them, or cut the tops off like I did and store them in a single or double layer.  I read that anything more than two layers and they will rot quicker.  

Now we just need to find the coolest and driest place in our house.   Our basement, which is what people usually use, is neither.   Our central AC comes from the attic, so I'm leaning towards storing them all the way upstairs (which I know is counter intuitive), or in the dining room.  Same thing for the garlic.  I need to find a good spot for both of these guys.  Any other ideas?  

Summer squash and sweet potato leaves

Before we left for the weekend, I saw the first straight neck summer squash.  By the time we got back, there was good news and bad news. 

The good news:  By the time we got back the squash was the perfect size.  I picked it before I even walked in the front door.  

The bad news: It looks like some squash vine borers got into a bunch of the squash plants by the front door.  One of them looks like it might make it, but the other two or three plants are completely dead.   

In other news, the sweet potato vines have been going crazy and I finally had my chance to pick the leaves and stir fry them.   I read that they cook and taste a lot like spinach.  I found a recipe online that said to boil them for 2 minutes, then chop them up, and then stir fry them for around 1 minute.   

We made a quick stir fry with the sweet potato leaves, the summer squash, and garlic -- all three from our garden, which is always awesome.   

It turned out really good.   I would say that compared to spinach, the only difference I noticed was that the sweet potato leaves were slightly more slimey, but I think I only noticed because I read that online.   Emily didn't notice any difference.   

The best part is that we won't have spinach for another few months, so this is going to be a great, constantly producing substitute.   Actually, the best part is that even though we will keep harvesting the leaves, we are hopefully going to get some good sweet potatoes!