Spring is here!

I'm so excited that spring is finally here.  This fall and winter have been full of changes for me... physical changes, changes in daily activities and priorities.  As many of you know, we've been growing a different little sprout than usual.  Rather than spending the winter researching gardening topics like usual, I've been researching everything baby and it's a whole different world.  Rather than building a greenhouse, we transformed a bedroom into a nursery.  That being said, we are gardeners and we've been spending as much time as possible getting the garden going before baby arrives.  

Here's a list of what we've accomplished so far this year:

• Ordered 7 yards of bark to refresh the landscaping (only moved about 2% of it).
• Reinforced our fencing around the veggie garden to keep the pup out.  Built a "composting fence."
• Pruned our apple trees.
• Taught two workshops for our community garden.  Espalier Pruning and Seed Starting.
• Started tomato, pepper, artichoke, and eggplant seeds (been battling fungal gnats ever since). 
• Planted peas.  We're planting a lot of shelling peas to have some to freeze later.
• Planted horseradish for the first time.
• Bought potato sets.  They are chitting in the basement.
• Planted four types of onion sets- Red Candy Apple, Red Zepplin, Walla Walla, and Copra.
• Pruned the raspberry and blackberry patch.
• Pruned the grape vines (still not sure if we're doing it right despite watching a lot of youtube videos and researching it in books).
• Planted spinach and lettuce.
• Kicked-Off the season at Orchard & Vine Community Garden.  Great to see everyone again.  This year I stepped down from the steering committee, but Terry is still on it as Infrastructure Coordinator.  
• Planned out what we're growing for the annual O&V Community Garden Plant Sale on May 18th.  Hopefully we'll be able to keep our starts going after baby arrives.

That's about all I can think of right now.  We're just so excited to meet our little sprout this spring and watch her grow.

2012 Winter Squash Count

 This weekend we harvested our Winter Squash and Pumpkin patch.  We would have waited another week for the squash to mature more, but for thievery.  The foliage had mostly died back and apparently somebody thinks it's okay to help themselves without asking.  They took at least two Sweet Meat, a couple Buttercup, and ALL FOUR of the Butternut Squash.  Bastard!  We know it happened sometime this past week because we had counted our Butternuts last weekend.  They would have had to really take some time to search for them and cut them.  On the positive side, no pumpkins were taken and smashed this year.  Overall, it was a great squash year.

The squash trellis made from branches was a success.  Amazingly two giant pumpkins grew suspended without any additional support. 

The squash trellis covered in foliage earlier this summer.

Definitely looks like fall!

Cinderella Pumpkins hanging on the trellis.

The biggest pumpkin- 42lbs!

The lineup!

Squash curing in the house before storage in the cellar.  This is the first year we've grown Spaghetti squash, Sweet Meat squash and Cinderella pumpkins.  All three produced really well.

The Final Squash/Pumpkin Count: 46

Buttercup- 5 (+2 stolen)

Butternut-0 (+4 stolen)

Sweet Meat- 6 (+2 stolen)

Spaghetti- 17

Turban- 3

Giant Pumpkin- 4

Regular Pumpkin- 3

Cinderella Pumpkin- 7

Jack Be Little- 1

Coolest discovery this summer...

Being a lazy gardener paid off this summer with an amazing discovery.  Several weeks ago I noticed that one of my dahlias was getting powdery mildew really bad.  I was going to spray it with a baking soda/water mixture, but kept putting it off.  Then all the leaves were covered in the thick white mildew.  I was going to cut the whole thing back to the ground, but I didn't get around to it.  Then, whole sections of the dahlia starting splitting out and flopping on the ground because I never took the time to stake the thing.  So, I finally got sick of how horrible it looked and decided to do some pruning to cut off the sections that were laying on the ground.

Dahlia covered in powdery mildew (not very pretty!)

While pruning I noticed these little insects all over the leaves that looked like tiny lady bug larvae.  However they were white and not the typical black and orange.  Since lady bugs are good, I was conservative with my pruning.  A couple days later I noticed that the powdery mildew was disappearing and the larvae were clustering around the worst of the powdery mildew.  I was shocked.  I googled around and found that there are many different kinds of lady bugs and some eat fungus.  I couldn't believe it, I had never heard of such a thing before.  It took awhile to find out what type we have, but I'm pretty sure it's a tiny lady bug called the twenty-spotted lady bug (Psyllobora vigintimaculata).

You can see the adult twenty-spotted ladybug in the lower left corner.

I'm so amazed by these little guys.  It's a miracle how the powdery mildew has diminished significantly.     We even moved some of the larvae onto our squash plants to see if they'll help control the powdery mildew there.  We definitely have plenty of it for them to eat.  Now I if can only get some regular lady bug larvae to help control the black aphids around here.  

Garden Eye Candy

Sunflower 'Starburst Panache'

(My favorite sunflower this year)

Birdhouse Gourd

(The coolest thing we're growing this year)

Today's Harvest (August 14th)

Lettuce, Strawberries, Lemon Cucumbers, Eggplant 'Millionaire', Tomatoes, Green Bean 'Fortex'

Potato Tower Harvest

We took apart one of the potato towers.  The tower was only 18 inches tall (three fence boards high)  and it contained Yukon Golds.  They filled half of a five gallon bucket.  I plopped the bucket on our crappy bathroom scale and it weighed about 13 lbs or so.  Not a bad yield from 8 seed potatoes.  There were quite a few large potatoes and medium sized ones too.  The potatoes were well distributed throughout the tower.

We still have three more towers to disassemble.  Two contain Reds and one contains Banana fingerlings.  I can't wait to see how those did.

If we do potato towers again next year, we'll put the fourth board on the towers to make them 24 inches tall.  Maybe we'll get 25% more potatoes.

It may seem like a lot of work for potatoes, but they sure taste a heck of a lot better than the ones in the grocery store.

Seed Surprises

When I shop for seeds, I look at the packets and get enticed by the beautiful photos and lovely descriptions.  I envision the little seeds growing in my garden and maturing into the beautiful or tasty plant I read on the packet it would become.  Well sometimes the seeds in the packet are not what is advertised.

I bought these Basil seeds.

They grew into this Basil (tiny leaves on little plants).

I bought these Pumpkin seeds (note "Bush Type").

I was really looking forward to Pumpkins on a compact plant that wouldn't take over.  However, the plant is as vigorous or more than our vining winter squash.  The vines are already 8 feet long and growing into my dahlias and zinnias.  "Bush Type?" I think not.  

Planting Fall Crops

Here's a sampling of the seeds we planted recently to ensure we have a fall harvest.

I finally picked my first ripe cherry tomato today (August 2nd).  It's hard to believe that we've been planting fall crops the past couple of weeks when our warm season crops haven't produced much yet.

The key to growing fall harvest crops is planting at the correct time in fertile soil to ensure that the vegetables can grow and mature before cold weather and short days set in.  Slow growing crops that take 70 to 100 days such as cabbage and cauliflower need to be planted in late June or early July.  You can get around this by buying starts.  Good nurseries such as Gardensphere sell fall vegetables starts for a very short period of time (the last week of July to the first week of August).  Quick growing crops that take 25 to 55 days to mature such as radishes, arugula, bok choy, spinach, and lettuce can be planted throughout August.  These are easy to plant from seed which are also available at Gardensphere.  I love planting from seed in the summer because they germinate so quickly in the warm soil.  The only drawback is that you have to be careful to water consistently and not let the little sprouts dry out.

Kale and Purple Broccoli are super hardy and can be planted in the fall and will overwinter and mature in late February or March.  Garlic can be planted in October and will be ready to harvest in late May or June. 

Over the past several years, I've really enjoyed growing fall and winter cool season crops because mother nature usually takes care of the watering and there are fewer pests to contend with during the cool months.  It also gives you a reason to get out and into the garden during those short daylight hours.