If at first you don't succeed - add more mulch

July is the time when the gardening honeymoon is over.  The bugs are showing up and need to be controlled or eliminated.  The weather is hot and dry and you have to keep an eye on everything so you don't let something dry out, or even worse, over water.  Spring plants are either producing or needing to be pulled and replaced.  Summer veggies are either beginning to produce or need to be planted in the spots where you removed the spring plants.

Black Brandywine Tomatoes

 But it is also the most rewarding time of year.  There is actual food out there.  The flowers are blooming.  Plants are at their prime.  If friends stop by to visit your garden there is something to see other than a mass of green or stretches of tilled soil.  I find it fun when someone asks me "how exactly does cauliflower grow?" and I can walk them over to a large healthy cauliflower ready to pick.

Barlow Jap Tomato plant
And to think I was worried about this one dying in May!

This year I have a big garden.  Of course the overall square footage doesn't change from year to year, but the range of plants does.  And this year I am growing some things I'm not real familiar with.  Nothing completely new, but there are a few things that I am not yet comfortable with and that takes more attention and brain power.  All of these things require attentiveness to equipment and supplies like row covers and supports and potting mix or soil additives.

"Mahon Yam" Sweet Potatoes in Grow Bags

 Each year I garden I hold myself to a higher standard. I say to myself "This year the Flea Beetles/Squash Vine Borers/Cabbage Moths will not leave my crops in desolation.  In fact, they won't even make them look ugly!  I will prevent it.  Somehow."  I WILL have giant cauliflower and broccoli and cabbage.  Even though I've never before grown a giant cauliflower or broccoli or cabbage. And if I ignore the cabbage for a week or two I might not get any results at all.  I've found myself editing my growing plan for next year a month earlier than I would usually begin.  I wouldn't say yet that I am tired of the garden, but reality is beginning to set in and I can not just go sit in the shade and sip sweet tea all day when it is becoming more and more tempting to do so.

Carminat Beans
60-65 day bean at 6 weeks of growth

I really do know how to grow pole beans -
Pole Beans 2012

Surprisingly (to me anyway) this year the biggest struggle seems to be with pole beans.  I'm trying two new (to me) varieties so I'm not sure exactly how to gauge their progress.  But they are much less vigorous than I would expect.  They are not growing as well or as rapidly as beans normally grow for me.  One variety is supposed to reach 6 feet tall and the other 8 feet tall but at this point their height can still be counted in inches. The leaves are small and show signs of sun stress although this week they are showing new growth for the first time in weeks.  I'm not worried about the soil because I have lettuce and cucumbers planted along with them and they are thriving.  They are on the same watering schedule of the Lima Beans.  So - when in doubt - Mulch!

I reseeded half of these a week ago and mulched with leaves

I put away a couple of bags of shredded leaves last fall and I've been using them to top off containers to keep them from drying out quickly which is working well.  I'm looking forward to having more to work with next year since they are easy to gather and store. This weekend I opened up the last bag, gave the potatoes in grow bags the first priority and then used up the last of the leaf mulch on the pole beans.  I also mulched between the neighboring cucumber and bush bean row.  My Bush Beans are happily growing.  Last year I tried Jade for the first time and this year I "upgraded" to Jade II.  I planted half a row of the leftover Jade seeds and half a row of the Jade II.

The first planting from a week ago is on the east side of the first cucumber trellis (with no support) along with some late lettuce transplants.  In general, I like to support bush beans, but it isn't always necessary.  The nicest row of bush beans I ever grew was unsupported.

Jade and Jade II beans

Second bed of beans

The second row is down the center of its own bed with double supports and some spare cucumber plants on the ends.  I sprinkled old lettuce seed down each side as ground cover.  I am not sure how well lettuce will germinate in this extreme summer heat without being tended in trays, but the execution of a similar plan this spring was a great success

Garden Sweet peas

I have three more beds of old peas to remove and plant.  There are still peas being produced, but in this heat they ripen fast and dry out even faster.  We've had a plethora of peas.  We don't want any more.

It is easy to see what is ready under the mesh Agfabric covers

I have as much broccoli and cauliflower as I want.  We don't eat it in large volume, but when I get in the mood for some I find the largest floret and pick that.  As I am relatively new to the broccoli/cauliflower game I would rather pick a head a little early and small than miss it and have it bolt.  The broccoli plants that I've harvested are sending out nice secondary side shoots.

My favorite broccoli dish is a fresh salad made of equal parts chopped raw broccoli and blanched peas with a home made dressing and craisens for flavor.  You can also add cheddar cheese and/or chopped bacon.  Here is a standard recipe. I don't know why none of the recipes include peas.  They're really missing out!

My one variety of sweet corn is putting out "Tillers".  I've read up on them a little and it doesn't seem that there is any proof that tillers reduce production (removing them may actually hurt production) so I'm just going to let them grow.  In fact, most agree that corn puts out tillers when the growing conditions are most favorable which is good yes?

So that's what's going on in the July garden.  The weather has been hot, and Buffalo (just to our north) is likely to break a record for the most 90 degree days in a row.  We haven't had this many 90 degree days in July since 1988, and I remember that heat wave well. We got a quarter inch of rain yesterday which helped immensely and it either sprinkled over night or the dew was extremely heavy because the ground was still soaked this morning.

My Green Thumb(s)

Green Thumb: according to the Old Farmer's Almanac, it may have originated during the reign of King Edward I who was so fond of green peas that he kept half a dozen serfs to shell them.  The serf with the greenest thumb from shelling the most peas won a prize.  That seems like a very likely origin to me!

This has been a great season for peas.  I have peas as far as the eye can see.  I bring a stool to the garden and pick two handed as if I were milking cows (which I've done plenty of in my day).  I grab a handful of peas and use my index finger to pop the stem up and off.  Then there is the shelling.  The green has to be scrubbed off of my fingers with a pumice stone, and my thumbnail still has a faint green glow.

Three of four beds of peas.

The bin in our freezer allotted to peas is full to overflowing.  The remainder of the peas this week will have to be eaten not stored.  One bed is picked completely clean and needs to be removed right now to make way for bush beans.  

I planted both Penelope Peas and Garden Sweet Peas.  I probably won't bother with the Garden Sweet again.  They are very tall which makes them space-efficient, and they continue to produce over a longer time period as they continue to grow, but the pods are small having only about five peas each.  Penelope, however, has nine, ten or eleven peas in each slender pod (I found one with 12 last night) which makes them much easier to both pick and shell.

Sometimes you just have to move along.  My pole beans have been very sluggish.  The Monte Gusto were particularly stunted.  I pulled most of them out and replanted to see if that helps.  I think this week I will also try them in another bed on the tall peas trellis.

The cucumber plants are growing like crazy.  

Both rows are now in.

I love purple cabbage!

Potato grow bags with Dark Red Norland

The tomato plants have really hit their stride and 

I now have the expectation of some tomatoes

Black Brandywine Babies

This will definitely be a Vitaverde Cauliflower and not a Broccoli.
Many broccoli are now on their way to being ready

When I haven't been gardening I have been orcharding.

This is June Drop time for the apples, but almost nothing is dropping.  There are not many multiple apple clusters, so I have not had to thin them.  I use sandwich bags to keep the sooty blotch and insects away.  I have bagged 95 apples on the heavy producer, and more than 15 on the other tree.  I am not sure what I would do with that many 13 ounce apples!  Last year I bagged 36 and 13!

New Potatoes and Peas

For dinner tonight:  Weed Potatoes and Fresh Peas.

Boil the new potatoes for 10-15 minutes in salt water

Add peas and boil for another 5

Drain the water

Melt some butter over them while they're still hot

Pour some milk (or cream if you have it) on them to cool and garnish with chopped parsley

Some people add some flour to thicken the sauce, but who needs flour?

We finally got our rain.  A quarter inch yesterday, and half an inch today.  

I swear my potatoes grew six inches.

Summer 2020

As a gardener, I cannot help but feel that it's all down hill from here.  Each day will be a little shorter.  The birds will leave the nests and not sing as early each morning.  The early plants will begin to produce then age.  But for the moment, we are right at the pinnacle.  It doesn't get any better than this.  And we have had "perfect" weather.  Over and over.  Blue skies.  Sunshine.  Heat.  Its exhausting!  The house hasn't been cleaned in weeks, but my suntan has never looked better.  And we have had no rain.  In the past 4 weeks, we have had just a smidgen under half an inch and three other half-hearted sprinkles.  The lawns have burned out but the annual flowers, as long as they have been cared for, will never look better as there is no rain to dampen their blooms.

Right in the middle of this, the 500 gallon rain water tank ran dry.  Which hasn't happened since 2015.  Well actually, it almost ran dry, so yesterday I watered everything twice, including the apple trees, to drain it down to nothing, and then my husband's least favorite chore started.  Water Tank Maintenance.

First we clean the screen on the stone box which filters all
of the seeds and twigs off of the roofs with a wire mesh.
This has to be done two or three times a year anyway.

Then he pulls the submersible water pump

Attach the shop vac to the vent stack to pull fresh air in from the manhole

And then you've just gotta get down in there.

Then we begin to bail.  He uses a Cool-Whip container to scoop the sludgy water left at the bottom of the tank into a pail on a rope which I haul up and dump.  Then he uses a large drywall taping knife to scrape down the sides.  A hose to rinse off the sides, and finally, a sponge to wipe down the sides and soak up the last of the sludgy water.

There is no way to stay clean through this process.  This muck will turn anything black.

In the sludge there are some rust particles from the walls of the tank, but the tank itself is still in really good condition.  I hope I'm long gone before it rusts out and has to be replaced or abandoned

When all is finished its clean as a whistle.  Just a little rust above the average water line.

Because there are only hit and miss showers forecast for this week, we filled the water tank with the hose.  Like I have said before.  I can buy water.  I can't buy sunshine.

Clean and ready for more water.

Elsewhere in the garden, things have been growing great (including the weeds) 

At first I thought this was Vitaverde cauliflower, but now I'm sure it is a
Castle Dome broccoli that I used to replace some of the failed Cauliflower plants.
I can't wait for my first fresh Broccoli Salad!

I've found another advantage to using insect netting instead of floating row covers.  It is well known that cole crops prefer cooler weather.  And our weather has been in the high eighties, and ninety for several weeks.  My garden is generally about 10 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature, so it has not been unusual to see temperatures 100 or above.  But whenever I lift the mesh and feel the leaves, they are cool and comfortable.  I think the shiny fabric reflects away enough of the sun to keep the inside cool.  This isn't necessarily the case with summer weight fabric.  While it does filter some sun it also acts like a greenhouse and holds heat.

The cauliflower and broccoli plants are huge and healthy.

"Knee High by the Fourth of July"

I finally got my first row of slicing cucumbers planted.  I should have done that a week ago.  They were so happy to be set free they almost doubled in size over night.

I had to do some extreme weeding to clear the Purslane
Next I will remove the bolting lettuce and plant bush beans

My Garden Sweet peas finally took off and reached the top of the double trellis
Last year I put them on regular trellis and they flopped over.

Pretty soon I will be over run with peas.

I just love the velvet texture of cabbage leaves

The cabbages are beginning to form heads

My potato grow bags are doing well.  I've filled another 3 inches of soil on top and then added a layer of leaf mulch to keep the soil from drying out so fast.

Speaking of leaf mulch and containers drying out:  I am so pleased with my tomato container set-up this year.  The containers are probably 20 gallon.  I have water reservoirs in each one and below the reservoirs, I put coco chips to also hold water.  I filled the pot with moisture control potting mix and then topped them with a layer of leaf mulch.  Then I went two weeks in this hot dry weather without watering them even once.  Each time I stuck my finger down in it the soil was moist and cool.  Yesterday I filled the reservoirs with fish emulsion fertilizer.  My eggplants on the patio have the same set up.

Barlow Jap Tomato

Black Brandywine Tomato

Store bought Pineapple Tomato

Because my tomato transplants looked so miserable, I was afraid to throw out any backups.  I stuck one Black Brandywine in the end of a raised bed and it has rallied and taken hold. All of the plants are flowering.

Spare Black Brandywine

Throughout all this heat and watering and sludgy tank cleaning, the Rebecca Clematis has lounged on the bank overlooking it all and brightened our day.