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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jun 10, 2015 9:13:53 GMT -5
Superb Owl π¦, here's another vote for squash or cucumber. Definitely not something I'd want to eat as a leafy green, though...  Keep us posted! In Dick n Hisses Farm & Orchard news, we've had some cherries! Of course, the birds ate them all, so I can only imagine they were delicious. And we've had our first non-green garlic harvest from the garden -- apple mint, cilantro, and three skinny scallions! 
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Post by Superb Owl π¦ on Jun 10, 2015 10:39:17 GMT -5
Superb Owl π¦, here's another vote for squash or cucumber. Definitely not something I'd want to eat as a leafy green, though... Keep us posted! In Dick n Hisses Farm & Orchard news, we've had some cherries! Of course, the birds ate them all, so I can only imagine they were delicious. And we've had our first non-green garlic harvest from the garden -- apple mint, cilantro, and three skinny scallions! yum! We already have cilantro coming out of our ears. |
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Post by ganews on Jun 13, 2015 22:35:15 GMT -5
Fresh batch of insanity peppers for sauce in the Japanese glassware we bought for the purpose:  |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jun 15, 2015 13:01:28 GMT -5
Ugh, guys, I tried a new (to me) type of shelling pea for this year and I hate them. I went with Tall Telephone peas, and they lived up to their name, growing ridiculously tall... until a rigorous rainstorm made them all flop over. So now I have to root around in doubled-over pea plants to find the pods, and there aren't even that many of them. So if you're looking for a good, not-annoying type of shelling pea in the future, avoid these.  |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jun 15, 2015 15:40:52 GMT -5
Despite their failures as plants, and the scantness of the crop, I'll give the Tall Telegraph peas some credit -- they're delicious, even in the face of some pretty extreme-for-this-time-of-year hot weather.  |
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Post by π cahusserole π on Jun 16, 2015 18:31:46 GMT -5
My little tomato is trucking along, getting bigger. Hopefully it will get more buddies soon.
I've been bummed because my eggplant flowers have been falling off without the promise of fruit. I know I'm watering them enough, so I tried hand-pollinating today. I hope that'll do it.
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Post by ganews on Jun 16, 2015 21:41:26 GMT -5
I've been bummed because my eggplant flowers have been falling off without the promise of fruit. I know I'm watering them enough, so I tried hand-pollinating today. I hope that'll do it. I'd say that means the plants aren't getting some nutrient, rather than it being an issue of water. How do the leaves look? |
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Post by π cahusserole π on Jun 16, 2015 22:09:18 GMT -5
I've been bummed because my eggplant flowers have been falling off without the promise of fruit. I know I'm watering them enough, so I tried hand-pollinating today. I hope that'll do it. I'd say that means the plants aren't getting some nutrient, rather than it being an issue of water. How do the leaves look? Good! And the blossoms themselves looked totally awesome, right before they decided to fuck off the plant. |
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Post by ganews on Jun 16, 2015 22:11:41 GMT -5
I'd say that means the plants aren't getting some nutrient, rather than it being an issue of water. How do the leaves look? Good! And the blossoms themselves looked totally awesome, right before they decided to fuck off the plant. If the plant isn't under any visible stress, I don't know. I'll leave the googling to you. |
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Post by π cahusserole π on Jun 21, 2015 1:12:23 GMT -5
I lost another Casper eggplant blossom today. Woe. I did discover I'm having aphid issues, so now I'm thinking fixing that will help.
In terms of actual fruit growing, I have two Indigo Rose tomatoes, one cherry tomato showing promise on the other plant, and one chile pepper. And I think the gypsy sweet bell pepper blossom is about to turn into fruit, but I'm not betting anything since that's the same planter the doomed eggplant is in.
The ichiban eggplant has some buds FINALLY.
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Post by kitchin on Jun 21, 2015 14:52:04 GMT -5
I've been bummed because my eggplant flowers have been falling off without the promise of fruit. I know I'm watering them enough, so I tried hand-pollinating today. I hope that'll do it. Is the temperature reaching 90F ? You can try shading them mid-day. For tomatoes, I hear it was more of a problem in the olden days when the varieties were harder to grow. Even heirloom toms are pretty darn vigorous these days, and I think you're safe up to about 93F with those. I don't know about eggies. Edit: and mostly tom plants are so fruitful, nobody worries about blossom die-off on the hot days. |
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Post by Hugs and Hisses on Jun 22, 2015 9:11:04 GMT -5
We've had a week of sporadic, but heavy rain this week, and Dick 'n' Hisses Gardens couldn't be happier about it. The tomatoes and peppers are looking amazing, the cucumbers are finally getting climbing vines, some of the onions are leafing up nicely, and the beans are reaching for the sky:
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Post by Superb Owl π¦ on Jun 22, 2015 9:33:19 GMT -5
Mystery Plant Update: We are pretty sure it's cucumbers. There were little bumpy green things growing on the vines this weekend.
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Post by π cahusserole π on Jun 26, 2015 18:59:10 GMT -5
 Basil is doing fine, thyme is doing GREAT, eggplants are still frustrating. I've got one lone cherry tomato on the huge plant, five Indigo Rose tomatoes on the smaller plant, seven(!) chili peppers on top of the third basket, and one adorably wee bell pepper in the last basket. |
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Post by ganews on Jun 26, 2015 22:11:46 GMT -5
We can't go three days around here without a flash flood warning. The garden weed situation is madness, after it was so clean through bone-dry April.
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Post by ganews on Jun 28, 2015 18:16:09 GMT -5
Today we eat the first produce out of the garden (the hot peppers don't count, they're in pots on the deck). Kale and my second-favorite vegetable, the flat species of green beans my parents always grew. Can't wait!
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Post by kitchin on Jun 28, 2015 19:06:57 GMT -5
It's difficult to make a meal of out mainly Italian parsley, but I've done it.
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jun 29, 2015 10:50:38 GMT -5
Summer's really trucking along now -- I took the peas out this weekend and have started my fall planting schemes (I'm normally really terrible about planting stuff for fall harvest, but with so few tomatoes this summer in our garden I really didn't want to spend the rest of the season looking at the empty beds vacated by the peas and, soon, garlic). And look! Our first sweet pepper harvest!  The big guy is a Superette Banana, which is the best frying pepper I've ever tasted. They are wildly prolific, too, so delicious and abundant! Yay! And, clearly, early bloomers. The little pepper is a Sweet Salad pepper, and I was a bit over-eager with it; it was tasty, but not really ripe yet. The garlic was also a bit of a jumping-the-gun harvest, but I couldn't resist pulling up one head to see how close we were getting. You know what I forget through the fall, winter, and spring? How amazing fresh garlic is. (The oregano, basil, and purple scallions were less exciting parts of the day's haul, because we've been having those for weeks now.) |
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Post by ganews on Jul 2, 2015 9:37:14 GMT -5
Green tomatoes on the vine, my first bell pepper, a flower on an okra plant, and more green beans!
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jul 2, 2015 11:01:25 GMT -5
I'm very envious of all of your gardens, really I am. We should have been here asking your advice two months ago; perhaps then we would have had better or at least more consistent results. Our attempts to grow arugula, in particular, fizzled out completely.
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Post by ganews on Jul 6, 2015 22:53:53 GMT -5
Five days since I picked last, and I got 2.5 gallons of green beans (snapped). I've been snapping for hours.
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jul 8, 2015 9:58:25 GMT -5
We had our first tomatoes last night! Three outrageously delicious Peace Vine cherry tomatoes! Man, no matter how much I venerate the idea of fresh, in-season tomatoes, I'm still never quite ready for how good they actually are.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jul 8, 2015 12:10:45 GMT -5
Our garden this year is a mixed bag, since it's our first year here, we started late, and the patch we're using has been neglected for years. Looking forward to next year, do any of you know of good resources on how to prepare a rather infertile plot of ground for gardening - fertilizing, tilling, mulching, stuff like that?
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jul 8, 2015 12:22:39 GMT -5
Our garden this year is a mixed bag, since it's our first year here, we started late, and the patch we're using has been neglected for years. Looking forward to next year, do any of you know of good resources on how to prepare a rather infertile plot of ground for gardening - fertilizing, tilling, mulching, stuff like that? My recommendation is always raised beds, because then it doesn't matter if the plot is infertile!  |
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jul 8, 2015 12:29:25 GMT -5
Our garden this year is a mixed bag, since it's our first year here, we started late, and the patch we're using has been neglected for years. Looking forward to next year, do any of you know of good resources on how to prepare a rather infertile plot of ground for gardening - fertilizing, tilling, mulching, stuff like that? My recommendation is always raised beds, because then it doesn't matter if the plot is infertile! If we owned it I totally would, but since we're just renting I don't particularly want to invest that much. As it is, I'm more than happy to buy soil, mulch, fertilizer, rent a rototiller, you name it. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jul 14, 2015 9:36:25 GMT -5
This year's has been the happiest I've been with a garden in a really long time. I didn't love our peas in the spring, but the green garlic and scallions were great, and all of our summer plants have come in happy and strong and awesome. And the weed situation is fairly well under control, and now I'm getting my shit together planting fall seeds already... basically I think doing a third as many tomatoes as usual has really worked to reduce the ranginess of the garden and my general stress levels. It's been hot, with regular rainstorms (so enough to water the garden without being actually "wet"), and our peppers are delighted by this state of affairs. Here are the Hinkelhatzes starting to come in light green, and behind them the jalafuegos that are so prolific I can't believe I'm in a state of having to pickle peppers already, and it's only the middle of July.  We only planted four tomato plants, but put pole beans in the bed the tomatoes were in last year so it hasn't been a huge surprise that a few volunteers have come up there. Because of the pole beans to offer support, we decided to leave a few. These might be Juliets?  And just because I love how lush and leafy and colorful it looks, here's a peek through the bean/tomato/onion bed toward the planted-on-purpose tomatoes, with their foundation planting of purple and green basils and nasturtiums:  That's the kind of picture I stare at in January, torturing myself. |
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Post by ganews on Jul 14, 2015 14:57:03 GMT -5
Last week I picked a few kale stragglers and put them on a little pizza I made for myself. Pretty good!
The green beans are slowing down in a big way, although the plants are still looking healthy. The butterbeans are almost ready pick, maybe by Friday. And I got a zucchini yesterday! We are the only people on the planet with difficulty growing yellow and zucchini squash.
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Post by π cahusserole π on Jul 20, 2015 19:35:25 GMT -5
 IS IT RIPE??? I DON'T KNOW. MAYBE? That's my first Indigo Rose tomato. It was green, then it turned dark purple with kind of a green undertone, and now that green has turned to red, so the whole thing looks like a delicious plum, pretty much. It feels almost ready. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.  This is the Casper eggplant. I took this last Friday, it's now a little over four inches long. I think it's starting to lose its shininess. I think it's almost time for it to be eaten. Another one has started to appear, it is still very very small.  And my one wee tiny cherry tomato. There are a million more on the plant, but this is the only one that's changed color so far. I didn't take photos of my peppers this week, but they're still pretty exciting. I think the Ichiban eggplant is about to have two fruits on it. Flowers have dried up and the stems have thickened. |
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Post by ganews on Jul 20, 2015 19:38:17 GMT -5
The green beans are kaput and the butterbeans are in swing. I wonder how I will find time to pick if I'm going to spend the next month pulling 12-hour days.
Okra from the garden to the batter and pan in one day, mmm-mmmm.
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jul 21, 2015 14:24:47 GMT -5
π cahusserole π, I would totally call that beautiful purple tomato ripe! It looks stunning and delicious!! Less stunning and delicious all of a sudden is my basil. It had been waist-high and unbelievably lush and perfect... and then I went away for a long weekend during which time it got watered responsibly but the weather was enormously hot and sunny and brutal. I went out in the garden after getting home last night, just to catch up on the cherry tomato harvest, and suddenly noticed something kind of off. I'm there looking around, trying to figure out what changed, when it dawns on me: the basil is all brown now. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I'm hoping maybe trimming it way back will encourage it to try growing back in again?
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Keep us posted! 
