garden bulletin boards

A local boy scout is making a bulletin board for our community garden. I've been looking into the types of boards that other gardens and parks have. We'd like to have one side covered with plexi and locked for "official" notices and the other open cork board for general use. It will be located along our main path entering the gardens. It seems it would be good to have more communication.

garden notes

We had a very successful garden event today. We requested volunteers come to help dig a trench (about 125 feet long x 1 ft deep) to run an extra water line to the new plots. About 25 people came and it was short work to dig, lay line, and back fill. Thanks to all who came!

I checked on my beans at my plot today. I had a terrible problem with Mexican bean beetle. On Thursday, I sprayed with Captain Jack's Dead Bug Spray. I am pleased with the results. Very few larvae/beetles left today. I was able to squish these (yuck... I HATE to do this...). I will try to keep up with squishing them so I don't need to use spray again. Maybe I will bring an old glove to the garden and use this. I notice that many plots have skeleton bean leaves this year with bad bean beetle infestations.

I picked a handful of Chinese pole beans pods that I let ripen fully on the vines. I save these every year for replanting next year.

I continue to plant seeds for fall crops. I put in three rows of peas today. A bit late, but so hot I couldn't see planting sooner. I planted Caselode and Oregon Giant. Also a couple rows of carrots and lettuce seeds. I've been planting carrots every week for the past month. They don't do well with such dry weather, but I keep at it. I've covered the beds with row fabric and this seems to help keep in moisture and shade small seedlings.

I have some nice lettuce ans spinach seedlings under lights at home now. Its fun to watch them grow. They a coddled to be watered and under lights.

today's harvest

My first cayenne peppers are ripening. I am growing a variety Amelia gave me 4 or 5 years ago. I save seeds every year. They seem to get better every year.

I also have some shell beans Dan gave me. Vermont Cranberry beans. They are mixed with French flagolet shell beans.

And, of course, the main summer crop - my Sunburst yellow patty pans. Always delicious.

Sunshine yellow watermelon seeds

I got a fantastic yellow fleshed watermelon from Piccadilly Farm. They told me the variety is Sunshine (Johnny's Seeds). I collected seeds from my watermelon, but now that I see its an F1 hybrid, I will throw out the seeds :( and put them on my list to order next year. I hope I can grow this great variety myself.

farm links and parasitic wasps

Its fun to read about real farmers, especially this summer with the bumper crops. Here are a few links I've come across:

Shared Harvest Blog
Riverland CSA Farm (Sunderland MA) newsletter
Waltham Fields newsletters

I emailed yesterday and asked Piccadilly Farm what they did to get rid of corn ear worms this year. Susie told me they are using a parasitic wasp that feeds on the European Corn Borer. Well it sure worked great. I will look into this but I hear it is expensive. Maybe other gardeners would want to share an order. I can't very well keep them in my plot anyway.

I also read in a Waltham Fields news letter (July 26) that they are using these for the Mexican Bean beetle. I wonder if it is the same wasp species as the one that parasitizes the corn worms? Hmmm. I hate those ugly bean beetle larvae. The newsletter says that over a few years, the wasp population should go up and the beans beetle go down. So the wasps don't need to be purchased every year forever. I'm also wondering how far they travel. My plot is only about 1 mile from Waltham Fields.

skippy in the garden

crops for the cold frame

I am thinking about what to grow in my cold frame this fall. I'd like to keep it active as long as I can. I found this advice from Johnny's website interesting:

"If you have a hoop house, you can grow many cool-weather crops for harvest right through December. The trick is to get your crops established before the day length drops below 10 hours; after that, plants won't grow much, but they will tolerate cold temperatures until you're ready to harvest them. Some of the vegetables you can plant in a hoop house in August or September include: Collards, Kale, Lettuce, Salad mixes, Spinach, Swiss chard, Beets, Carrots, Kohlrabi, Radishes, Turnips, Broccoli, Cabbage, and Cauliflower."

Today the day length in the Boston area is about 13.5 hours. But its falling by about 3 minutes a day. It falls below 10 hours on November 10th. So I still have time.

I will probably need to transplant greens into my frame in October. Right now its overflowing with cucumbers and melons. They are amazing. I picked another 5 or 6 cukes today.

today's harvest

garden work

- Spray bean plants with Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew, active ingredient is the bacterium Spinosad. (Its an organic approved spray and I have no idea yet if it will work on my bean beetles, which BTW are turning in very nice orange bugs with black spots.)

- Remove my old red painted garden box that has fallen apart and replace with a basic brown plastic box for my garden stuff.

- Replace the broken tie wraps holding my fence to the fence posts.

- Harvest dill and summer squash.

- Weed a little. I think the weeds have slowed down.

- Plant a couple of new perennials. I bought a purple cone flower and two lemon thyme plants. I love the late summer plant sales.

- Water again, a constant job this year.

fall planting

I have so many empty spaces in my community garden plot that I would love to fill with greens. I have seeds ready for about 10 of my favorite lettuce varieties, as well as arugula, spinach, frisee endive, cilantro, and radicchio.

I'd love to have a garden full of these like I did this spring. But with such hot dry weather, its hard to get them going. I've been planting weekly for 3-4 weeks and not much is coming up. Its hard for me to get to my plot to water daily. One stretch of 3 days without water kills all the seedlings :(

Last week I covered all my newly seeded areas with some old white row cover. Talking with other gardeners, they have the same problem and are covering with cardboard and any materials on hand to protect from drying out. I noticed nice little sprouts today. Hope I can keep these going.

I also seeded some indoor trays at home a couple days ago. Just in case the ones at my plot don't make it. I noticed this morning they have come up. I will turn on the indoor lights tomorrow. Seems funny to do this in summer, but I think it may be the only for me to properly tend them.

Its remarkable how different this summer is from last summer. A real New England summer! Hot, humid and dry. I'm hoping for a long fall for a good season of greens.

bean bugs

I have a very ugly yellow spiny bug eating my bean leaves. They are all over the leaves and are completely eating them down to the veins. Yuck.

A fellow gardener recommended a homemade spray that she has used successfully: Mix 12 garlic cloves, 12 very hot chili peppers (habenero would be best), 2 Tbs Murphy's Oil soap, 2 Tbs salad oil and food process til pureed. Filter through cheese cloth. Dilute with 1 gallon of water and spray on the plants.

I am not sure I have the energy to mix this up myself. I think I will head over to the garden store tomorrow and see what they have for organic sprays.

birthday martini

What better for a birthday than a local potato vodka martini with a big slice of freshly picked Diva cucumber. Ahhh.

tomatoes on the window sill

A sure way to tell its August! Tomatoes on the window sill.

I'm gradually getting tomatoes from my shady garden. About one every other day. I beat the squirrels by picking them as they start to turn color and letting them fully ripen inside.

I prefer to do this anyway, even without squirrel competition. Doesn't seem right to have ripe tomatoes hanging on the vines. It risks them getting overripe without me noticing and lets the vine put energy into the rest of the fruits.

When I went up to my parent's last week, my Mom gave me her extras. Her garden is producing tons. I ended up with a nice batch of tomato sauce. I was going to freeze it, but we ate it all that night.

a happier potato story

I went out and dug a bit in my garden just now. What a relief to find a bunch of nice potatoes!

From one All Blue plant, I found 4 potatoes. The other plant I dug was a Green Mountain (I think, though can't remember for sure). Three big potatoes from that plant. The yields are low because the bed gets sun from noon-3. With so little sun, I'm really glad to get this many. And they are so pretty!

And no critter damage!

Yippee!!

a sad story about potatoes

Yesterday I visited my parents and we dug potatoes from their garden. We were looking forward this. But we didn't have very good luck :(

Dad dug, I sifted through the soil and grabbed the potatoes, and Mom washed them. But there were hardly any. And the ones we did find were half eaten! Another critter! Its too bad. They had little tiny tooth marks and very large portions of the potatoes were missing.

I thought the critter was maybe a mole. My sister suggested a pocket gopher might be more likely to eat potatoes. She says moles are more likely to eat worms and other insects. What the heck is a pocket gopher? Are there gophers in Massachusetts? And why didn't we have at least a hint there was an animal down there eating or potatoes?

Rodents eating vegetables seems to be a garden theme for me this year....