The Dawg Patch

[worth1]

I found and killed a hornworm yesterday.

[karstopography]

I’ve got one on a Guajillo pepper. I can see the damage, but I have not yet seen the worm. Something about those markings make hornworms difficult to spot. Rabbits like Guajillo peppers also, this I’m only just learning. Guajillos are very wonderfully fragrant peppers when drying.

[worth1]

Guajillo chiles are unbelievably delicious from fresh to dried.
Much underutilized chile by a huge portion of pepper lovers.
It's not one of the top three or four chilies in Mexico for nothing.

[GoDawgs]

Guajillo chiles are unbelievably delicious from fresh to dried.
Much underutilized chile by a huge portion of pepper lovers.
It's not one of the top three or four chilies in Mexico for nothing.

I need to add those to my MMMM wish list.

[GoDawgs]

We got another 0.9" of rain yesterday, some in the morning and more in the evening. I'm holding my breath and watching for signs of any kind of fungus to rear its ugly head, especially among the cukes and squashes. I really need the cukes to do well as the last jar of cucumber relish was opened yesterday.

Despite gloomy days for picture taking, the garden is pretty much at peak as it usually is in June. I'm sure the rain is helping a lot! This is the northeast corner with the Silver Queen corn in front:



The southeast corner with Pickles' Beach sunflowers in the front and the Bodacious corn bed in the back:



The southeast middle and upper areas:



The spaghetti squash that turned out to be a zucchini is semi-shaded by the Bodacious corn. It's also a big lush plant and so the center at ground level is a bit dark. With its dark green color, I missed this one for a while. 2 pounds 2 ounces! Maybe even too big for zucchini bread. LOL!



Today is bean picking day again but it will be just the Provider bed. The Jumbo/Blue Lake bed had its last picking two days ago and those plants will be pulled out today. The Providers may or may not have one more picking after this morning. We'll see. There's nothing scheduled to follow the beans in either of those beds so they'll be fallow until fall.

[Seven Bends]

Heh, that's a baby zucchini compared to some of the ones I manage to miss in my garden! We should have a monster zucchini thread here, like the giant tomato competition, but only for accidentally huge ones. Gallery of zucchini shame.

[GoDawgs]

It's been a long day. This morning I picked beans one more time and then pulled the plants out. Now you see 'em....



...now you don't.



We ended up with a total of 43 pounds of beans from these two beds! That's a household record for two beds. I really think the cooler weather had a lot to do with it.

This afternoon I cut out the Bodacious corn stalks that the squirrels have damaged. There were about six or seven on one end of the bed. It's a sure tell that the corn's almost ready. Silks are starting to turn but the ends are still real pointy.



Then I rigged some netting around the bed using t-posts with poles tied to them, nails in the poles to hang the netting from, boards along the bottom to hold the netting to the ground and bricks on top of that for added weight. It was a pain in the butt but it's finished. My guess is that one will still find a way in by morning.



That's about all I can do other than sitting out there 24/7 with my shotgun. We'll see.

[MissS]

That was great production out of your bean bed. What variety(s) did you grow?

[GoDawgs]

That was great production out of your bean bed. What variety(s) did you grow?

There were two 4'x18' bed with beans planted down each side. One bed was half Jumbo and half Blue Lake; the other bed was all Provider. The Provider bed out-provided the other bed but that's because the Blue Lake was a little bit of a laggard. Overall I calculated a combined 9.6 oz per foot of row.

Thanks to the MMMM for introducing me to Jumbo! HUGE beans but stringless, tender and tasty even the real big ones.



Last fall I grew enough from what I got in the swap to collect, sow the 18' this year and grow more this fall for next spring.

[MissS]

@GoDawgs Jumbo sounds like a really nice one to grow. I love the flat podded beans, so I am going to have to try this one. Thanks for the wonderful reviews.

[GoDawgs]

@MissS , I looked online for them and it's a Johnny's exclusive.

[GoDawgs]

This is Day 2 after putting up the netting around the Bodacious corn bed. So far so good! In fact the only one who's raided the corn has been ME! I got the first 8 ears this afternoon. The top 2" of most of them had no kernels and were snapped off after shucking so the ears ended up about 6" long but hey, they'll be so much better than that nasty stuff they're selling in the groceries at 50 cents an ear! Woo hoo!

I pretty much took the day off today. The sun was out this afternoon making it hot and sticky so I was in summer mode... indoors until 6pm. Despite the rain here and there lately I still had to water stuff and then dosed this and that with Miracle Grow, particularly the zinnias and that newly planted Tomato Row. I see I lost one of the tomatoes to something that chewed it off about 1" above the ground.

Got another yellow squash and more jalapenos. Tipped and tailed the last three pounds of green beans but in the end decided to give them away tomorrow. Lucky them! Time to put up a few more half pints of pickled jalapeno slices tomorrow. Little by little, they add up in the end.

Fall planning hasn't progressed much. I've just kinda run out of garden gas for the time being and need a break until the juice starts flowing again. LOL!

[PlainJane]

I hear you on the taking a breather … only managed a couple of hours in the garden between heat, humidity and thunderstorms. Definitely not putting in full days until the weather moderates. Started looking through seeds too.

[GoDawgs]

The heat is finally moving in. It had to happen sometime. Looks like we'll be having a short stretch of upper 90's and heat factors of 100 or so. It's time so gardening will happen before noon and after 6PM.

All of a sudden with the weather change it has gotten hot in the shed where I'm curing the garlic so I moved them into the house in their forever home which is a spare closet. The bi-fold doors are open and they'll still have a fan blowing on them for a while longer.



Yesterday's pickings included four more ears of corn, some squash, five cucumbers (finally!) and the first Crawford pole beans.



The Crawford pole beans are new to me and came from Jackie Clay at Seed Treasures. The description said they can be used at the green, shelling and dry stage. So this will be a tasting of the green stage and I'll let some of them go to the shelling stage to try that, then let some dry for collection and tasting. The timing happened to be spot on since the bush beans are gone and these are just starting to kick in. I'll have to remember that for next year if I grow these again.



The catalog description says:

Gifted to Jackie Clay by Clarence Barkley of Liverpool, PA. A cherished family heirloom, the Crawford branch of the family brought the beans with them when they immigrated from Germany in the mid-1800's. Rampant with outstanding flavor; meaty and can be used as a snap, shellie or dry bean.

The timing for these just happened to be spot on since the bush beans are gone and these are just starting to kick in. I'll have to remember that for next year if I grow these again.

It's going to be hot and dry so it's time to start watering things again.

[GoDawgs]

The saga of tomato woes continues with problems among the recently planted ones along the garden fence. One got chewed off at ground level not long after being planted and now four are wilting.



The worst one is Stump Of The World:



The other three are just starting. This is Bella Rosa:



About eight years ago some kind of bacterial wilt showed up in the garden only affecting the tomatoes. Ever since we've had to grow them in buckets up at the house. I was hoping that this location along the fence didn't have the problem since only zinnias were grown there before and that was a one timer. Meanwhile the bucket tomatoes in the tainted soil are recovering nicely.

Yesterday I ran some baling twine along the outside of the zinnias to keep them from flopping into the walkway. It'd something I've always wanted to do but never got around to.



I also did it with those Native American field peas as the pack said they might need a little support so I did the twine thing to them too.



We've been eating fresh Bodacious corn for lunch every day from that small bed while waiting for the Silver Queen. Meanwhile the four rows of that is starting to silk. It won't be long!

[GoDawgs]

Well, phooey! I took some good pics of the tomato stems and Imgur would only load one of the three. A message says that type of file isn't supported but they're JPEGS and all under 100KB. I've contacted Support to see what the problem is. So here's the one photo I could load.



I need to research this. Meanwhile the Ferry Morse straightneck squash has baby squash that are turning brown but not all of them. None of this problem with the Smooth Criminal squash. A bit of research says it's blossom end rot so I will spray it with Stop Rot (calcium chloride) today. Regardless, we're still getting way more squash than we need so friends are getting the excess.




On the good side, the Chinese String eggplant that had the herbicide damage has recovered.



This is a cucumber called 'Bushy'. It's supposed to have only 5' vines so I'm checking that. It might make a good candidate for growing in a pot. A real space saver! We'll see what the cukes look like. Lots of flowers.



Yesterday was a day of maintenance putters while the Silver Queen got a good watering. Zinnias and coneflowers were deadheaded, old woody turnips pulled up, flower heads from the bunching onions cut and the mess of vine stuff from the daikons removed since the flowers are gone.

One cucumber plant had to be removed as it was dying. The roots looked like they had the start of nematode damage. Several days ago I started five more hills of cukes in a different bed "just in case" and yesterday the seeds had popped up. I'm glad I did!

And so it goes as it does every year. Some spectacular results, some problems to deal with and some failures. But that's ok; that's life!

[PlainJane]

Pretty scary looking whatever it is attacking the tomatoes. Squash will probably straighten itself out.
Gardening is never boring, that’s for sure.

[rdback]

I agree, whatever is going on with that tomato plant is scary.

The squash issue could be a lack of polination problem. Just thinking out loud.

[GoDawgs]

This morning I noticed that the Silver Queen corn is making ears. That means it's time for the squirrels to start their visits. Not this time! I went ahead and got the t-posts banged in around the four row block, tied the wood poles to them and pounded in some nails on the poles to hang the netting from. That will be hung this evening or maybe tomorrow morning. It's war, I tell ya!

The bed of Bodacious is almost done as far as the prime ears are concerned. Not many more of those left as we've been steadily eating them. Since I have a good bag full of old socks now I think in the next few days I will pull the rest of the big ears, take down the netting and then put Cobdoms over the smaller ears.

Meanwhile, every time I go pull some ears for lunch it's like a chant at a political rally.... FOUR MORE EARS! FOUR MORE EARS!

So much for corny jokes....

[MissS]

@GoDawgs and don't forget the socks!!!