The Dawg Patch

[GoDawgs]

lol, was thinking of you @GoDawgs when I found turkey thighs at Publix yesterday.
And your garden is looking so good!

Gah! Turkey thighs! So did you buy any? LOL! The nearest Publix here is about 25 miles away in an area that I rarely pass through.

And thanks for the kind words about the garden. I think that next year I'm dropping leeks. They don't get used in much and take up freezer space. It's one of those "Let's see if I can grow these" things so that itch is now scratched. That space can be used to expand snap pea planting. And I'm dropping growing corn in a bed too. A lot of work I can do without and I'll just add another row or two to the main planting outside the raised bed area. Maybe try staggering that to extend the corn season. Two smaller blocks instead of one big stand.

[PlainJane]

I did pick up a couple of packages and may go back today after I make more room in the freezer.

I’ve cut back to one eggplant as that’s plenty to cover me and my immediate neighbors.
Haven’t cut back on tomatoes yet but I will have to someday.
I still grow leeks and will probably keep growing them as the entire allium family is easy to tuck into odd garden corners. Am expanding my cantaloupe and watermelon plantings this year as I’m not crazy for okra or sweet potatoes.
We are finally in the path of some rain!

[GoDawgs]

Oh good, @PlainJane! Hope you get a nice soaker'.

These seasonal changeover times are good times to reflect on things to change while the memories are fresh.

Tonight I was looking at the pole bean quad pods and some of the young plants already reaching out for the poles. Then I noticed all the space in the middle of each quad pod, space that's there now but won't be usable later as vines wrap poles and shade out the middles. The thought occurred that I can use that space to grow something else there too. It would have to be something that makes quick and be done by the time pole bean foliage shades them out.

I could even mark the pole leg locations really early before the poles are even up and get an early jump on planting something in the middle. Maybe small groupings of those neon Asuka turnips or those pretty 45 day Kolibri kohlrabi. Daikon radish? Hmmmm, I'll have to think on that. Any suggestions?

[Whwoz]

What about lettuce?

[GoDawgs]

I've never had much luck with lettuce here. They're flea beetle magnets. They always hit the turnip leaves too but I don't mind spraying the turnip greens as I don't eat them.

The recent rains have the grass growing at top speed. Pickles will be tending to that today and I'll be mulching the garden and doing the weed whack between beds. Maintenance!

[PlainJane]

I think the kohlrabi would work, and any kind of radish.

[GoDawgs]

This morning's project was to lay down the cardboard boxes over the watermelon area for weed suppression. It worked very well last year.

24.05.11 Watermelon bed with cardboard mulch.JPG

The cardboard got watered down well, covered with leaf mulch and watered down again. Ta daaaaaaa!

24.05.11 Watermelon bed mulched over cardboard.JPG

To the left of the watermelon patch is the first planting of potatoes.

24.05.11 First potato planting.JPG

By the time the watermelon vines get to them, the potatoes will be gone and I'll do the same mulching for that area too. Then the vines can play there all they want.

[JRinPA]

Radish is my early, quick crop that I plant in such a space. The little round red ones. They taste best anyway, before it gets hot. Currently, between two rows of snap peas. I will have the radish completely cleaned out before the peas get too tall.
I find it odd when Kolibri kohlrabi is mentioned since my semi savoy spinach is called Kolibri as well.

[GoDawgs]

These are Crawford pole beans, the first to start climbing their quadpod. Crawford is what I call a multi-use bean. You can pick them for fresh beans, pick them at the shelling stage and they make good dry beans. Last year was the first time I grew them. And as you can see, there's room in the middle of the poles for an early something.

24.05.11 Crawfords first to climb.JPG

Here are the palleted tomatoes. Pickles installed the second cages a couple days ago, tying each to the cage they are sitting on and also to a pole stuck in the bucket. Then she added horizontal poles across the tops of the lower cages and tied them to that as well. Then the horizontal poles were tied to the pallets. There will be NO blow-over of cages due to wind!

24.05.11 Tomato, eggplant row.JPG

On the pallets right now are there are twelve regular tomatoes, two dwarf tomatoes and four eggplants. There are five more dwarf tomatoes I will plant out today in those empty buckets on the other end.

24.05.11 Room for Dwarf Tomatoes.JPG

There are four eggplants this year, the usual Millionaire and Chinese String and two new ones I'm trying (Matrosik and Rosita) thanks to @Ginger2778's generosity with her seeds. Hard to resist that! If they all make we'll be flooded with eggplant. Recipes are being collected.

24.05.11 LtoR Ch. String, Matrosik, Millionaire, Rosita.JPG

Lots of mulching today, mostly bean beds.

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday was a gardening day off as some friends came over for a cook out around mid day and later we had a pop up t-storm dump an inch of rain on us in about an hour. We'll take it!

The garlic is almost ready by the look of the foliage. I felt around a bulb and they're no longer rounds; there be cloves! Maybe another week or two. I'll have to pull one next week to see where they really are. These are two of the three rows.

24.05.16 Garlic is almost ready.JPG

This morning I added stakes to the pepper beds on their down wind side to give them something to lean on. Later when they get bigger I'll loosely tie them to the stakes.

24.05.16 Peppers staked.JPG

I also got a second and higher run of twine added to each side of the 'Jumbo' bean row. Those have already grown taller than the lower run of twine.

This is one of two cuke trellises. the first two sections are National Pickling cukes and the last third is Suyo Long. First time for that one. Gotta get these mulched.

24.05.16 Suyo Longs and Natl Pickling cukes.JPG

An unknown Asiatic lily I bought from Jackson & Perkins ages ago. It's growing amid a bed of space-hogging asters.

24.05.16 Unknown J&P Asiatic lily.JPG

And finally, we picked peas again today and got a peach basket full. I think we've reached peak harvest. Powdery mildew is making its way up the vines so next week will probably be the end of them. Time to go start shelling!

[PlainJane]

Love that lily.

[GoDawgs]

Here are the peas from yesterday's picking. We shelled them out last night while watching hockey. It took almost three hours of shelling at a pretty good clip but we got them done and ended up with 4 lbs 2 oz shelled! The blanching and tray freezing has started this morning but it will take a while. The big freezer is pretty full and there's room for only two cookie sheets at a time. Peas in, peas out, peas in, peas out. At least it doesn't take but a few hours to freeze a tray full.

24.05.16 Probably peak Wando pick.JPG

24.05.16 Shelled peas, 7 lbs 10 oz.JPG

The potato sets bought in case the first ones rotted in wet soil were later planted. Right now they're flowering more than any other potatoes we've grown! I wonder why.

24.05.16 Potato flowers.JPG

Speaking of flowers, the Caprician Fiesta daylily is blooming. This one is about 5" wide.

24.05.16 Caprician Fiesta Daylily.JPG

We have rain coming in so not much will get done in the garden today. At least last evening I got the almost-finished compost pile turned. Then I added another 5 gallon bucket of veggie scraps to the ongoing pile and turned it too.

[GoDawgs]

Since my last post it's been busy here.

I've run the second tier of baling twine on the five bush bean rows (third on the 'Jumbo' beans!). Keeping the plants from falling over makes picking soooo much easier!

IMG_1646.JPG

Five dwarf MMMM tomatoes were planted out. All but one start with the letter S! Scarlet Heart, Sherkhan, Sweet Scarlet, Sweet Sue, Noah's Stripes.

I got seven new MMMM micro tomatoes started: Golden Hour, Krasny Milo, Mini Marzano, Mohamed, Orange Dream, Pendulino Orange, and Tarfufo.

Had to replant okra seed. The Cajun Jewel came up fine but my Choppee didn't come up at all so I did a germ test on Choppee and also the Jing Orange I have. Also tested my Charleston Gray watermelon seed as it didn't come up either but all ten seeds germinated just fine! Finally I saw two poke up in the garden.

The Sugar Sprint and Snak Hero sugar snap peas are done (half an 18' row of each) and have been pulled. Total picking was just shy of 4 lbs of pods and each variety produced about 50% of the total. Not bad for my first time out. Pickles agrees that the Sugar Sprint was sweeter and more tasty than the other so I'll be looking for another kind to match up with the Sugar Sprint next spring. Any suggestions?

I grow 'Jewel' sweet potatoes as they're nematode resistant. Apparently one called 'Covington' is too and has become the prevalent variety grown commercially in North Carolina. I bought one at a local store two months ago, grew it in a pot and have now planted out two slips under a trellis just to test them. They've been planted where the snaps were just pulled. Last night I planted Mississippi Silver cowpeas from last year's MMMM to finish that row.

24.05.19 Covington Swt Potato trial.JPG

On Monday it was time to take down the peas, picking as we pulled. Down came the deer netting and away we went. The peas picked turned out to be too starchy so they got tossed on the compost pile. However the six prior pickings yielded 10.5 lbs of shelled 'Wando' peas, about 5 lbs less than last year. Powdery mildew came in at the end and caused that, firing up the vines. Before and After:

24.05.20 Peas before takedown.JPG

24.05.20 Peas after takedown.JPG

Yesterday morning I took down three of the four pea trellises. After removing the old mulch I sprayed the remaining trellis and the bed with fungicide. In the evening, under the trellis I planted 5' of Glorie de Paris cucumbers and 13' of Ha'Ogen melon which I am going to try trellising. Both of those were from this year's MMMM. The other side of the bed got planted with Green Dixie blackeye peas, something that caught my eye in a catalog.

Today has been a day off. A morning trip into the city on an errand blew the morning apart and an "all of a sudden" hair cut opening that I badly needed kinda messed up the afternoon. That's OK. I needed a day off!

[GoDawgs]

This morning the weather map showed a big red and orange blob this side of Atlanta and heading our way so I got out there early, got the four rows of Silver Queen corn fertilized and pulled soil to the stalks. Those are volunteer sunflowers to the left.

24.05.27 S. Queen corn fert and hilled.JPG

The sky still didn't look too bad so I also pulled soil to the corn growing in a bed that got fertilized last week. I had just enough time to patrol the beans to make sure everybody is growing inside the support twine and noticed that the Red Noodle Asian beans are about to start climbing. A 5' long section of those is a gracious plenty, especially when the regular bush beans are making! Thank you, MMMM contributor!

24.05.26 Red Noodle Beans.JPG

A birth announcement! The past several days have seen the birth of seven micro tomatoes. Please meet Golden Hour (bi-color), Krasny Milo (red), Mini Marzano (red), Mohamed (red), Tartufo (black), Orange Dream (orange) and Pendulina Orange. It would seem that I've unwittingly met any DEI requirements.

24.05.25 Seven baby micro tomatoes.JPG

Harumph. There were just a few drops falling and the wind was picking up so I beat feet to the house. And, of course, that was the end of that. It looks like most of the rain will pass us to the north. And here I was hoping to wet in the fertilizer. Oh well, there's still the afternoon and that's when decent rain seems to bubble up anyway. Besides I think some garlic needs to be dug before it gets rained on again so the rain delay might not be bad at all. Y'all have a peaceful day!

[PlainJane]

I’m also growing Ha’Ogen so we’ll see how it does for both of us.

[GoDawgs]

I’m also growing Ha’Ogen so we’ll see how it does for both of us.

Oh good! It should be an interesting trial.

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday was garlic day, at least for the Lorz Italian (on the left side) and the new-to-me Polish White, on the right. They're both softneck artichoke types, good for growing in warmer areas. The Siberian is in a different bed and not quite ready yet.

24.05.27 Lorz (l), Polish (r).JPG

I'm really impressed with the Polish White,. I had no trouble picking out larger bulbs to set aside for replanting this fall.

24.05.27 Polish White freshly dug.JPG

24.05.27 Polish white garlic.JPG

I took them under the shed to sort and tie in groups, then hung them from the middle of the shed. I was afraid if I hung them near the sides they'd get wet if a really blowy rain came through.

24.05.27 Polish White (f), Lorz Italian (r).JPG

In two weeks I'll clip the roots and the already dried foliage and then hang them from the rafters in the tool shed with a fan blowing on them for a week. By then they should be ready to bring inside.

I had to water the garden this afternoon. It seems like we had storms move through the past week but all in all we didn't get much rain. Now we're back to 90 and the wind's blowing hard, sucking out the water. The garden really needed the water.

And finally, the Sunday Gloves daylilies are blooming. It's about as close to white as daylilies get. And I really love the name.

24.05.28 Sunday Gloves daylily.JPG

[MissS]

That garlic is gorgeous and so is the daylily.

[GoDawgs]

Thanks, @MissS for those encouraging words! Sometimes I wonder why I always seem to have too much going on in the garden but then if not, what would I be doing instead? Out robbing banks? LOL!

Not all projects are successful. This spring I planted some early Spring Treat corn in a bed, knowing that it might not work. The seed was from 2019 and had been in the freezer since then. A note on my inventory said that in Dec 2021 a germination test showed only 60% germinated. But it was a spare bed and inquiring minds had to know!

Only 23 out of 84 seeds came up, 27%. They came up over a 2-3 week period so they were all different sizes. I was really tempted to just clear the bed but wanted to see if any would actually produce anything. That means hand pollination.

So now 45 days after planting this 67 day early corn, stalks range from 3' tall down to 12" tall. A few tassels are emerging here and there. I really don't expect anything to come of it even with hand pollinating but it's been an interesting test.

24.05.29 Busted Sp Treat, tassels at 3' tall.JPG

[MissS]

@GoDawgs I like your thinking. I often tell people that my gardens keep me off of the streets and out of the bars. If not for the gardens, who knows what would become of me.

The corn is a fun experiment. I hope that you get yourself some fresh seed and can enjoy a real crop of it next time around. A lot of work, but hey, it's all in fun!