Spinach is perhaps the easiest thing besides lettuce to grow. It is a cold weather crop….as it bolts in heat. Loves growing in pots, doesn’t mind cold nights and doesn’t mind being crowded. I thin it when it looks really crowded, say, once a week and clean & refrigerate the baby leaves to use in soups and salads. Very healthy and super easy. Wish I had planted a whole lot more of it. Great winter crop for Tucson.
The last of my summer garden still lingers. Its the 3 bell pepper plants that I kept as an experiment. Lamont and I wanted to see if they would “return” after the heat of the summer was gone. They did, and when the heat began to give way to cooler temperatures, say middle August or early September, the bells returned with a vengance. They gave me the best yellow, orange and red peppers of the year. The green ones appeared hardier, but the taste is really in the color bells. Yum. Actually, I still have 2 yellows on the plant, 4 orange, and a dozen green, but the night-time temperatures are dipping lower now and these guys don’t like it, (they don’t like air temperatures below 55). Their leaves (on all of them) are aging and beginning to drop….signaling that their end is nearing. They were easy to grow, needing protection only from the local woodpeckers and an occasional caterpillar and mealy bug…. nothing was problem enough to require Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt). They were in the ground longer than any other vegetable planted in my spring garden. Best thing I accidentally did was grow them in pots, so I could move them out of the sun when it got really hot, (somewhere near the middle of June). That same feature allowed me to move them back into the sun when it cooled somewhat, (somewhere near middle or end of August). I do like it when a plan accidentally comes together. Bells will be a staple in my spring, summer and fall garden.
Broccoli is forming heads now. At least the Calabrese is, and daily inspections remove at least one or more looper each time. The damage is minimal and so far no other control measures are needed. That’s the way I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh. The Calabrese came back strongly from it’s early attack. The Windsor is about 8″ tall and filling out. Looks like just when I’m done harvesting the Calabrese, the Windsor will be coming into it’s maturity. I love it when a plan I didn’t make comes together. Broccoli is a fun plant to watch because it grows so fast…seemingly adding inches every day. And it loves the cold weather, so I’ll continue to feed it every week and I’ll have broccoli until spring, barring some tragic critter attack.
Ok, admitedly, you can’t grow all things well. It seems that everyone has a speciality. Mine is tomatoes, or broccoli maybe, but certainly not beans. I have been harvesting my pole & bush beans for about 3 weeks now and it looks like they are just about done. I’ve gotten perhaps enough for a family of 6 to eat at a single meal. And not all harvested at once. Perhaps a handfull a day, at best. Plus, there were wild temperature fluctuations….two nights of near freezing, and daytime record highs, that caused an uncontrollable case of powdery mildew, which ultimately is causing the premature demise of the entire bean crop. There was the huge attraction of the mice and birds to the bean seeds, and Itty was useless as a deterrant, in fact, she enjoyed digging the seeds up herself. Traitor. Do I sound bitter? It’ll take a couple of weeks for the sting of this defeat to melt into a distant memory. Meanwhile, perhaps there are lessons to be learned here. For one, I don’t usually have disease as a foe, so the experience of dealing with powdery mildew was a good thing to learn. (That, spraying the beans three days in a row will knock it out before it becomes a big problem.) And then, there is always the big one….preparing the soil. This is usually where I beat the battles before they begin. Stronger plants, more disease resistance, and larger yields can all be traced back to good dirt. The last thing I’m gleaning from my bean experience is the silver lining…..even if the bean crop was a failure, beans still fix nitrogen in the soil, so the planting that follows my failed crop next spring will be much better off because the beans grew there.
ps. I will try beans again, but not until I’m in a happier place.
Yes, that’s the question I asked myself last May. Can sweet potatoes grow in Tucson…in the summer? I never found anything to tell me yes or no. I know they are a tropical plant and grown mostly in the South. So I discussed it with my daughter, Jennifer, who gave me a sprout for Mother’s Day. I dutifully planted it, wondering what it would do. It did survive the heat of the summer and now is a thriving bush, trailing out in all directions about 3-4′ wide. It bloomed mid October with pale lavender/purple flowers which had the look of a morning glory. Just 3 blooms in all, yet, I’m planning it’s demise for Thanksgiving. My version of killing a turkey. I’m gonna turn over it’s pot (big terra cotta) and scoop up what I hope to be big edible sweet potatoes. Just 4 weeks and counting.
Finally, the weather is favoring the broccoli plants in my winter garden. The Calabrese is almost 2′ tall and branching profusely. I only have 3 Calabrese left from the original planting, but when I lost the original plants I put more out of the Windsor variety. The Windsor needs cooler temperatures and doesn’t branch so much, so it’ll give me, (and I realize this is still in a dream stage), large single heads, which may grow back when the first head is harvested. I transplanted 5 and direct seeded two of the Windsors and both did well. It really likes fertilizer, so I’m doing my best to feed it every week and keep it away from rabbits. I have it on top of the table in the pool area, potted, so nothing can reach it but birds, and they are showing no interest (at the moment, anyway). This is not the way I had intended succession planting to take place, but it worked out that way. Ended up with 12 growing plants in what seems will be 3 stages of harvest…..so far…. This is such an easy plant to grow that I may plant a bunch more, if I find space. Love broccoli, love the plants, love the fruit, love watching it grow, just love it all.
Gotta say, I had more trouble with beans than I have ever had with anything I’ve planted…..so far…. I must have planted 150 seeds total and ended up with 40 growing bean plants. I planted the first round of say 50 seeds of pole beans. (Stringless Blue Lake) They would get eaten before they even sprouted by mice or birds, I never did figure who came first. I’d put up wire protection to keep the birds out and the mice would get through the wire and eat the entire second planting of 50 more, which did sprout this time. So I planted one last time….as it was too discouraging to watch this drama unfolding….and put rabbit wire, bird netting AND fencing…..as well as the decorative wire I put for the seeds to climb on. But by the last planting, I had run out of pole bean seeds, so I used what was left of the bush bean seeds. Nothing could get in now, not even me. I just pulled the 3 stage protection off when I saw there were beans to harvest last weekend. They have just started putting out fruit…..I’ve gotten maybe 10 beans, and they were good, but the worth the effort? I don’t think so. It’s gonna take at least a bushel of beans to make me want to do this again. ALTHOUGH, when they are done, the bean patch will be the perfect place to plant next summer’s tomatoes. That, my friend, is what’s called a nitrogen fixing silver lining.
ps. Itty really loves the beans and has taken to doing all kinds of tricks for me to get me to turn one over to her, since even she couldn’t get through the razor wire. I’m teaching her the Combat Crawl in honor of the “army training ground look” the back yard has taken on. Stop, Drop and Roll are next.
The Yellow Perfection variety is doing very well. Multitudes of flowers and fruit is just starting to set. The plants themselves are scraggly looking, but otherwise healthy. I have 2 in pots and one in the ground. The one in the ground was chewed in half by a critter, but it just grew along the ground when I covered the stalk over with dirt. Hardy little guy. Now it has a few flowers, but think it will eventually catch up with it’s potted fellow yellows. In pots, they are gonna be hard to stake, as I think their viny nature will make them quite tall. I may have to harvest them while standing on a step ladder.
The Estiva variety is also hardy, and also scraggly looking, but producing nicely. Woodpeckers like the Estiva best, and I really don’t understand what the attraction is. The estiva is a red tomato, but it isn’t red yet. They have their reasons I guess. Must admit, I have always liked the red tomato better than yellow or orange, but if it’s home grown, I’ll eat any of them and be grateful for it. The Estiva has some characteristics that make it a comical plant to grow. It wants to “run” along the ground, which makes staking it interesting. I staked one branch that was growing straight out horizontal away from it’s main trunk, only to find a week later, it was growing horizontal from the stake. This made me think that I may have done better if I had tied it along a chain link fence, where I’d be able to tie it horizontally to keep it off the ground. Don’t you think that might look a bit like grape plants do?
Both seem healthy enough, they were both planted at the same time and are roughly the same size and both producing nicely shaped and sized fruit, but the yellow perfection has three to 4 times the flowers that the Estiva has. I planted 7 plants, (4 red and 3 yellow), thinking I might lose some. If they all reach harvest together, I’ll be in tomato heaven by Thanksgiving. My only question for now is, how many tomato recipes do I have at ready, or should I plant a bunch more lettuce?
ps. I tried to load a picture, but it took up too much room, so until I figure that out you’ll just have to take my word for it.
With a title like this you can be sure there is no tomato in this story!
My fall garden is actually a success story about my carryovers from the summer. I have been and continue to be happy with nearly all of my peppers, cucumbers, green beans and okra (which i like growing more than I like eating). I am also happy that one of my two artichoke plants has decided that it is time for it to revive from dormancy. The other has shown not indication of life and is likely done.
Both artichokes were planted early summer at the beginning of my gardening adventure and though they produce foliage, neither produce fruit. I was told that I could expect two seasons, that they would survive the winter and revive in the spring… I am not sure what to expect since this isn’t spring yet!
Every plant listed above is allows me to harvest at least a few times a week; the okra is a daily harvest.
The only fall crop that I have that is not a carryover are the tomatoes and the broccoli from Kathy, both of which appear healthy and hopeful for Thanksgiving.
Since the cooler weather I’ve not had any trouble with any worms or other critters… rejoice!
Some of us have been experimenting with our tomato plants to see if there is any value in carrying over our spring tomato plants through the heat of the summer and into the fall for; hopefully, another harvest before the frost of winter arrives. Read the rest of this entry »
Recent Comments