Summer Scorcher

The D.C. area has hit mid-90's with high humidity this week, with a heat index in the triple digits. Surprisingly, our backyard isn't all that terrible as long as you stay out of the sun (and if you're me, layer on the DEET because mosquitoes are evil). The vegetable garden, with a few exceptions, is thriving! Shall we begin the tour?

First up, the baby asparagus bed. That's new this year. We've wanted one for ages, as Nick's grandfather always had one in his garden and there is nothing like fresh asparagus. Alas, it cannot be harvested and eaten until year 3. But so far, so good.

   

This year I decided to try (rainbow) Swiss chard again. Bought my seeds from Gardner's Supply in VT. The chard is doing fantastically well. I don't know if it's the seeds, the fertilizer, or if it just likes our soil, but...holy crap!

 That is on tonight's dinner menu.

 

Next up, bush beans! I love green beans and they freeze well (great for Thanksgiving). I have more bush beans planted than anything else.

Next to the bush beans is the cucumber plant. I specify that it is a single cucumber plant, because it is enormous. I have never had a cucumber do this well! Between this plant and the two I have in large fabric planters, I made two small batches of pickles this week. Normally I have a terrible squash bug problem, but so far they are mostly leaving the cucumber alone (more on that later). The bumblebees love it, though.

This year Nick asked me to get a couple of pepper plants, so we have one poblano and one jalapeno. They had a bit of a rocky start but seem to be settling in and setting fruit.

 

Heading further into the garden, we have leeks, carrots and beets. They are all doing OK but not great, although I did harvest some beets to eat this week.

 

Behind these are my pole beans. The plants are growing well, but they're not putting out many actual beans. This may or may not have something to do with the infestation of Japanese beetles devouring the leaves. This is the first time I have had to contend with these voracious bastards, and I am not happy. Cue the beetle traps.

The last bed has only one star at this point. The broccoli gave in to the heat a few weeks back, although it originally did pretty well and we will grow more in the fall. My zucchini plants failed to thrive from the start, and put out almost exclusively male flowers. I pulled out all of these and today put in more bush beans. But behind them, on the trellis formerly occupied by the pea plants, I give you...a very happy Kabocha squash plant.

 

This thing has nearly a dozen squashes growing. This is exciting! I've never grown Kabocha before - just tried it on a whim since we like squash. The squash bugs seem to be attracted to this plant in lieu of my cucumbers, but so far only in small numbers. They're pretty easy to catch and kill in such small numbers, and their eggs are easy to spot and remove. So hopefully this trend will continue...?

What about the tomatoes, you ask? Other than some aphids and mild blossom end rot, pretty well. Still battling fungus, but the power sprayer has helped slow it down and the plants are in a much better place than they were at this same time last year. The San Marzanos and Druzbas are just starting to ripen but the cherry tomatoes are making for some good eating.

Berry Good

Many people I know, if given a day off during the week, would do normal things like sleep in, go shopping, and generally relax. Sometimes I do this. Last week I found a sale and bought 5 new pairs of work pants (score). But in the summertime, as often as not, I am doing something garden-related or food-related. Like say, driving half an hour out to Green Truck Farm to pick berries, so that I can make fresh fruit jam.

I am not actually very good at taking a day off. You may have noticed that trend. But I actually find it quite relaxing to go pick berries, as long as I am not on a schedule. It's a treasure hunt for beautiful fruit.

 Plus, I make pretty good jam.

Caged

It's time for the big reveal of the project we've been working on for the last couple of months...our new tomato cage!

Here's a reminder of what this space in our yard used to look like after we took out the forsythia:

And now?

Taa-daaaaaa!

Finally, a way to keep out those pesky tomato-wrecking squirrels!

Finding plans to build it took a while - we didn't want to just start from scratch. But I realized we were essentially looking to build an oversized extension run, the kind you'd attach to a chicken coop, So I hunted down plans online for an extension run, as designed by Ana White (the same source we used for plans to build a bed a few years back). Then we scaled it up in size...a lot. This puppy is eight feet wide, roughly seven feet tall, and twenty feet long!

How did we do it? We had help. The trip to Home Depot to purchase lumber was nearly disastrous when we discovered that the 10ft boards didn't quite fit into the back of my Subaru (by about one inch). Our neighbors came to the rescue with their pickup truck. So we had our lumber. The lumber is pressure-treated, so we let it sit outside for a couple weeks to dry out, in order to keep the chemicals it is treated with from seeping into the soil.

Then in April it was time to cut the pieces to size and join them using the Kreg Jig, making panels. This was essentially Nick with me assisting a bit. After that: more help! Our friends Evan and Amanda came over to help us put the entire frame together.

Of course it happened to be a hot, sunny day. Figures. Thankfully, nobody got heat stroke and the day was a success!

Completed cage frame

A few weeks went by - between soccer games, theatre tickets and a camping trip, we've been quite busy. But we knew we had time, as the tomatoes were only just starting to flower. Nick built and hung doors on one end. Then, little by little, Nick and I started installing the chicken wire. He had the much harder job of stapling the wire in place, while I came along behind to trim the pieces to fit. The cage is subdivided into three-foot and four-foot sections, with chicken wire of the matching size. I found 50 foot rolls of each online, on sale for a "buy one, get one," so only spent about $80 for 200 feet of wire - far cheaper than the hardware store!

The roof was the toughest part. Nick got up on the ladder to save my back, but it was pretty rough on his.

Thanks, hon!

But yesterday? Yesterday we finished it! It was, of course, the hottest day of the week (85+ degrees). But we got all the sides wired. We paid a toll in blood and sweat (and very nearly tears of frustration on my part but I managed to stifle them).

So...chicken wire is wicked sharp. Ouch.

To the tune of bluegrass music (and under the watchful eye of a backyard toad), over the course of about 4 hours, we got it done!!

We ended the day utterly exhausted (and dehydrated) but feeling quite accomplished. The ten tomato plants we have (5 San Marzanos, 3 Matt's Wild Cherries, and 2 Druzbas), are coming along and starting to fruit. Alas, we have an aphid infestation and a bit of a fungal problem, but thankfully there are organic solutions for both. Fingers crossed for a productive growing season!

It Gets the Hose

We are on the other side of two days of nonstop rain here in VA. We needed it, but I am glad to see a little sunshine again.

Regular rainfall would be nice, but I can't always count on that to keep the garden soil moist and the plants happy. Carrying pails of water to four garden beds plus the new tomato bed is quite a hassle, though. Particularly since the outdoor spigot on the back of the house hasn't been working, so all pails had to be filled at the kitchen sink. It's been a bit of an ordeal. However, that problem has now been solved, and I'm kind of excited about it!

Last weekend I had a plumber out to take a look at the spigot. Super-nice guy. We thought there was a burst pipe as the previous owners had left the spigot on during the wintertime (long story), but it just turned out to be some stripped fittings - easy fix. With the spigot working, it freed me up to install the awesome Snip n' Drip system I bought from Gardener's Supply Co a while back. It's really nifty! You connect their hose to your garden hose, and then using their connectors and recycled rubber soaking hose, can set up a whole system to run off an outdoor spigot. Plus, I bought a battery-operated timer so I can preset when I want it to run and for how long. Yesterday I received some extra hose, which provided me enough length to run the watering system all the way from the main garden out to the tomato bed. This is going to be great! We will only need to water a few things by hand now: the potted herbs, the asparagus and rhubarb beds, and the flowers outside the tomato bed. This is going to save a significant amount of time and stress on my back. Take a look!

 All the way out to the tomatoes!

Dig a Hole...Fill it Up

Mid-April already and spring is in full swing here in Virginia! Just a few short days ago it was still dipping into the forties at night, but tonight it isn't supposed to get below 60, and we've had highs in the mid-eighties already! The weather is a bit weird, but that's an East Coast spring for you.

Nearly all of my time off lately has been devoted to the vegetable garden, and thus far my efforts seem to be paying off. Have a look-see!

So far, so good! The kale transplants are growing like gangbusters, and I anticipate being able to pick a few leaves soon:

My Kabocha squashes are finally coming up...

And the broccoli plants appear to have recovered from their initial "OMG too hot" sunburn".

Even the bush beans are finally, finally sprouting. I think I planted them when it was still too cold out and they were waiting for the soil to warm up, but I had started to worry.

By far the biggest project has been...the new tomato bed! We love, love, love tomatoes, both fresh and canned. I enjoy canning tomatoes whole and in a variety of pasta sauces. But as you may recall, year after year our tomato crop has been raided by those furry little rats known as squirrels. I. Hate. Squirrels. This year? We're not screwing around.

With the help of my fantastic mother-in-law, my hard-working husband, and a pair of roto-tillers lent to us by our favorite neighbors, we cleared a large section (roughly 10 by 15 feet) of forsythia alongside the fence in our yard. That stuff is obnoxious to dig up, and I will undoubtedly have to keep tackling it. We also dug up approximately a metric ton of rocks from our thick clay soil. Or at least three wheelbarrows worth. We were left with a spacious area into which Nick tilled some quality soil amendments. Then, for my birthday last Monday, I spent the day digging ten holes and transplanting in five San Marzano, three Druzba, and two Matt's Wild Cherry tomato plants.  Given that it was 80+ degrees, it was not the smartest thing I've ever done and I ended up with a mild case of heat exhaustion. However, it was totally worth it. The next day I bought a bale (two bales, actually) of straw to lay out pathways, and bought cilantro and parsley seedlings to keep the tomatoes company. Today I added the beautiful marigolds my sister-in-law bought me for my birthday (thanks, Claire), planted some basil seeds, and voila!

We've got a new tomato bed eight feet wide and twenty feet long! The tomatoes were not super-happy about being transplanted in the heat and bright sun, even though they'd been outside adapting, and the lower leaves bleached a bit. However, they seem to be recovering well and putting out lots of new growth, as you can see from this San Marzano:

But wait a minute, you say, what about the squirrels? There's nothing to stop them from raiding your tomatoes. That is true...for now. Don't worry, though - we have big plans for that. More to come soon. 

Happy Gardening!

I'm So Excited I Wet My Plants!

It's honest-to-goodness springtime around here, and the vegetable garden is showing signs of verdant life. Both seedlings and transplants are growing like tiny little gangbusters!

There are spinach and radish seedlings coming up...

Broccoli and kale transplants (from the farm store - mine were unimpressive) settling in...

Shelling peas shooting up with all their might...

Zucchini and cucumber transplants (homegrown) enjoying their cold weather houses...

Even last year's chives came back!

Not to be outdone, the fig tree my wonderful husband got me for Christmas is so happy about my having repotted in a larger container that it is rewarding me with tiny little leaves.

In the background? Those are the tomatoes. They quickly outgrew the potting bench with grow lights so I moved them to the guest bedroom in the window, and they don't seem to mind.

Aren't they gorgeous! Less than 6 weeks ago they were just tiny little munchkins:

*sniff* - they grow up so fast

More to come on the tomatoes soon...we've got a project planned about which I am very excited.

Cheers!