July Happenings

I could have swore that I made a July entry back on July 4th - but I guess that's how summer flies by.

A lot has happened since the tomatoes were set out in June. My main focus has been on the idea I had of a non-staking, tie-up system for the tomatoes. This has occupied much of my time. Digging holes for support posts, running wire through the posts, tying-up tomatoes as I go, and now I'm finishing the whole project with guy wires & turnbuckles to support those supports!

All of my hard work with the supports was well worth it. It's great to have an idea brought into the real world.

Below is a photo of my father standing in the row of the now HUGE tomato plants! I had to do a second winding of each of these plants last weekend (July 19th) because they have grown so fast in the past few weeks.

I must make mention that this has been a very wet, rainy summer so far. In fact, my weather station verified that it rained 15 out of 30 days in June, 2009. As for July, it has rained 15 out of 26 days - total rain for July so far stands at 6.25 inches (but we have thunderstorms in the forcast for tonight, so that number will grow soon).

Once in a while the sun was out and the skies were blue, as in the photo below of my Borage flowers.

The Borage flowers re-seed themselves year after year. I take note of where they appear each season and till around them. The leaves and flowers taste like mild cucumber with the flowers ranging from deep blue to violet and occasionally white. This photo was taken on Sunday, July 12, 2009. That was before all of the trouble began....

The furry bastard is back! If you want a better look at him, check the blog entry from September 22, 2008 for a good close up. I kinda didn't mind the ground hog / wood chuck, in 2008 because he only ate a few things in the gardens like broccoli and some bean plants. But this year he's gotten into everything - even the tomatoes! The tomato photo below is one of about 30 that the ground hog ate the tops off of...

Here's my lovely Borage flowers - nothing but a stump of a stalk. This is what is left of the plant originally pictured above the ground hog. Only good news is that new leaves are appearing and I may get more flowers as long as the fat furry rat doesn't attack it again! He got into my prized Charlevoix Beans too by crawling under the fence I put around them. He got a piece of nearly all of the 300 plants. Amazingly, these too are growing new leaves and there are many white blossoms appearing on the abused plants.

I now have an electric fence defense! Many folks say I should get a .22 and shoot the ground hog, but I couldn't do that. The little bastard has a right to live and eat what ever he can. I've decided to outsmart him, not shoot him. The beans are safe, but the rest of the gardens are still vulnerable. I will eventually fence the entire big garden full of heirloom tomatoes. I'm just happy that he doesn't seem to like garlic plants...

The time was right to harvest the garlic last night (Saturday, July 25, 2009) as the leaves were starting to die-back. I wrote on my calendar that I cut-back the flowering scapes on June 21 so roughly a month goes by until the harvest. Cutting back the scapes (which would otherwise flower and go to seed) gets more energy into the roots for larger bulbs. If I wait too long to harvest the bulbs, they will begin to grow apart and separate underground.

Digging-up garlic is a delicate operation. I use a mini shovel to go around the plant, then dig it up from underneath the bulb. Never pull on the stalk! Garlic bruises easily, so I carefully tap the bulb on the bottom to loosen the surrounding dirt until most of it has fallen off.

It's not a good idea to wash the garlic at this stage, simply tie them together and hang them to dry for 4 to 6 weeks. I have them tied up in the rafters in the breezeway between the garage and the house - and believe me, it smells fantastic!

Final garlic note: These 10 cloves of German Extra Hearty, from SSE were the only ones that survived. The store bought garlic failed miserably! (see original post of October 5th, 2008)

The good news is that those 10 cloves produced wonderfully, meaning if each bulb has at least 6 cloves;

6 x 10 = 60 cloves to replant this fall!

:)

Ground Hog

A quick Google search turns up this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog
where you can find out all you'd ever want to know about this creature.

I've been spotting this Ground Hog all season around my yard. I always think of the movie "Caddy Shack" whenever I see him!

I finally got close enough to take photographs without scaring him away. He absolutely loves broccoli and bean plants (he's pictured here eating old broccoli from my garden out front).

I offer these photos both as a frustrated gardener, yet a happy photographer...

:)

Mid August Report

Garden Journal, Mid August Report

I’ve given up hope for the Squash & Pumpkins this season...



The solo Iran pumpkin plant has buds, but refuses to flower. The Zucchini has flowers that rot. And the Blue Hubbard Squash barely makes any flowers. This one blossom obviously has a mildew problem. I had big 10 to 20 pound Blue Hubbards picked last season by this time. Not a chance this year – but no matter, I saved hundreds of seeds from those 2007 monsters.



Very disappointing… The main reason is too much rain. This has been an unusually wet summer. June 2008 had double the amount of rain recorded than June of 2007. Here we are only half-way through August, 2008 and it has rained more than double than all of August, 2007!


Tomatoes are doing fairly well, but the plants are dieing-off too early in the sunniest garden out front – not sure why. I must say however, that this was my best year ever for raising tomatoes as far as them being ready so early.

I’ve already selected a few handfuls of ripe Alaska Tomatoes and began saving the first seeds of the season back on August 12th. They’re fermenting a lot better in August then they do in October!

I also picked a couple of Early Wonders, which are really pretty to look at with their rosy red to pink coloring. I picked and 2 or 3 Striped Caverns which have unique yellow & orange stripes.

The big garden has more shade, so all of the tomato plants there are still green and happy. Happiest of them all are the Debaro (Italian Roma) plants which are getting to be over 7 feet tall! At this time, all of the Debaro tomatoes are still green.

I’ve selected one of the Straight-Eight cucumbers to let grow for seed. These two plants are still producing (slowly) which is impressive in the excessively rainy conditions.

Most of the beans did well this season (the ones that weren’t eaten by the %$@*# ground hog!) Here's a photo I got of the little fury bastard from my 2nd level back porch with a zoom lens...

I’m really impressed with the Vermont Cranberry beans. They’re definitely the tallest and most prolific this season. Man, they really get colorful the more they mature! I’m letting these grow to seed for a much larger crop in 2009.

The Sunflowers out front are doing well. Quite a diverse group! I have one giant at the beginning of the row which is about 10 feet tall. In the middle there are multi-flowering smaller sunflowers, and on the other end, there are smaller (six feet tall) sunflowers which are dieing-off and soon ready to save for seed.


Last but not least, my Jerusalem Artichokes are about 6 feet tall and beginning to flower. Not sure what's better, eating the tubers in October or getting photos like this one of the flowers.

:)