Garden Discussion Documents

I'm catching up on getting our Gardeners Meeting Notes on here for availability.

Gardening Meeting #3 
Top Crops, Companion Planting and Pest Control

Companion Planting
A brief overview of plants that benefit from being planted near each other in the garden; taken from Carrots love Tomatoes & Roses love Garlic by Louise Riotte

Top Crops #2
Details on these crops: cabbage,
broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, carrots, peas, beans.

Common Garden Pests and what to do! 

Gardening Meeting #4
Cold Weather Protection for our plants

November's a good month in the Vegetable Garden

My garden is growing beautifully. I've harvested 2 zucchini squashes and my son hasn't been patient with the carrots, so we have pulled a few small (and delicious) purple, yellow and orange carrots too. Cabbage, brocolli and kale plants have needed extra care with removing caterpillars regularly, mostly about 1 month ago, it has become less of a problem now with only an occasional caterpillar. I have been fertilizing about every two weeks with Miracle Grow and the soil structure seems to be improving with the straw mulching and other organic materials decomposing. The weather has been perfect and I deep water every 2-3 days. The garden gets nearly all-day sun.

What's growing: green cabbage, purple cabbage, brocolli, leeks, kale, lettuce varieties, garlic, green onions, basil, cilantro, snap peas, cucumber (volunteer), petunias, marigolds, nasturtium, zucchini, green beans (stunted growth), purple, yellow and orange carrots.

March Growth

The month of March 2015 was very warm and my garden plants are thriving. The temperatures got too high for the sweet peas so I removed them after a few more peas harvested. The cilantro was going to seed and no longer producing the broad-leaf cilantro I had enjoyed and shared so much throughout the winter, so I dug them out as well. My girls and I planted some sunflowers (the tall variety) and some snapdragons and wild flower mixes in a small section of the garden for fun. Our friend James gave me 4 small sweet potatoes that were sprouting and I planted them today where the cilantro had been. I also planted some zucchini on a mound where I had composted for a while, but nothing has sprouted.

The tomato plants are producing and growing wonderfully. Nothing in the garden makes me quite as happy as my recovered frozen tomato plants, especially the one that seemed the most hopeless at the beginning of February which is now back to it's pre-frozen size and producing cherry tomatoes once again.

These photos were taken on March 17, 2015.

Complete recovery after freeze in January, cherry tomato.

Before removing the sweet pea vines and seeding cilantro.

I had been keeping my eye on a cabbage head that had been growing for a while. When I finally picked it, I was sad to discover that it had started rotting. After removing many of the outer layers, I was able to use the remaining inside small head. That may be the only cabbage I get from the many large plants. The low production could be due to the plants being over-crowded. 

The New Year's Freeze 2015

So late December and surrounding the start of 2015, we had a dip in temperatures. A few garden plants suffered mild freezing the night before the official "freeze warning", but I covered the tender plants during each night of the freeze (air temps below 35-ish). Here's how my garden fared:

Plants that were not damaged:
Lettuces
Cilantro
Sweet Peas
Carrots
Cabbage
Spinach
Green onions

Plants that were damaged but salvageable:
Tomato plants
Marigold flowers

Plants that were killed:
Zucchini
Younger tomato plants
Green Bean
Potato (an experimental planting)

I picked a decent harvest of zucchini before the plants dying off. Tomato plants had not provided many ripened tomatoes, but the cherry tomato had hundreds of green tomatoes. I used them as an experiment and my results were very interesting. The tomatoes continued to ripen off the bush and also a few that were on a low live stem on the bush after trimming away almost all of the plant. New growth is filling the bush in and I still have hope for the plant for this season.

All the fallen green tomatoes off the frozen cherry tomato plant Jan 9, 2015

The same cherry tomatoes several weeks later, many ripened and taste great. Jan 30, 2015

A fraction of a very abundant and enjoyed Sweet Pea harvest

I chose a few plump pods to try drying the peas for planting next year.

The cherry tomato plant after the freeze, Jan 17

The zucchini plants post freeze

The cherry tomato plant after I groomed away all the frozen leaves and branches. Just a glimmer of hope in it living. Jan 17.

September Planting

It was very fortunate that my procrastination and I delayed planting. This past Monday, our area was flooded with over 4 inches of rainfall. My garden area was a foot under water. Unfortunately, many had it much worse than I and their homes were beyond damaged by flooding, roof problems and fallen trees. Our desert wasn't prepared for that much rain all at once.

The soil was good and ready for the seeds I planted today. 

Sugar Daddy Pea

Green Onion

Organic Cilantro

Mesclun Gourmet Greens Mix (Arugula, Romaine, Kale, several Lettuce types)

Romaine Lettuce

Organic Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

Crisphead Lettuce

Cabbage

Spinach

Green Bush Beans

I also placed my growing tomato seedlings out in the garden area to start acclimating them to their future home.

Soaking Peas and Beans overnight

Morning

Noon

Cabbage Harvest

My cabbage harvest included 3 small heads of cabbage. I haven't been feeling well lately, so it took me a while to harvest them and because of that, they had a stronger flavor than store bought. I am happy that we got something from that long time of growing and watering.

I finally dedicated a morning to clearing out the old plants in my garden that either were not producing, had died or began to seed themselves (cilantro and lettuce). It was a lot of work and filled half the trash can with roots and plants. All that is left now are three Roma tomato plants and they seem to be happily producing fruit for us.

I accidentally picked one of the most red ones while touching it to look at it. We haven't tried it yet, but I hope it is delicious and full of homegrown tomato flavor!



Cabbage and Romas

So, I realized that my last post titled "Giving Up" was slightly depressing. I haven't given up on gardening all together, just the seeds that I planted for the Spring season. My cabbage is still developing from the Fall season. The Roma tomatoes are growing too, which gets me excited. We eat a lot of tomatoes in our house, so I hope we can get really delicious tomatoes this season for a while.

3 tomato plants

Growing Romas

My February Goals

The Spring planting season is about to begin in Mesa, AZ! Mid February is the prime time to start planting for the Spring season, after all danger of frost.
Speaking of frost, the recent frost killed my sweet pea vines. They had beautiful white flowers and the peas were just barely starting to come. I had eaten one delicious pod of peas before it all froze.

My goals for this month:

1) Enhance my soil

2) Plant corn

3) Plant tomatoes

Because I know that getting my soil just right is going to take a lot of effort and time, I plan to only plant corn and tomatoes this season. That way, I can focus on those 3 goals and perfect my gardening a little at a time.

Here is an article I just read in my efforts to learn about perfectly balanced gardening soil.

The lettuce and cabbage plants seem to be doing great and growing big. I fertilized them a few days ago and hope to start seeing some heads of cabbage soon.

Romaine and Iceberg Lettuce

Cabbage

 I recently learned that it is important to fertilize cabbage (and many vegetable plants) right before they begin to produce. Nitrogen is a specific ingredient that is important for the cabbage to produce good heads.

This is the fertilizer that I have been using in the garden and for the citrus trees.

Update on my Garden

During the winter time it seems that nothing too exciting has been happening in the garden. But, I have used lettuce and cilantro from the garden and both are great! All the tomato plants have been pulled out after a rough freeze we had in the past weeks. Here are some photos of what I have growing.

Sweet Peas

Cabbage, Cilantro, Romaine Lettuce, Carrots

Bush Beans

Romaine Lettuce, Cabbage

The citrus has been great on the Navel Orange tree closest to the house. The 2 Valencia Orange trees struggled and didn't produce much. The tangerine tree is bursting with fruit and are getting ready for eating now.

My Little Corn Harvest

I took down all but one stalk of corn and harvested these:

I was happy with it considering it is my first time harvesting corn. I have learned some things that should help it be even better in the future. I think I waited a little too long to harvest them because they were not as juicy as I think they could have been.

Today, I planted Iceberg Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce and Cabbage in the soil where the corn was. It gets good sun compared to the spots where the other cabbage and lettuce plants are slowly growing. I didn't account for the sun changing positions during the winter when I first planted those and now they are shaded for a good portion of the day by our orange tree.

Speaking of the citrus, the oranges are turning orange and should be ready in a few weeks.

The grass is turning brown too, since we decided not to plant winter seed.

Planting

I planted these today:

Anticipated Harvest Dates:

Spinach - November 22nd

Cabbage - December 17th

Cilantro - est. November 15th

Iceberg Lettuce - December 22nd

Carrots (batch#2) - December 22nd

We had some crazy weather a few days ago and although I was worried when most of my recently planted seedlings were under half a foot of water, I think many of them survived. I see carrots, romaine lettuce and bush beans growing. I haven't seen any peas popping up yet. I may need to replant them. The corn got really tattered and the stalks were laying down after the storm. I picked them up vertical and stepped around the bases to secure their foundation. They seem to be healthy as of today and I see tassels beginning to form in many. I really am hoping for some corn this season.