August & A New Gardening Group

vincas, sweet potato vines from Shirlee (garden group)

I decided it was time to gather some neighborhood gardeners together as I had in my last home, so we met together the first Saturday in August and discussed many topics about getting our Fall gardens started. We range from brand new gardeners to long-time gardeners, with much knowledge to share with each other. We will meet about once a month. I'm excited about it! 

This past week, I planted microgreen lettuce variety, lettuce, spinach, more carrots (my previous seeds didn't sprout), more corn around my pumpkin plants, cilantro and green beans and zucchini around the existing corn and at the base of a trellis.

Pumpkin plants, corn, cucumbers, basil, 2 tomato plants and bell pepper plant are still alive and well.

I also purchased steer manure ($1.50/bag at Walmart) and some organic soil bags ($3/bag) and mixed those into my existing soil to give them a boost in nitrogen and to improve overall soil texture and nutrients. I also purchased a bag of peat moss that I used to cover my newly planted seeds to help retain moisture.

Soil, manure and peat moss to improve my soil, purchased at Walmart

I take a quick photo with my phone when I plant seeds so I can refer back if I no longer have the seed packet later.

Many lettuce and spinach seeds in the tortoise-food garden and in our raised beds

Corn seeds I planted this week and my planting record

Corn

Papaya Tree (started volunteer in my compost)

Cucumber

Pumpkin plants

Time to Plant Again!

What has survived the summer in my garden? 1 Yellow bell pepper, Armenian cucumber vines (pictured above on trellis), 1 tomato plant (in a large pot, it's a patio variety) and of course my trusty basil and rosemary. Some of my plants (tomato plants, strawberries, cantaloupe) just missed me too much while I was on a few vacations and didn't make it through those weeks of deathly-hot weather in June and July.

Next summer, I would like to be more prepared to deep soak (myoporum) and provide shade for the types of plants that struggled/died.

It's August and I am trying to stay on top of the planting calendar for this season! I planted pumpkins (for Halloween carving) and corn (from my farmer friend, Pete) and rainbow carrots these past weeks and they are sprouting. Which also means the birds are excited to steal my recently-sprouted seeds and so they have been covered with netting to protect them. Some birds are just smart and still get some nibbles, so I have replanted areas of the corn twice. My sister also gave me 2 pumpkin starts that she had planted about a week before mine so I planted those as well. My kids hope we'll get a few pumpkins in time for carving!

Yesterday, I gave my garden some Miracle Grow plant food (granules mixed into my watering can). I've tried doing strictly organic in the past, but I want more growth and more success, so I'm trying this out to see if it's successful for our short seasons when time is so valuable.

I've invited some other gardeners in my area to gather at my home this Saturday to begin a gardening group. I hope to learn a lot from their various experience and add more success to my garden beds!

A view toward the east in my backyard.

The tortoises' garden (weeds, dichondra, purple heart, hibiscus, aloe, ruellia. A mostly-shady NW corner of my yard under our HUGE eucalyptus tree.

Corn Harvest and Planting Garlic

I forgot to mention in my last post that I planted 3 cloves of garlic in the little planters next to my garden beds. I have researched how to grow garlic and am excited to give it a try. 

On Sunday, after church I went out to give my garden a late watering and noticed that several ears of corn on the stalks were falling off and looked very dry. I started pulling them off and realized that while many had dried kernels, several ears were ready to be harvested. The corn was miniature, the longest only about 6 inches long and some only 2-3 inches long. I could tell that those ears that I pollinated by hand filled in nicely, even though the corn over-all was very deformed and strange. I was a little nervous to eat it, but we cooked up all the ears that looked good and the kids and I enjoyed trying it. It was more chewy than is desirable, which may be because I was a few days late in picking it. But, it was good overall. The ears of corn that were not pollinated completely or dried out became props in many backyard games with my kids.

Today, I pulled out most of the corn plants, leaving those that the green bean plants are using for support. I learned a lot this year about growing corn and I look forward to trying it again with better soil that is not contaminated with herbicide chemicals.

The entire corn harvest

October Plants Growing!

October is a great growing month in Mesa. The weather has cooled just enough to allow the plants some relief and more rapid growth before the cold comes later in the year.
I wish I had more time to record things I am learning and observing, but I will try to sum up a few of the most important progress that has been happening.

Pumpkins: I have two beautiful pumpkin plants that survived (some didn't grow fast enough so I plucked them out to make room for the others and one got attacked by white flies.) The two survivors have sprawled themselves out and provide a lot of green to my garden area. I have been watching as the male flowers came, followed by the female flowers and then I pollinated female flowers in the early morning when they opened. The first several flowers that I pollinated shriveled and fell off, but then I stopped using a small paint brush to get the male pollen to the female flower and started removing the male flowers, pulling off the yellow petals and placing the male stamens into the female flower directly, which has had success. Although we won't have our pumpkins by Halloween like I was hoping, we have 2-3 pumpkins from one plant that are growing currently. I will plan to try again with pumpkins earlier next year. June/July are the best times to plant them from seed and I was a little late.

male pumpkin flower

Female pumpkin flower barely opened

Pumpkin growing several days after pollination, mid-Oct

Corn: My corn grew very short this season, which I learned that it is normal for fall corn to be shorter than spring corn. But, my corn is definitely shorter and less developed than it should be and I have blamed that on the poor soil (herbicides in our backyard dirt from an application before we purchased the home). Many of the corn stalks grew in a twisted way that would cause the leaves to trap the new growth and tassels until I broke it free. Basically, the growth was either stunted or deformed in most of the corn. Although a decent crop of corn looks unlikely, I have still done my best helping the pollen from the tassels reach the silks on the developing corn. It will be interesting to see in the next few weeks what has grown.

Early October 2016

Pole Green Beans: Shortly after my green bean plants sprouted, I discovered that my Russian tortoises like to eat the leaves and entire plants. I opted for a free way to keep them away by using firewood we had in our shed to create a garden barrier. The tortoises still manage to get into this area when they are especially hungry, so most of my green bean plants perished, but I still have several, one of which has grown very large. My grand plan of using my corn stalks to support my pole beans didn't work out as expected since my corn stalks stopped growing at about 3-4 feet tall. I found some bamboo support sticks that go up to 6 feet and are supporting 2 of the larger pole green bean plants. One plant has gotten so large that it is using 2 stalks of corn, the pole and is now reaching up to neighbor's tree nearby the garden for further support. The white flowers on the green bean plant are so beautiful and delicate and the bees are very active on them. Next year I would like to plant beans again because they are so easy to grow and I love how they look. I also like that, as legumes, they fix the balance of nitrogen in the soil for the surrounding plants.

Green Bean flower, growing up corn

Celery: I live on the same street as a local farmer (Brother Garcia). He has given me a lot of advice on gardening and he came by with many celery starts last week, so I planted as many as I could make room for in my garden bed by the carrots and sweet peas and also in a large pot and then shared some with a gardening friend. He says they will be ready for harvest in January and that they are heavy feeders once the roots are visibly established, and no blanching is needed for this variety.

Eggplant: My eggplant bushes have really taken off in the last week. They are beautiful and gaining strength to support fruit soon. I hope they are able to produce before the cold hits.

I also have cilantro, spinach, lettuce varieties, carrots, sweet peas all growing from seeds and have not harvested yet.
The basil plant has been flowering and very attractive to the bees and I have been sharing basil with anyone who will take some. I am going to try and dry some basil leaves before the cold of the winter. Then, I will attempt to keep the beautiful plant alive during the winter, but have been told by another gardener that basil will not live through the winter.

My marigolds are looking beautiful and hopefully helping reduce the garden bugs.
I was having an ant problem in my garden beds a few weeks ago, so I tried creating a borax/sugar ant bait and it seemed to reduce/eliminate the problem in the bed that I placed it in. I used a grape tomato container since it had perfect holes for them to access the bait. I learned how to make it from this youtube video.

July, August, September Progress & Failures

What would gardening be like with no failures? I seem to have a lot of them lately, but I won't let it get me down. A few lessons I have learned recently are 1. Don't store seeds in a hot garage. 2. My dirt in my yard has residue of herbicides.

The first lesson was an easy one to correct, although many of the seeds I planted did nothing and I will blame the hot storage location for most of that. What I am discovering about the dirt in my yard is less than ideal and I have little information about what it was sprayed with and how long I can expect to see deformed and stunted growth in my plants. From my research, when a harsh chemical is used to prevent weed growth (which I assume was completed before we moved in about a year ago), it can take a while, depending on weather and conditions, for it to no longer affect plant growth. Small deformed leaves are visible on my chaste tree, orange tree and corn stalks while I haven't been able to get a tomato plant to grow here after several different attempts. At this point, I am trying to improve the soil by adding organic materials and watering deeply to hopefully recover and improve soil quality. 

Corn seeds planted July 25th and soon after we had a large monsoon storm that had them under water for a few hours, very few germinated. (Half of what I planted were older seeds that had been stored in the garage, non of which germinated.)

Corn seeds planted Aug 8th, Aug 13th, Aug 16th (battling the birds who wanted to peck out each little seedling. Covered the area with netting, several reinforcements as birds would still get in, hung up CD's and flashing tape to deter them.

I planted seeds (all old) of bush green beans, cabbage, green onions, carrots, eggplant, squash, kohlrabi, tomatoes, cucumber and pumpkin all on August 15th. Of those plantings, the pumpkin, eggplant, corn and one squash plant are still living. 

Sept 1st, corn seedlings protected by netting

Sept 1st, Basil plant from Spring

Sept 1st, Marigold seedlings

Sept 1st, Pumpkin and sunflower seedlings protected from birds by netting, held up with paint stirring sticks.

 The photos below were taken today, Sept 13th. The corn looked normal when it was small, but as it has grown it has started twisting and curling, some stalks even pointing to the side instead of upward. I will watch and wait to see what it does and how it produces. 

I got an idea from an online gardener to plant pole green beans alongside the corn since legumes are nitrogen fixing and corn supplies a growing support for the beans. The green bean seeds were planted on Sept 3rd and are growing great. 

I have enhanced the soil with worm castings and a balanced granular fertilizer.
I pulled out the cantaloupe vines I had kept alive all summer since they were not producing any fruit. I appreciated the green and yellow they supplied for the summer months.

Sept 13th, Corn stalk, deformed and curly tips. Green bean on left.

Sept 13th, Green Bean planted by corn

Sept 13th, Pumpkin and sunflower

Sept 13th, Strawberries planted back in May, hoping they will start flowering now. I pinched off it's flowers all summer.

Last week I sewed cilantro and today I sewed lettuce (a variety) and spinach in the garden bed with my beautiful basil. 

Slow Seeds

I am not sure exactly why the seeds I planted weeks ago haven't made too much progress yet. There are 6 or 7 corn seedlings popping up just in the last few days, but no zucchini, watermelon or tomatoes yet (possibly due to cat and bird problems.) Which brings me to another point. The Cat Scat plant that I purchased with high hopes has let me down. The cats in my neighborhood must like the smell instead of being repelled by it because it seems that the digging and pooping has actually increased since placing that plant there.

We'll see what progress comes with the seeds this coming week. I am glad that I purchased the tomato and strawberry plants so I can have a little success this season. I caged the 3 tomato plants this past week and they all look healthy.

Playing in the Dirt

Yesterday I had some time, just me and the dirt. I loved it and accomplished some planting too. 

I had only planned on planting corn and tomatoes, but I couldn't help myself once I started looking through all my seeds. So, here's what I planted and let's hope that the weather stays as beautiful as it is right now for the sake of happy growing seeds.

Sweet Corn, Watermelon, Roma Tomatoes, Zucchini, Cherry Tomatoes

 This is my first time planting on rows like this. I planted the corn and the watermelon on these rows and I plan to use the little dip in the middle to help deep water once the plants are tall. We'll see if it has benefits.

Corn planting

My garden today

I even indulged in a delicious snack, a juicy sweet pea. It's only one of two harvested from the winter growing season. I'll take what I get with sweet peas.

Sweet pea vines are so beautiful with their delicate white flowers. They make it all worth it, even with a little crop. 

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.

Better

I picked another cob of corn today and it looks much better than the first. It had no bugs and is also very sweet.

I also recieved some guidance from a friend and more experienced gardener. He said that the pollination process of the corn cobs mostly depends on wind to allow the dust and particles from the tassels to fall down on to the silks of the developing cobs. So, that fertilization process is necessary for the kernels to form correctly. It is ok to help this process along too, if necessary.

Funky Corn

What is wrong with my corn? It is missing rows of kernels and it also had a little caterpillar/worm eating it inside. How dissapointing!

  

Here's how the other vegies are doing so far.

Peas

Lettuce



Bush Beans

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.

GROWTH

Gets me all giddy inside when I see that my seeds are doing what they know best.

CUCUMBER:

CORN:

A cat still got into my young growing corn to do its business, even though I have the netting over it. Only one of the growing corn seedlings was ruined. It has been windy the past week, so it is hard to keep the netting where it belongs. I will tie it down better to avoid this in the future.


Compost CANTELOUPE plant is looking healthy. Still battling the squash bugs.