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.

Gardening Group Meeting #2

We held our second gardening group meeting this past Saturday!

You can view a summary of what we covered HERE.

We detailed several popular crops and you can view the information on planting, nutritional needs, pollinating and watering of tomatoes, green onions, garlic, lettuce, kale, spinach, herbs and zucchini HERE.

And in case you need our desert planting calendar again, you can view that HERE.

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.

What's This?

Apparently there is more to my cantaloupe plant than I thought. I always found it so interesting how there were two different types of leaves on the vine and it often made me question if it really was a cantaloupe vine. Well, I think I have found out why there are two types of leaves... because there are two types of vines growing right beside (and intertwined with) eachother. The past week I was watching as this odd looking melon started to form. It looks like a squash and that is because it IS a squash. Today I finally went through all the large leaves to find the base of each plant and they are about 4 inches from eachother. So, I have a cantaloupe plant and some sort of squash plant as a bonus!

But, what kind of squash is it??? I haven't figured that out yet.

Squash and Canteloupe fruits growing side by side.



The best-looking cantaloupe growing on the vine.

 

I found a great website today about how to get rid of squash bugs using dish soap mixed with water. IT WORKS and oh how gratifying to watch them die!
http://www.elperfecto.com/2010/06/25/squash-bugs-what-are-they-and-how-to-get-rid-of-them/

Tomatoes Galore

This past week...
The peas are all fried by the hot sun. I will plant peas in the fall again.
The corn plants grew tassels which hopefully means we will have corn growing soon. The plants are not getting much taller and look dry most the time although I water them generously.
The early-planted carrots (planted 2/16) are turning bitter. They have not reached full grown size, but the flavor is no longer sweet as it was about a month ago.

Today...
Lots of red cherry tomatoes ready to eat. They are delicious! (see photo above)
I picked 4 carrots from the batch planted on 3/6 and they are larger and sweeter than those planted weeks before. (see photo above)
The yellow squash I planted was not what I expected and is small, dense and has large seeds that look like pumpkin seeds. I cut some open to eat with dinner a week ago and they were not desirable and smelled like pumpkins. I guess that was the wrong type of squash.
Zucchinis are growing until about 3 inches and then withering away. I don't know why, but will keep trying to help the plant be happy so maybe we will get something good out of it.

I look forward to fall planting to have a fresh start and hopefully more rewarding results.

Degrees

The heat finally hit this past week and my plants are feeling it. This morning, my normal routine was interupted so I didn't get out to water the garden until about 11am. The yellow squash and zuchini plants looked the most upset, but all the plants were sagging and looking parched by that time of day. This weekend is threatening us with 106, 108 and 109 degree temperatures, so I think it is time to water more and provide some shade for the plants in the hottest times of day to extend their lives. I will remove the shade when the sun begins to go down to allow the plants to get sunlight in the cooler morning hours of the following day.

Growth

I thoroughly enjoy looking closely at each one of my plants once in a while. It is wonderful to see the details of these amazing plants. Here are some of my observations from today.


I have a random plant growing from my compost. I love random plants, it's like a bonus surprise that just gets me excited to see what it will become. I think it is a potato plant, which is funny to me because I have researched about planting potatoes and all the sites make it sound like such a hard task. If it is a potato plant, I hope I get something from it, but my compost will have to sacrifice being cultivated for a while.
Here is my surprise plant:

The cilantro is blooming and is not producing the cilantro leaves as much any more. I have picked off the flowers many times to try to get the plant to focus on the leaves that I desire, but it seems the flowers are winning. Cilantro flowers can be dried and create coriander, but I would rather have a supply of fresh cilantro leaves.


Here is the progress of the yellow squash. They are looking great. I don't see any zucchini growing on that plant though.

Lots and lots of growing cherry tomatoes! None are growing on the better boy tomato plant yet.

I plucked a carrot because my curiosity got the best of me. They are not fully grown but the aroma and flavor are wonderful!

The strawberry plants took several weeks off without any blooms or fruit. In the last few days, there are two white blooms on one of the plants, so we should see strawberries again soon.

One pea plant is still thriving, the others fried in the heat. I eat about one pea pod per week from the other and they are sweet and delicious.

The corn is getting taller and looks the same as the last several weeks. It is 4 1/2 blocks tall (measured using the block wall behind the two rows).

I fertilized the garden today with Arizona's Best All Purpose fertilizer. I also fertilized the citrus trees.

Today

Today I went and looked through my plants. I love to see how much they are growing.
The peas are getting too hot and seem to be frying in the sun. I don't think they will last much longer. I have eaten about 4-5 pods of yummy peas off them, right there in the garden. I am pretty sure peas should be planted in the fall.
The cherry tomatoes are forming and it looks like we should have plenty to eat in the next few weeks. The plants are looking healthy and I have most of them supported by tomato cages.
The corn looks just about the same as it has, just taller.
The cilantro has a wonderful aroma and taste and is ready to be used whenever it is needed in my kitchen. It is not as dark green as store-bought cilantro and has light green speckles. It has not flowered yet, which is when coriander is created.
Carrots have beautiful green leafy tops and I am waiting to see the carrot tops poking up to indicate they are ready for crunching. They should be ready around 65-75 days from planting, which would be in the next month.
Only one better boy tomato plant survived out of four, so I hope that it produces some juicy tomatoes for us. I don't see any growing so far, but the plant looks healthy.
The yellow crookneck and zucchini squash plants are going great, flowering and 2-3 inch vegetables growing below the flowers on the yellow squash plants. I just learned that they often need help pollinating, so I will be working the bees' shift tomorrow morning. To pollinate them, I will take a small stick and get yellow pollen from the male flowers and share it with the lady flowers (those with squash growing).
Bell pepper plants did not grow very well. Some are only 2-3 inches tall, while one reached about 4-5 inches. I doubt anything will happen with those guys.

What I have growing

Carrots

Cherry tomato

Cillantro

Citrus (orange, grapefruit & tangerine)

Corn

Bell Peppers (variety)

Better Boy Hybrid Tomato

Mint

Strawberries

Sweet Peas

Yellow Squash

Zuccini

The beginning

We have one grapefruit, one tangerine and 3 orange trees in our backyard.

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STRAWBERRIES! Seeing them brings me happiness. And my little girl loves them too. Creation of deliciousness.
Strawberry plants transplanted in early 2010, photo April 14th 2010.

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I had to replant many plants after cats and birds attacked my planted seeds. They wiped out my young growing corn and the seeds of all the zuccini, yellow squash, cantelope, watermelon and cuccumbers. If they only could understand how hard I worked to get it all ready just in the nik of time! Anyway, I really want a harvest, so I picked up some plants at home depot to make myself feel better about my losses.
I replanted corn, although it was a little late in the season, and I bought some netting and set it up using four stakes that we had lying around and some string. It was a great solution to the pooping cat and pecking bird problems.

My Garden on March 31st 2010