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. 

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. 

Growth Since Seed Planting

Sunflowers (planted seeds on October 10th)

Lettuce and Spinach (seeds planted Oct 11th), yellow squash and zucchini (seeds planted Sept 17th):

Cilantro and cherry tomato (seeds planted Sept 22):

Roma tomato and Snap Pea vines (seeds planted Sept 22nd and additional peas on Oct 11th)

The weather has been pretty chilly in the last few days due to a cold front, but hopefully these plants can still keep growing enough to produce before the winter cold comes.