Garden Update, July 26, 2022

 I know I recently posted a garden update, but we've gotten a warm weather streak here in western Washington state (zone 8b) and I've had some exciting things happen in the garden, as well as things that make me want to buy a BB gun.

First off, I have a disclaimer to make. We had some really wacky weather in western Washington state this spring and early summer. We had a late snow in  April, as well. That is something that never happens until now. Then, I got a hold of some subpar garden soil for my containers and raised beds. I've been fighting an uphill battle. This is also the very first year that I've ever grown tomatoes, peppers, cucurbits, etc. from seed. I've grown lettuce, nasturtiums, beans, peas, radishes...those types of things...from seed, but I've never grown a tomato from a seed. So, you'll have to excuse my utter excitement at seeing that little seeds that I started on March 1st setting fruit.

So, let's take a stroll, shall we?

The first thing I want to show you are my grapes. I used to have beautiful, lush grape vines. I had to leave them behind when we moved here. I did some trading and obtained 5 Concord grape cuttings. Bob took on the job of getting them to root. I think he's done an amazing job of that. All 5 took root and have survived. I found someone selling 2 year old grape cuttings on Facebook Marketplace so we bought one from that person, as well, to make an even half dozen. The one that we just bought is a green table grape variety.

You can definitely tell the 2 year old one from the rest. 

Now, bear with me as I try to remember which is which on these tomatoes. I tried to upload in order of how they go in the garden. I have a system that works for me, as far as remembering what is planted where, but I am human and I do tend to screw it up from time to time.
The first photo are a couple of Black Krim babies. Black Krim are my all-time favorite as far as taste goes. I have yet to find a tomato that can beat them in flavor. I didn't grow them for a few years and we really regretted that. I will not be without a Krim in my garden from here on out. We grow these for eating fresh.

These are a couple of Bonny Best. I wanted to grow Bonny Best because, from what I've read, it's a good all around canning tomato. That's what I mainly want to concentrate on growing.
Don't get me wrong, I still want to grow some fun varieties, but the majority of what I grow, from now on, will be for preserving.

This is a Julia Child. I've wanted to grow this variety for as long as I can remember. I bought the seeds from Kim Lund. You can find her in Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous. Just give her a shout out. She's got a ton of great stuff for sale!

These are one of my few cherry sized variety and the only tomato plant that I bought from the store this year. This is called Isis Candy Cherry. It's supposed to be super sweet. I wanted to grow a garden snack tomato plant this year and this fit the bill nicely.

You can see how stunted these plants are. I don't really care how big they get as long as they continue to produce. I still have around 130 varieties that I can start for next year. It's all good!

These are a really cool looking variety called Cream Sausage. They are a paste tomato and, when ripe, they are a white variety. I've never grown a white tomato before, so we'll see how these turn out. If they are too weird, I'll just add them into the mix with the red varieties that I have. These are a determinate variety.
With tomatoes, there are indeterminate varieties. Those are the plants that will continue to grow all season long and continue to set fruit until the frost kills it in the fall. Indeterminate varieties can grow 12-15 feet tall if you let them.
Then you have determinate varieties. Determinates grow only so tall, usually about 3 or 4 feet, and they set all their fruit at about the time so that it all ripens within a week or so. These varieties are really good for someone who grows in containers. They may need a bit of support, but a small tomato cage will do the trick for these.
Lastly, we have dwarf varieties. Those are self explanatory. They are short. They are dwarfs. 'Nuff said. If you're interested in dwarf varieties, tag Ken Fry in Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous. He's got some pretty cool ones.

Here is a cluster of Cream Sausage. I can't wait to see these white tomatoes fully ripe. I've never grown a white variety.

I have 5 Opalka plants. Opalka is a great tomato for canning. I think that I have fruit set on 3 out of the 5 so far. Go Opalka!! They are a red canning tomato.

This is an indeterminate variety called Sart Roloise. I've wanted to grow this since the very first time I saw a photo of them. This tomato is a blue and white variety. I don't know how it tastes. I don't really care how it tastes. It's a stunning looking tomato. The photo on the Baker Creek website shows a tomato that is half white and half blue. 

Note: blue tomatoes aren't really blue. They are just really, really dark. It's from the anthocyanin content in them. Anthocyanin is an antioxidant. I don't tend to favor their taste like I do with a black variety of tomato. I grow these for the visual. I will eat them, though. Never fear. 

This is a fasciated bloom. These can happen for a number of reasons: genetics, bacteria/fungal/viral problems, the environment or herbicides can cause this to happen. We can toss one of those reasons out right now and that would be the bacteria/fungal/viral problem. If I had any one of those 3 issues, I'd have other plants showing signs of it. I am leaning more toward genetics or environmental. I don't think it's herbicidal because of two reasons. #1: I don't use it and #2: the other plants aren't doing this. 

Anyhow, another way to describe a fasciated bloom is a fused bloom. That means that 2 or more blooms are growing together, much in the way of Siamese twins. I'll have a misshaped tomato. Since this is a variety that I'm growing out for looks, I'm curious to see what this bloom will turn out like, so I'm not going to pull it off. I'll just let it grow.

This is a Bulls Heart Red. This is another of my canning tomatoes. I got the seeds from Ukraine.

This is another tomato baby on the Bulls Heart Red. It's the same plant as above.

These are a new variety that I hadn't heard of before this year. They are called Prairie Fire. They are supposed to be red streaked with yellow. I'm going to use them for canning. At least, I hope they taste good enough to can up. They are plum shaped and those usually indicate a decent paste/sauce tomato.

 

If I remember correctly, this is another one of my Opalka plants.

More Opalkas. I'm really liking what I see so far with this variety.

These are my tomatillo plants. I started 2 from seed and I bought 2 at the farmers market because I wasn't sure if the 2 I started would grow. I cannot tell which is which.

Here is my little volunteer. Now, I cannot claim any great achievements with this as it came up through the bark dust and gravel. We didn't put either of those down. We're just letting it grow.

Side view of the volunteer.

I'm not gonna lie. My eggplants look absolutely horrendous. I might get a fruit or two from them.

This is because I had to hold them in the greenhouse for so long because of our wacky, rainy weather in June.

This Casper variety looks better than the other 3, but that's not saying much.

The rhubarbs are looking spectacular, though. They don't mind cool, rainy weather and they don't mind hot, sunny weather, either.

These are Tongues of Fire bush beans. They are a borlotto type of bean. I've grown borlottos before and we rather enjoyed them.

The damn deer zapped my Dollar Store bean bed. They didn't eat the beans, just the leaves off of the plants.

Tanya's Pink Pod bush beans and a mixed pot of nasturtiums. The nasturtiums are the Alaska variety and I have both salmon colored and red colored planted in there. I haven't seen a flower bud yet.

These are Scarlet Runner beans that I planted to go up over the trellis. The chipmunk and birds got roughly half of the seeds. They are really pretty, though.

They are starting to climb.

When I thinned out my lettuces, I just threw the ones that I pulled down onto the ground in hopes that the wild rabbits would eat them. They missed a couple. These decided to grow in the gravel. I wish the deer would have ate these and left my beans alone.

Here's the other lettuce plant. These are called Bronze Beauty. I got the seeds a few years ago (in 2020) from Baker Creek.

My biggest raised bed is the one that I used for pole beans. They are growing just fine in there for the most part. We put bird netting over this to keep the critters out. We did catch a chipmunk in the net. Bob said he just laid there quietly until Bob got him untangled and then he proceeded to tell Bob off. He hasn't been back in there.

The zucchini plant that I bought from Home Depot is growing. It doesn't look all that great, but it's blooming. So much for that old Washington adage that if you grow one zucchini plant, the entire neighborhood has zucchini, huh?

It looks like my little hybrid cucumber plants might be trying to grab a hold of their trellis. I just don't see myself having enough cucumbers this year to make pickles. I may just buy some at the farmers market and make up some relish and call it good. 

Now onto my happy spot in my garden. I'll give you all 3 guesses as to why I say that, but you won't need them.

We're getting ready to harvest one of them. I need to figure out if I want to make another batch of sauerkraut or not.

This will be the first cabbage to sacrifice itself. I've never grown such a good looking specimen before! I mean...look at that thing! It's picture perfect!

I feel like Tom Hanks in that movie Castaway when he made his first fire!

Now, let's head into the greenhouse. This is another spot that I just am in awe of how it's growing in there. I had no expectations, whatsoever, because the stuff I put in there does not grow here.
This is a Minnesota Midget cantaloupe.

I grew cucamelons for the first time last year. I got like 3 little cucamelons off the plant. I have 4 going in this pot. I hope it produces. I need to start these much earlier next year, I think.

I cannot believe it but I have blooms on my Tigger melon. I got the seeds from Baker Creek. This is one of those things that I think I need to start much earlier than I did.

These are the loofah gourds that I have growing. Being a cucurbit, they do not like to have their leaves wet which makes them a prime candidate for growing in the greenhouse.

And, to show for replicating those conditions, my Kajari melons are blooming.

 

Another plant that isn't conducive to growing in our rainy climate here in western Washington state is okra. Okra loves hot conditions. It is thriving in my greenhouse. I have 2 varieties growing. The above photo is Okinawa Pink. 

This is the other variety that I have is called Jing Orange. If any of you have grown okra before, let me know in the comments below, if those are baby okra or not. 

This is an interesting specimen that would never grow here in our Washington climate. These are my Siamese bitter melon. 

Rounding out my garden tour this morning, I'd like to show you my Lettuce Leaf basil. This basil variety will always have a spot in my garden. The leaves are huge.

This is the orange thyme that I started from seed. The variety is called Orangelo and I got the seeds from Baker Creek.

Finishing up my garden tour this morning, I'll show you my two other favorite basils. The green one is called African Nunum basil (Baker Creek) and the other is also a Baker Creek variety called Persian. I never realized how easy it was to grow basil from seed. I'll never buy another starter plant.

Thanks for taking a stroll with me through the garden this morning. I hope you enjoyed it.

Beginning Of June Garden Update

 I've been feeling frustrated. Our weather in southwest Washington state has been so weird this spring. Some of what I seeded out is growing excellent. Other things, not so much. I think that, from now on, I'll start lettuce seeds under the grow lights to give them a head start. Well, I will after we can keep our pesky chipmunk out of stuff.
Anyhow, let's go on a garden tour, shall we?

We'll be hauling in our final (we hope) yard of soil and finishing things off. I'm planning on growing Scarlet Runner Beans in one pot and Chinese Red Noodle Beans in the other pot. They can share the trellis. I think it will make a nice arch heading into the garden. I'm going to put my peppers into little square pots (3 gallon) and I'll line those up on the deck. I'm going to cover them with netting to keep that chipmunk out. We named the little rodent. We call him Squirt. He loves to vex the dogs and cats. I'm still trying to figure out where a good place to put up 2 fence panels so that I can plant my tomatoes on them. We bought T-posts to anchor them in. The panels are 6-foot panels, so they will work perfect. I'll use the plastic clips that I bought last year.

I have to give credit where credit is due. If it wasn't for Bob, I wouldn't have this garden at all. Today, he spread 5-1/2 cubit feet of mushroom compost over our newest raised bed. It's roughly 2.5' x 25'. He ran shrog netting down the middle. We plant on planting out using the square foot method. That will allow for 50 types of pole beans...if I have that many varieties. I plan on growing a lot of dried beans to preserve for long term food storage.
We'll have this bed planted out within the next day or two.

This is the view looking out where we plan on building our second greenhouse. There are concrete blocks with rebar sticking up, so it's perfect for a hoop house.

I think these are my most favorite violas to date. I love this color. I'll wind up planting these out into the trellis garden so that they can continue to grow.

This is my spearmint plant. This bulk soil that we are buying is not the most optimal, but I have to work with what's available. Thankfully, the bulk soil place has mushroom compost for $1 per bag.

These Night Sky petunias are my favorite. There are 3 varieties. I have the purple this year.

These were potatoes that I planted last year. I paid a ridiculous price for them because finding seed potatoes was like finding a needle in a haystack. I think I spent $10 for 1 pound of them. Anyhow, I got irate with Bob because he didn't want to harvest them. I feel guilty for that now because my potatoes multiplied.

Here is my potato bed. I planted around 15 pounds of seed potatoes in there and I'm growing them, for the most part, in straw.

 

 

All my peas in a row. The tendril peas are the largest and they are at either end. This is a shrog netting trellis. There are 10 different types of peas here. All of them are heirloom/OP varieties.

Next year, we'll have a permanent place for these Jerusalem artichokes. This will be their 3rd year in the pot. It's too late to plant them out now, so we'll have to do that this fall instead. I have chives right next to them. There's a few rose bushes in the back that need to go into the ground, too.

I made a judgement call and pulled all the kale out of this raised bed. It wasn't growing. It wasn't doing much of anything. I decided to use the space for something more productive. I bought a few types of Dollar Store seeds before they went up to the Buck & A Quarter store. There were 3 types of beans and they were all bush beans. I planted this bed out. I'm going to use those for green beans and I'm not saving seeds, so I don't care if they aren't separated. They all germinated and they are all growing.

 I still may axe all this lettuce. I drastically thinned the bed, but it still seems to be struggling. I'll let it go a while longer before I send it to the compost bin.

My idea for growing potatoes is working well. We'll be getting another bale of straw to finish filling it up.

This is my biggest raised bed. I planted out cabbage and broccoli from starter plants that I bought. They are growing great!

My broccoli is starting to flower. I'm excited about this. I only ever grew broccoli, successfully, one other time.

The other end of the bed got planted out with lettuce plants that I purchased, a dwarf pea variety called Tom Thumb, beets, radishes here and there and I think I planted some rare types of carrot seeds that originated from India.

I bought 25 slips of Walla Walla sweet onions for the bargain basement price of $2.99. If I would have known that they grew this well, I'd have bought more. The only bad thing about Walla Walla onions is that they don't store all that well. They are better eaten fresh.

Here's my biggest raised bed looking back toward the chicken coop, cat corral and the pig pen.

We got our first ripe strawberries. I'm pretty jazzed about that. I didn't grow them before because it would take up too much room, in my containers and raised beds, to grow enough strawberries to be able to make anything with. When we moved up here, they were already established and growing. There's enough here to make whatever we want, strawberry-wise. Jam, syrup and a fresh strawberry pie or three. I'll have plenty.

I have soooo many strawberry plants.

I will be perfectly honest here in saying that we didn't get to eat these. I forget that I had set them on the log and that chipmunk, Squirt, got them. He's opportunistic. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Here's Bob in front of just one part of my strawberry bed.

We got some cuttings for figs. We're not sure if they all took after we dipped them into rooting hormone, but, for sure, one did. I already have one planted, so this is cool.

Bob broke off a sweet potato slip, so he dipped it into rooting hormone. This is his project. I'm not sure where he plans on planting it, but if he wants to grow a sweet potato, who am I to say no?

I think these are a couple of the more sad peppers who want to get out of the greenhouse.

Cucurbits are something that I've never started from seed before. I don't think I could ever buy starter plants for them again after this year. I didn't even have to put them under a light. I just put them into the greenhouse.

I think this is an Iran squash plant. This variety of squash is supposed to be able to be stored for very long term. Someone, who reviewed the seed on Baker Creek's website, said that they had one in their laundry room for 3 years and it was still good to eat. We'll see. It's growing excellent!

This is a Pineapple squash. This can be eaten young and it's like a summer squash. You can let it go and it will get a hard rind like a winter squash. I'm all about multi-purpose!

All the cucurbits are doing so well! I am very pleased with this experiment!

I'm also going to grow okra in the greenhouse this year. I have an orange variety, from Baker Creek, called Jing Orange. I planted 9 seeds and I think I have 8 plants. I also got  my hands on some of Baker Creek's Okinawa Pink okra. Again, I planted 9 seeds and I'll be having myself some jazzy okra this year! If it grows well in the greenhouse, I'll be sure to measure out a narrow bed for them down the side of the new greenhouse. I really like okra. Bob, not so much.
Now ask me if I care.
I don't.
I'll eat ALL the okra!

This is the Jing Orange okra variety. It's really pretty. I've never attempted to grow okra before.

These tomatoes really want to be set free. Outside. They want to grow. They need more room than a simple Solo cup. They need to get into the grow bags and on the trellis.

I have several varieties. From Yamali Blue to Cascade Lava to Pink Fang to Opalka. I even have an obscure variety that Tomato Jim Wyant tells me will produce good sauce tomatoes. It's called Red Dumplin Winner Pink. Jim knows tomatoes. I'll take his word for it. I have 2 plants of the RDWP and they are my biggest, most robust plants. I'm pretty impressed with the seeds I got from Jim.

I'm keeping one of these and then the rest shall go onto their new home elsewhere. Two are a strain called Rainbow Belts. The one I'm keeping is a strain called Gusher. The one I'm keeping was a mother plant. I'm letting her go to flower. Her life cycle is coming to an end.

Here are some other tomato starts that I have. One I bought. It's my only cherry tomato variety this year. It's an heirloom variety called Isis Candy Cherry. The other 4 are starts that I got from a friend. There's 2 Black Krim, a Purple Russian and a Bonny Best. They are all heirlooms, too. I have 3 eggplant there, too. I bought the starter plants because Squirt (the chipmunk) decided that he wanted to dine on my baby eggplants. They never stood a chance.

When these starter plants came to us, they were really small. We've been feeding them micro-nutrients that we feed to the cannabis plant. I think they like it.

This squash is a variety that I searched high and low for before I found a lady, in Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous, who had the seeds available. I'm a sucker for Native American varieties of heirloom vegetables.

Another view of how well my cucurbits are doing.

This pepper variety is Najarano. It's a sweet pepper variety.

These are my paprika peppers. They are thriving!

Another random pepper plant.

I seeded in a whole bunch of different types of basil. I'm going to have a lot of basil. I'm hoping my sister will take some of this basil off my hands.

The flood table is full. Those 2 Rainbow Belts will be headed toward their new home soon.

I have no idea what sort of plant this is. Not a clue. It's not one that I would have ever bought for myself. If anyone knows what this is, tell me in the comments.

These are honey berries. I was given 3 mature bushes. They are going CRAZY! Again, does anyone know what you can do with honey berries? Let me know in the comments.

I'm not sure what these remind me of. I don't know how they taste, either.

This is a black raspberry...or so I was told. I was told that the person bought it because it was supposed to be a golden raspberry, but it wasn't. It was black. I'll take any color of raspberry. I don't really care what color it is.

My Egyptian Walking Onions are starting to set their bulbils. I've got figure out which small wooden bed I want to dedicate to them.

I love these onions. They are one of those things that you plant once and never worry about planting again. Every couple of years, you'll want to refresh the bulbs by pulling them all out and replanting some baby ones. The older bulbs, my sister tells me, make fantastic boiler onions.

They can take abuse, as well. As a matter of fact, the less you fuss with these onions, the better they like it.

We bought some flowers a while back and they never got planted into what we intended for them. No matter. We put them down in the terrace garden...or Bob did. I saw a baby snake in there. I won't touch foot in there until next winter.

Where snakes are, I'm not.
The end.

So, I'm planning on putting dwarf corn in the pool (like last year), Cucumbers in the small metal bed, the other squash and vines in the cinder block bed and beans in the long bed with the shrog netting in the middle of it. I'll keep Kajari melons, okra, cucamelons and luffa gourds in the greenhouse.

Thanks for taking the tour with me.