Jason Raven

Gardening Update - 29 May 2014

I made two big mistakes with my tomatoes last year.

1) I neglected to protect the first wave of seedlings from a frost and lost them all

2) I didn't put cages over them soon enough.

I rectified #2 this year by caging my seedlings as soon as I planted them. However, when presented with a likely frost last night, the extra height made covering them a little harder. I could have pulled the cages, but I'm trying to minimize the number of holes I poke in the fabric at the bottom of my boxes. Luckily, I was able to scrounge enough old bed sheets and one old grill cover to get it done.

Here's a view from the other side, with a good view of the garlic.

I pulled off all the covers and everything seems to have survived. Hopefully, that's the last frost I have to worry about until fall.

Garden 2013 wrap-up

Today was the day I switched modes from Gathering to Hunting. I couldn't take my daughter out on Youth Day because of my firefighter training, but the regular deer hunting season starts next Saturday. Today, I took down the vertical frames and pulled the frost-bitten tomatoes, peppers, etc... All that remains now are beets, swiss chard, carrots, turnips and rutabagas.

I planted garlic today. This bed is three rows of Music to the left and a row of Russian Red on the right:

Last year, I only did 6 squares of garlic with about 9 bulbs each. Most of them didn't get very big, so I'm going to space them out more this year. This bed has 69 cloves planted. I did a second bed of nothing but garlic in the foreground here. This one is 5 squares of Music and then the rest is White garlic from my fire-fightin' farmer pal Justin Deri. 64 cloves in this bed, 133 in total.

Still some beets and chard in this one, far bed had just peppers until this morning:

Lots of chard here and way too many turnips in the farther box. Justin asked me what lessons I had learned from my 2013 experiences, and this is the only one that I've come up with so far: fewer turnips. I might double the number of rutabagas. They're easy to hide in the mashed potatoes and the kids don't even notice.

Lastly, my deep boxes. Still a lot of carrots. I guess this is another change I'm going to make next year. We got some mixed color carrots and the white ones were so woody and bland that I would never consider growing them again. I'll stick with orange from here on out.

I finally dug up the rest of the potatoes from the near box and the yield was OK (better than I expected) considering how the plants had been prematurely wiped out. Red pontiacs, Kennebecs and a few tiny russets:

I am about a month into my Firefighter 1 & 2 training. Yesterday, we spent over 8 hours on ladders. Here are some photos that I took from the top of Cumberland's ladder 107:

And we have done a lot of practice on 24 and 28 foot extension ladders, but this was the first time most of us had worked with a big ol' 40 foot Bangor ladder:

 

Gardening Update - 22 July 2013

Here's where things stand in the garden as we head into the last week of July...

The carrots are still going strong and looking good:

The potatoes aren't looking great any more. I don't know if it's lack of water and/or too much heat or what, but one particular row has had their plants just about wither away. The three other varieties have significant browning, too.

The radishes have been pulled and replaced with swiss chard (left-side), which is just starting to sprout. Angela has had some lettuce and the first batch of swiss chard is ready to be eaten any time. The beets and green onions are moving along slowly.

The turnips have exploded in the last couple weeks and they are shading out some of the rutabagas (back row) that didn't get off to a fast start. It's also starting to impede the butternut squash (front row), which is growing at a glacial pace. 

The biggest growth in the past couple of weeks has been the sugar pie pumpkins. The pepper plants are just not getting any bigger.

We didn't get a very big head off of this one broccoli in the front before it started to flower, but it was something. The other two are way behind it. I've planted purple basil in amongst the decimated green variety on the left. The golden beets in front are just about ready.

My biggest regret of the season (so far). I dragged my feet getting cages and by the time I did, almost all of the tomato plants were too big to force in without damaging them. So... they're just kind of splayed all over the place. Lots of fruit, though, and some of the cherries are turning red.

I pulled the sugar snap peas this past weekend because they had gotten so tall that they fell over and covered everything else. They were just about done anyway, so I replanted and should get more in September. In the meantime, the rest of E's garden will benefit from the extra sunlight. We pulled some fennel and put in a potato soup already. Hopefully that broccoli head gets a little bigger before it starts flowering, too. 

I also pulled L's peas and replanted. I pleaded with her to let me replace them with sugar snaps, but she wouldn't budge. Her basil has done ok despite the nocturnal predation and is due to explode. I filled in her basil gaps with some purple basil last week.

The garlic is browning, but still hanging in there. The tomatoes (which I managed to cage) have tripled in size in the past two weeks and this chard is looking good.

 

Night Gardening - Part 4

This is getting ridiculous... I went out at around 10pm last night and started at the basil end of the garden. By the time I had worked my way to the potatoes, I had popped about 160 beetles into my Power Ade bottle of death. On a whim, I decided to back and check the basil again and found a bunch more! Total collected: 176. 

I thought that it might be wise to go out again later, so I tried again at 11:30pm and I grabbed another 68. Total for the evening: 244! I even grabbed a few out of mid-air and few that landed right on my shirt.

Regarding technique... I was using a flashlight the first few nights, but it was awkward. I use a headlamp now and it's much easier having two hands available. The downside... those bugs that are drawn to the light and end up hitting me in the face. I'd be wearing safety goggles if I wasn't wearing my glasses.

Night Gardening - Part 3

I knew it was too good to be true. My Asiatic Garden Beetle harvest nearly tripled last night to 62. I also plucked a dozen or so Japanese Beetles, a leaf covered with newly hatched potato beetles and a few cabbage worms. During my morning watering, I found 5 good-sized potato beetle larvae, too. 

I also found this fellow amongst the turnips. I could use a couple dozen more of them!

Here's an example of what I was talking about with the beetles picking "the bones" clean on an already decimated basil:

I'm going to plant some more basil next to these defoliated decoys today and hope that the invasion has passed by the time they come up. 

I also need to put something in the 4 now-empty radish squares. Maybe swiss chard? I'm also going to pull the bolted spinach (which has been another beetle decoy for the past couple weeks) and plant something else there. 

Night Gardening - Part 2

Here is one of my poor devastated basil.

You might wonder why I haven't pulled it, but the crazy thing is... I would come out at night and find 3 or 4 beetles stuck to one of these basil skeletons. So they're providing a distraction to the beasts, if nothing else.

Speaking of... I plucked 215 of them two nights ago! Last night, I could only find 21. It was chillier and drier, though, so I'm not claiming victory yet. 

In other pest news, I think I've weathered the potato beetle storm. I very rarely see any of them or their larvae at this point and the plants are going strong.

Night Gardening

For the past three nights, I have been going out after dark with a flashlight and harvesting Asiatic Garden Beetles. Last night, I only found and killed around 85, so I'm slowly making progress after two nights in the triple digits. I'll be happy if I only find 50 tonight...

Gardening Update - 5 July 2013

It has been three weeks since the last update and there has been some very noticeable progress in the garden! 

Carrots:

Potatoes. These have really taken off. I have killed a bunch of potato beetles and hadn't seen any for over a week, but this morning there were a few more that I had to dispose of. Unfortunately, there were also several dozen larva that had hatched and had to be squished. 

A bunch of these radishes have bolted, but I have been pulling them and making quick pickles as I have time. The first batch were good, but a little too sweet and Angela thought they smelled like feet and wouldn't even try them. I tried a different recipe for my second batch and they were wayyyyy too vinegary and gross. I keep adding sugar to the brine n hopes of fixing them and making them edible. The beets are coming along and I guess the scallions are, too.

These butternut squash along the top edge are growing incredibly slowly - FAR more slowly than their pumpkin neighbors. The turnips (9 per square) and rutabagas (4 per square along the bottom edge) are looking good.

The sugar pie pumpkins are going great and the pepper plants are tiny, but yielding some peppers. I had to untangle one pepper that was getting strangled by a pumpkin vine last night:

 

I need to find a new spinach variety, because these ones continue to disappoint. Some of them bolted before I got a single leaf off them. The broccoli plants are getting large and you can barely see some basil coming in behind them. Those are golden beets to the left.

The roma and cherry tomatoes are taking off. I need to get some cages on these babies soon...

E's sugar snap and snow peas are doing great. So is the fennel and soy beans (on the right). Even the broccoli looks good. All is well here.

L's green arrow peas aren't growing as tall, but are also doing well. Her basil is due to explode soon, which will be nice. I went out with a flashlight a couple of nights ago and picked off a half-dozen brown beetles. Hopefully, that will curtail the setback I experienced last year when I had closer to 30 of them and they seriously delayed the basil harvest.

Last, but not least... the garlic. I have harvested all of the scapes. We grilled a few, I put a few in my sriracha venison chili, and turned the rest into pesto along with some of the spinach and basil that I pulled from the garden. By the way... if you love pesto but don't like paying $20/pound for pine nuts, pumpkin seeds make a pretty good substitution. Buy them in the bulk bins at the grocery store and get them shelled (you don't want that papery husk) and raw so they're too salty. 

 

Gardening Update - 15 June 2013

Since I took all of 2012 (and half of 2013) off from updating this blog... here's a quick summary of "Gardening 2012": we had so much fun with our original three square foot garden (SFG) beds, that I built five more beds. I also ventured into vertical gardening, building some nets for the peas and pumpkins to climb. The pumpkins were going great until we were hit by squash vine borers. I'll be extra vigilant for those nasty buggers this year.

In 2013, I built two more frames, bringing us up to ten total, and made them one foot high. We got a lot of great dwarf carrots in the regular 6-inch deep beds last year, but now we're growing the full-sized ones in one and doing potatoes in the other.

Here are the carrots (click on the photos to enlarge):

and the potatoes are booming, too. Are they too crowded? Probably!

These beets are coming along slowly and the radishes are pretty much ready to be picked. There are some scallions and lettuce in here, too:

These butternut squash along the net are growing VERY slowly. The rest of the box is turnips and rutabagas, which I planted just a couple of weeks ago:

These pie pumpkins are coming along nicely. The seedling peppers aren't exactly thriving, but they aren't dying, either:

Some spinach, which isn't growing too well. Most of the beets and broccoli are doing great:

Tomato seedlings, which again - aren't dying, but aren't booming, either:

E's garden - snow peas, sugar snap peas, fennel, broccoli and soybeans:

L's garden - shell peas, lots of tiny basil plants and a couple of mystery beans that she got from Farmer Justin on her field trip to the farm:

Finally... the garlic! Also a couple tomato seedlings, some beets and a bunch of things (more beets, I think...) that I just planted last week and haven't sprouted yet:

 

Gardening 2011 update #4 (Week 11)

The garden has exploded since the last update and new opportunities for learning keep presenting themselves. Hopefully, this blog will help us remember in the spring. The current major issue is our large brassicas. The cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts with their massive leaves are serious space hogs. Our initial plantings of radishes, beets and spinach were harvested weeks ago, but the replacements that we have since sown have suffered in the shade of their larger neighbors. Next year, we're going to add more beds and group the big boys together.