Sweet relief for fall planting…

It has been damn hot in the NYC area this past week (well, from what I hear, it’s been hot in a lot of places), and it actually reached triple digits this past weekend. We had to shuffle locations around for the birthday party that I made Aunt Sassy Cake for so that we could be at a house with air conditioning in the common areas, not wanting our friends to wilt away in the backyard heat. (This worked out splendidly as the change of venue meant we got to play one of my favorite board games, Scattergories!)

Anyway, Tuesday, the heat broke, and it went from being 103*F on Friday to a practically chilly in comparison 82*F. I was up early Tuesday morning, too, due to the aforementioned trouble sleeping Monday night. I was out of bed at 8 a.m., which is fairly unusual for me unless I have someplace to be, but that meant that it was downright nice outside. I quickly got a chore or two out of the way so I could head out to the garden.

Most varieties of pumpkins (except for the reeeeallly huge ones) need 90-100 days til maturity, but that means that they need to be planted between July 23rd and August 2nd to be perfect for Halloween, and between July 23rd and August 2nd, it is damn hot. It’s been so hot, in fact, that I wondered if I’d even be able to get my pumpkins planted, besides the container of Jack-Be-Littles that I planted one cooled off evening.

This morning, however, was glorious. I even perhaps went a bit overboard. I planted Luminas, which have a ghostly white skin. I planted Long Island Cheese Pumpkins (which are really cool looking, google them if you’ve never seen one!). I transplanted some of the Jack-Be-Littles from the container to the ground because I had a higher germination rate than I’d expected. And, finally, just for hahahs, I planted Giant pumpkins. Last year I also planted multiple varieties of pumpkins (Giant, Sugar, and Lumina), but our pesky groundhog frenemy ate so much of them that there was absolutely no success. This year, we’ve barely seen him, so I’m hoping that he’s found someone else’s yard to enjoy and that I’ll get a whole mess of pumpkins.

After the furious pumpkin planting was complete, I started another round of broccoli and one little burgundy bean container. The burgundy and soy beans that I started earlier this year fell victim to another member of the household not looking at the markers carefully enough. I’ve been seeing the burgundy beans at farmers markets, and I’d just love to have some, even just a few! As for the broccoli, this will be my third try. Last time was almost successful, but still not quite. Perhaps this time I’ll get lucky!

Lettuce was re-sown on the 18th, and carrots were harvested and re-sown on the 20th. Look how beautiful they were! They’re a variety called Parisian carrots, which are a short variety very well suited for container growing, so yes, they’re meant to be that size/shape!

Next up: get some more containers prepared so I can get some kale started for the fall. Anyone else doing a fall garden?

This is probably the last chance I’ll have to remind you that you should enter to win a gift certificate to Measuring Spoons on Etsy, which has neat stuff like baking-related handmade cards and soon, some pretty delicious baking mixes. So, check it out!

Planting the pumpkins…

It’s unbelievable how much our plants have grown in the past 10 days since I’ve posted. Some days, I feel like we will never reach harvest time. Other days, like today, I look at pictures that compare the size from only a week or ten days earlier, and I am amazed.

I woke up early again today despite the fact that I’d gotten very little sleep for two nights. I noticed that the temperature was only at 74 (and it was headed up almost to 90) so I quickly got dressed and went outside.

If you recall, the last time I posted, I mentioned that I planted some of my pumpkins for the fall. Three giant pumpkins sprouted in the area that is away from the main garden plot, and they were very close together, so I decided that it would be a good idea to transplant the middle one away. Since not all of our watermelons survived, we had a bit of space in that area, so I moved one of the giant pumpkin seedlings to over there. I was a bit nervous about it, but I used a trowel and just went for it and it went extremely well. Now, that long row looks like eggplant, eggplant, giant pumpkin, watermelon, watermelon, giant pumpkin, giant pumpkin, so our little markers aren’t quite accurate anymore, but at least everything has the space it needs.

The lumina pumpkins also sprouted in a tiny corner of the main garden plot. Sadly, none of the giant pumpkins that I re-sowed in the three sisters plot came up! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Since the four lumina seedlings were very crowded, I transplanted three of them to the three sisters plots (two in one, one in the other, and the fourth is near the three sisters with the single pumpkin). Hopefully they will thrive and benefit each other.

The peas that are separate from the three sisters are also starting to come up. The ones that are in the plot are various sizes – one of them will need to latch on to a piece of corn soon or I’ll have to build a trellis. The corn is getting quite tall, but it’s not very sturdy. We had a lot of wind when it was young, and it seems to be leaning a bit. I may try to build up some hills around them a little if I can without hurting the peas.

The herbs are doing awesome and we had wonderful homemade pesto last night with our copious amounts of basil. This photo is from when I first planted the seedlings from the CSA, and now it’s filled in even more.

I also did some weeding today, but it is impossible to keep up with and one day soon, Charlie and I hope to mulch the plants now that they’re a bit bigger. Charlie has taken a pretty big interest in the garden and has been a huge help. He usually goes out to water and weed in the evenings when he gets home from work, which is nice because I usually go out in the mornings.

We have had a few problems with pests. At first, we thought that it might be slugs, as our broccoli and a few other things were getting lacy. We set some beer traps around and got some slugs, but not ridiculous amounts. I saw a white moth today and I am now suspecting white cabbage moths, but unfortunately, I may have to spend some time picking them off the leaves if that’s the case! Haven’t gone back out to check yet.

More pictures coming soon!

Farmer Cat Update…

I have some great news to report on the garden. A few days ago I was starting to get discouraged, as I was really fatigued and hadn’t had a chance to plant a few things that I wanted to, and our little seedlings weren’t growing much, but they are finally starting to grow quite a lot! I also got to do some work in the garden a few mornings this week before it got very hot, so we’re in pretty good shape!

One of the things I’ve been meaning to plant is the carrots. The carrots will be Charlie’s responsibility, as I think I’ve mentioned, since I don’t want to be on my [arthritic] knees dealing with root veggies, but I was happy to plant them for him since he’s got a busy schedule with school and work. I got a big double row planted in between something that Charlie’s mom is growing (beans, maybe?) and another small empty plot I had.

In the empty space next to the carrots, I planted a few more giant pumpkins. I haven’t had any luck yet with the ones that I sowed in the three sisters plot. I actually put a few more in the three sister’s plot, hoping that that trio will be successful. I think that some of the seeds ended up getting washed away and then eaten, so I figure it’s worth trying again. Some of the methods actually recommend waiting until the corn is a week or two old to plant the peas and pumpkins anyway, so it’s not a terrible tragedy that they didn’t come up the first time. So, hopefully, between the pumpkins that are in the three sister’s plot and the pumpkins that are over on their own, we should have some huge pumpkins to carve! (If not, I’ll have to go steal some from my younger brother… he has been successful in growing pumpkins for the last several years!)

The giant pumpkins need a lot of time to grow since they’re so large (they can be over 100lbs!) but other pumpkin varieties don’t need as much time, so I’ll be sowing my sugar pumpkins (also called “pie pumpkins” since that’s what most people use them for) in a few weeks. I also planted just a couple of one more variety called Lumina Pumpkins, which are a gorgeous pumpkin with a white outer skin and an edible inner orange flesh!

Here’s a picture I found online:

So I hope we get a few of those, as they would be lovely decorations.

This morning I also got to sow some more shelling peas. You’re really supposed to do those pretty early in the spring, but they have a short growing season, so if they can withstand the heat, I’ll have some, no problem. If anything really bites the dust, I’ll pull it up and start over in a few weeks for a fall harvest. Time to start reading up on that!

Similar to the giant pumpkins, I sowed some with the peas in the three sisters mounds, but not many came up. I think I have two or three in one mound and one in another. I’d really like a bigger crop than that, so I replanted some in the mounds, and I also did a row of them in our main garden plot next to the three sisters. There’s a trellis there, so the peas will be able to climb up it.

And how are the rest of our crops doing?

So far, so good. We lost some seedlings when we went away for the weekend (some that had been in the ground already and some that were not yet planted). It seemed like some had been overwatered and some had been underwatered by the person taking care of our plants. Our main loss was in melons, and that seems to be from overwatering/damping-off disease, which I believe is fungus. Two of the honeydews we had in the ground already just shriveled up and died! It happened to three of the watermelon seedlings that were in the ground already, too, once we got home, but two of each plant are still going strong.

Honeydew	Watermelon

I’ve also got my row of broccoli doing well and my row of kohlrabi doing awesome, though the ones that are towards the front of the plot are definitely doing better as it seems that they’re getting more sun.

Broccoli	Kohlrabi

The corn is just amazing looking… (though I have some more weeding to do!)

And the eggplants that were quite tall seedlings when we got them from the farm share are doing well.

Our container plants are also doing well, but that’s going to have to be a post for another day. I’ll also probably have to write a whole post about pests later, but I think I should do a little research first (perhaps setting some traps) to see what kinds of little things are chomping on our veggies. Something was eating a bit of the broccoli last week, and now something ate a little of the honeydew, and now a bit of the eggplant… so it’s time to get serious about it. I haven’t done any pest control yet (besides fences) so I think we’ve done ok so far!