2022 Garden Thread

[Dan Freeman]

I scrubbed and washed about 35 large rocks today that I will put in the pond. I want to have at least 100 done before I start to place them in the pond since it will be like a giant jig saw puzzle arranging them.

The flash storm this afternoon brought the pond up about another two inches, close to the top on one side. Now that we are close to the top, I can see where we will have to lift the liner and add more dirt to get the pond as level as possible. We will start on that tomorrow.



Also, some of the pond plants came in today.

FROGBIT: These little plants have leaves that are about the size of a nickel to a quarter. They will multiply once I have them in the pond. They are great for using the nutrients before the nutrients are available for the algae, so they will suppress algae growth. These plants will produce little nods that will drop down to the bottom of the pond and overwinter creating new plants next year.



The HORNWORT also arrived today...9 bunches. This plant is also great at oxygenating the pond and using lower-level nutrients before the nutrients develop to grow algae. They are also cold hardy to Zone 3.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I thought that second pic was crayfish! The lover of Cajun food in me got excited!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Glad you got more rain, @Dan Freeman. Is that black pipe directing roof runoff to the pond?

I made a trip to a library today and took a picture of their two rain tanks. They’re not the Enduraplas brand, but I thought you’d like to see a big system. The library uses the water in drip irrigation to water the landscaping and trees that immediately surround the library.



There is a nice educational exhibit about the region surrounding the first water tank. (The second is on the other side of the library away from the parking lots.) It includes some history, and information about the watershed and aquifer system in the area, as well as about rainwater harvesting. Each tank can hold 12,500 gallons of water. (I had to ask at the service desk to find that information, though perhaps I just missed it outside.)

Other newer public buildings in this area also have tanks installed. I’ve seen one at the local high school. I’ll have to look at City Hall.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I had a surprise in my garden this morning. I have a tiny (and not very promising) patch of Glass Gem Corn growing. The stalks are small and thin and starting to tassel. When I was hunting for any signs of ears this morning (I found some), I noticed a Monarch chrysalis under one of the leaves.



I debated for a while about whether I would leave it there, but I felt that it would be in danger when I water. I know they’re built to withstand rain, but my watering wand can be strong, and while I try to just fill ollas and water the base of needy plants, it’s a bit cumbersome to move from place to place. I thought it might be better to relocate the chrysalis before any accident happened.

I pulled out our trusty aquarium from the shelf, wiped it out, clipped the entire corn leaf, and brought it in. I was able to stretch the corn leaf from one side to the other and hold it on with the pieces that hold the screen. That way the chrysalis got to stay in its same position.

I don’t know when it appeared, but I suspect that it was pretty recent. We have milkweed on the property, some in the area where the garden is located, but it’s not that close. I was surprised to find the chrysalis inside the garden since it would have been a pretty hefty journey for the caterpillar. They do travel away from their host plant to pupate, but this would have been a lot of crawling. I might have to see if our vine milkweed plant is closer than I think.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

The soil was still a bit moist this morning from our recent storm, and I had filled the ollas Wednesday, so I didn’t have to water the big gardens this morning. I took the opportunity of extra time to remove one of my cucumber plants that has been badly infested by aphids. I had done a neem spray last week, and I could have tried another, but the aphids were starting to move to my second plant. I decided it was just better to get them out of the area.

I first cut off some of the growth on the second plant (the one on the right) that had aphids on it as well as cutting farther back to leave clear margins. That still left plenty of plant. I then removed all the leaves and vines from the first plant. I hope that will reduce the pressure on the second plant and allow it to keep producing. Our cucumbers have not been prolific this summer, but they have been tasty.



@begreen, any update on your cucumbers or your mystery pest?

 

[Dan Freeman]

DG, thanks for posting those pics of the water tanks. They are huge!

Yes, that large black corrugated pipe is bringing roof runoff down to the pond. The long-term plan, once I get my rain tank, is to create a 50 foot or so stream bed that will carry the overflow from the tank down to the pond. I already have the 5x50 piece of liner to build the stream. That project if for next year.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Are you putting a berm behind the FF to catch the house runoff?

 

[Dan Freeman]

Instead of a berm, I will have an overflow on the pond into 1 or more swales.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today, I lifted up the underlayment and liner and raised up one side of the pond about 1-1 1/2 inches to level everything out. I also made a "spillway" for an overflow. Tomorrow, I will install a 1.5-inch pvc pipe in the overflow using pond foam to seal it. I will run flexible tubing to the edge of the food forest to drain any overflow, or I will re-direct it into swales.

Even though I have the solar pump, I decided to install an electric pump as well, so the pond now has 2 pumps with about 1200 gallons being circulated an hour. I realized the solar pump will probably freeze up on cold winter nights during the winter while the electric pump to the spillway will not since it will have water running 24/7. So, I will run both pumps during above-freezing temperatures, turn the solar pump off when temps go below freezing, and run the electric pump 24/7/365.

No pics today. I was so tired by the time I finished, I just couldn't walk down there again to take pictures. I think I am getting old!

 

[begreen]

Finally starting to see some regular harvests. Getting nervous about powdery mildew, it was 53º this morning but will be warming up this week.

 

[Dan Freeman]

I put all the new plants in the pond today, and while I didn't plan to do it today, I did a rough build of the waterfall. Nothing elaborate. I'll live with it for a few days, and if I still like it, I'll put pond foam between the rocks and fill the small voids with river stone.

Once finished, I will taper off the sides and the back, and then start laying rocks and river stone on the planting shelf.



Here is a brief video of the waterfall:



Here's a shot of the food forest. We're closing in on having the entire 8500 square feet covered with cardboard and wood chips.

 

[begreen]

Looking good. I like the sound of the waterfall.

DG, that's so cool to find the chrysalis. Your garden is starting to wake up from the heat. It should be doing a lot better now.

I just planted more lettuce and some January King cabbages. Other than that we are now entering harvest mode.

 

[Dan Freeman]

If I turn the pond fountain off on the pond just below our deck (where the last pic was taken of the FF), I can hear the water from all the way down in the FF.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

If I turn the pond fountain off on the pond just below our deck (where the last pic was taken of the FF), I can hear the water from all the way down in the FF.

I bet hearing the sound of the water makes it seem that all that work you’ve done is really worth it. I know there’s a lot more to do, even after the immense amount you’ve already done, but I bet it’s satisfying to be at the point know where’s there’s enjoyment. Good work!

8,500 square feet is a huge amount to cover with cardboard and wood chips. Wow!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Looking good. I like the sound of the waterfall.

DG, that's so cool to find the chrysalis. Your garden is starting to wake up from the heat. It should be doing a lot better now.

I just planted more lettuce and some January King cabbages. Other than that we are now entering harvest mode.

It was really fun to find the chrysalis, but I’m still wondering where that little guy came from. I’m wondering if he somehow got washed down the hill during the storm we had (water can run in a stream right down toward our garden) and just found a place where he could climb up. It’s a beautiful chrysalis, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen one in person, but it’s smaller than I remember them being. So far all seems well with it, though, as far as I can tell.

The garden is waking up a bit. I noticed my first small watermelon the other day, and the plants are just perkier despite the heat going back up into the mid nineties. (It’s still better than it was, though, and there’s more humidity and cloudiness, which makes it easier on the plants.). Just this morning my first Beaver Dam pepper blossom opened. I’m hopeful that those plants will do well since they’re coming into maturity in a warm but not brutally hot part of the year.

I’m beginning to think about lettuce, but I’ve got a while to wait yet before it’s cool enough either outside or in for me to try to germinate any. I am beginning some fall transplants, though. @begreen, do you direct sow your lettuce and cabbage, or do you start it and transplant after clearing out some summer crops?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Finally starting to see some regular harvests. Getting nervous about powdery mildew, it was 53º this morning but will be warming up this week.
View attachment 298433

Beautiful!

 

[Dan Freeman]

I bet hearing the sound of the water makes it seem that all that work you’ve done is really worth it. I know there’s a lot more to do, even after the immense amount you’ve already done, but I bet it’s satisfying to be at the point know where’s there’s enjoyment. Good work!

8,500 square feet is a huge amount to cover with cardboard and wood chips. Wow!

Yes, this is the fun part.

We've been coving this FF with cardboard and chips for the past 15 months. We have probably gone through well over 100 cubic yards of chips already. I have lost count.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

We had some chances for rain today, and it was supposed to be cloudy, so I took the opportunity to do some transplanting of very small seedlings today: beets, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, and rhubarb. I watered them in both morning and afternoon since the rain didn’t materialize. I hope we’ll get some overnight, but it seems to be just missing us.

The seedlings I transplanted are about 3:00 in this first picture. Most of the rest are wildflower seedlings that my husband helped me pot up on Saturday. In the front left corner is the za’atar that I started inside in mid summer.


I also harvested a green Seminole Pumpkin to use as a summer squash in our supper tonight. I had some leftover croutons that I had made for Caesar salad the other day, so I turned those into bread crumbs and used them on chunks of the pumpkin. I baked them in a little air fryer oven till the crumbs were crispy and the pumpkin soft, and the kids like it. Yay!

After harvesting the pumpkin, I cut off a good chunk of the vine starting below the squash vine borer damage. It was a big step, but I didn’t want it trying to sustain such a large amount of growth on a compromised stem. I’d rather it focus its energy on some new branches down nearer the base. We’ll see if anything comes of that.

Here are before and after pictures from the pruning and a picture of the green pumpkin. I chopped the vine up for my compost bin (and looked carefully in the hollowed out part for the borer, but I didn’t find him). I can see why these vines are supposed to be more resistant. The pruning shears had a hard time at points because the solid stems were so thick and tough.

 

[Dan Freeman]

DG, sounds delicious the way you prepared that pumpkin. How late in the season can you still grow outside? We are about 5 weeks or so away from what is usually our first frost (Oct 1-10). I will be starting my indoor tomatoes and lettuce for the Fall/Winter soon.

We got another 10 yards of wood chips yesterday for free from an arborist we know. He doesn't deliver often, only when he is working in our area. We also have another 10 yards coming later this week from the nursery to whom we pay $10/yard. That should just about do it for this season. We will get the entire FF covered before the winter (one of our goals) and cover over a few spots that we used sawdust on when that was all we could get. Areas that have been covered since last Summer are loaded with worms and are breaking down well when I move the chips aside. Next Spring/Summer we'll add another few inches to the entire FF.

Tomatoes are already on the wane but were still getting enough. Raspberries and blackberries are just about done. Cucumber vines are shot and will be pulled out in the next few days. We should be harvesting our acorn and butternut squash soon, and we'll have one more harvest of beets, turnips, and carrots before the first frost. The comfrey crowns I planted two weeks ago are all coming up; the root pieces I planted have yet to sprout up.

The electrician was due to come tomorrow to hook up the power to the 2nd well, but I had to change the date to next week due to a conflict.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

DG, sounds delicious the way you prepared that pumpkin. How late in the season can you still grow outside? We are about 5 weeks or so away from what is usually our first frost (Oct 1-10). I will be starting my indoor tomatoes and lettuce for the Fall/Winter soon.

Our frost free averages are March 15 to November 15, which sounds like a really long growing season. In reality, it is more like two short growing seasons on either side of a brutally hot summer where not a lot produces. Unfortunately my brutal heat started in May this year, so I didn’t get all that much production from a spring season. I tend not to replace all my plants for fall, but I do often cut them back and let them regrow some (things like tomatoes and eggplants and my experiment with the pumpkin yesterday).

I try to plan for frost as soon as the end of October here when I’m making my garden plans, simply because we’ve had hard freezes twice at that time in the five years I’ve been here. Last year we didn’t freeze till January 1st. December was really warm, so I still had some warm season crops going then. I had pulled my tomatoes out in November when nights started cooling, but when it warmed up in December, and I was kind of regretting that decision.

We do have some pretty hard freezes at times, but our winters can be mild enough for the most part that I can try to grow some things pretty much straight through winter like onions or lettuce. Occasionally I lose just about everything, though, like when it went from 80 degrees to 24 degrees in one day. That pretty much destroyed last year’s winter garden. Thankfully I hadn’t set out the onions, so they weren’t hit. This year I think I’m going to try growing my own onion transplants from seed, but I won’t start those till October.

We were supposed to have some rainy, or at least overcast, days yesterday, today, and tomorrow, but the forecast changed after I set out my little seedlings. I’ve been having to water them in the afternoons to keep them going. Even though I spent days hardening them off outside to get them used to the sunshine, they’re having a bit of a hard time adjusting. I hope they’ll make it.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Nice long season. Too bad you have to contend with that awful heat in the middle of it. Here where we are in the Pocono Mountains our last frost date is usually around Memorial Day, so with a first frost date of about Oct 1-10, our growing season is only about 4ish months. Added to that, since we are in the mountains, the nights stay pretty cool in June and begin to cool down again in September. That is one reason why I bought a greenhouse back in 2016. I can get seeds stated in late March and keep some plants going until November. I would love to grow in our greenhouse all winter, but it requires too much energy to heat it and a lot of grow lights. I have a 8 or 9 real good grow lights, so I grow what I can in my den over the winter just to keep my sanity. Now, if I had 15,000 - 25,000 to drop on a super insulated greenhouse (like a Ceres or Growing Dome), I'd be going all year!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I have to admit that I love cool weather, and so does my husband. Your description of cool nights in the mountains sounds wonderful to me. I get excited when the first really cool morning comes down here, and I feel like I need a sweater or jacket. Neither my husband nor I really wanted to move to this area, but it was the best decision for our family at the time because of his employment situation. We‘re trying to take advantage of where we are now to grow things like citrus and olives that would be more difficult in other places. (It’s not always easy here, though, because our temperatures can drop low enough to cause problems. We’ve lost a number of trees, but thankfully we also have a bunch that are doing well.) We had to replace a dead and dying hedge a few years ago, and we chose to plant young pomegranates. They did the ”first year, sleep; second year, creep” but they didn’t quite make it to “third year, leap” because they got set back by the freeze in 2021. They have recovered now, though, and are leaping. They haven’t bloomed yet, but they’re filling out, and I’m looking forward to blooms in the future.

I took some pictures today to show a little of how I try to deal with the hot summer months without just ripping everything out of my garden and planting new plants. That’s the conventional wisdom, and the stores around here sell a bunch of transplants in the summer to people who do just that. It might be better if I did more of it, but I work so hard on my spring transplants that I do what I can to keep them going through the summer.

Here’s a picture of one of my “Captain Lucky” tomato plants. I never actually got a fruit off of it this summer. The heat just came on about the time it started flowering, and the pollen probably wasn’t viable anymore. At some point I cut most of the upper growth off the plant so that it would use less water and could grow out fresh stalks from suckers. You can see the pretty hefty scars from the cuts in the second picture. The plant seems pretty healthy now, and it’s beginning to flower again. I’m sure hoping it will set fruit now that we aren’t seeing constant 100 degree plus days.



That’s the strategy I’m trying now with my Seminole Pumpkin. I cut it just below the vine borer damage, and it’s got side branches in the axils that I’m hoping will grow and flower. I’m not aiming for mature pumpkins. I’ll just pick the young ones like summer squash.


Here’s a Black Beauty Eggplant that I cut back that has grown out a bunch of fresh branches and foliage and is blooming and setting fruit again. I had planned to replace these when my newer transplants took off, but when I set those young ones out, they got devoured by flea beetles to the point that they couldn’t recover. I’m glad I still have these.



This last one has been remarkable to me. It’s a dwarf pepper from Panama, Las Tablas Dwarf Ajicito, but it never even bloomed the entire summer. The foliage looks great, and I don’t think it has to do with too much nitrogen or anything like that. I think that with the heat and drought stress, all my plants just cut back on production. This one just never even flowered, but now that the weather has cooled it‘s popping out tiny buds all over the place. The same thing happened with my fish peppers. I still have a whole jar of dried peppers from last year, and I gave oodles away. This year with the major difference in weather I have not harvested one single pepper yet from that variety, but I did just see one small fruit beginning on one plant.



It has not been a good summer in my garden, but hopefully all the time I’ve spent keeping my plants alive was good exercise for me and will bear some fruit this fall.

 

[begreen]

DG, your perseverance and ingenuity are inspiring. I think you will have some good fall crops to brag about when we are cleaning up beds.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

DG, your perseverance and ingenuity are inspiring. I think you will have some good fall crops to brag about when we are cleaning up beds.

Thanks. I’m just hoping for something after all this work.

The kids and I just got home from a walk and found a delightful surprise. Our butterfly had eclosed and was drying its wings. (I had seen the chrysalis getting dark last night, but it’s still a surprise when all of a sudden there’s a butterfly.) Another surprise was that it was not actually a Monarch but a Queen (another butterfly that uses milkweed as a host plant). We’ve seen Queens flying but have never raised one before. We think they’re gorgeous with their richer brownish orange coloring. My daughter took some pictures as I was helping the butterfly out of the tank. It’s up in an oak tree now resting before a longer flight.



(@Soundchasm , I saw that you posted again recently on the forum, so I thought I’d ping you to this post. Some background, I found a chrysalis on the corn in my garden last week. I thought it was a monarch, and I brought it inside so that I wouldn’t accidentally bump it when watering my corn plants.)

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today, we cut out all the pepper plants in the greenhouse. We might have gotten more Shishitos, but I don't think we would have gotten anymore Bells. I shook off all the soil and put it in one of the raised gardens down in the FF. We're going to make a huge pan of sausage and peppers this weekend, and the rest we will vacuum pack and freeze. I am keeping the 5 Tiny Tim's for now as they are pushing out new blooms. Besides, I wanted to clean up the greenhouse so I can begin cutting, splitting and storing extra firewood, the "rounds" we have from an ash tree we had cut down. It will probably be firewood that we won't even burn this season, but it's good to get ahead of the game. We also canned a few jars of cherry tomatoes with garlic and basil for the winter.