The Honors Garden of Earthly Delights

2007-06-08T11:38:00.001-04:00

At home, I got my first green tomatoes, already! It will take some time for them to ripen.

We had an unusually hot May which contributed to the earliness. Last year, the first green ones appeared around June 25 for me.

I have had a crazy busy week. Hopefully, I'll have some time to stop by NKU soon!

Mineral Deficiencies in Tomatoes

2007-06-02T13:26:00.000-04:00

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/tomatoes.htm

I've probably linked this helpful page before, but I'll do it again. Despite being "old science" from the 1940's, the information is helpful in diagnosing what's wrong with a plant. I'm presuming how these experiments were done were that the plants were grown in a non-nutritive culture (sand, it says) and were fed fertilizers that omitted one of the required nutrients. Eventually the plant developed the deficiency-- the result is shown (N deficient, P deficient, K deficient, etc).

I'm using Miracle-Gro at home, and let me tell you, the stuff really works well. My tomatoes are lush, green, flowering, and about 3 feet tall-- twice as big as the tomatoes planted in the same soil mix at NKU. We don't use Miracle-Gro at NKU, and that's fine, because it's an Organic Garden. It's important to stress that Miracle -Gro by itself isn't perfect. My dad showed me rudimentary gardening when I was a kid-- basically, put a plant in the ground, and apply Miracle Gro when you remember to do it. The soil was pitiful-- weeds wouldn't even grow in it. Miracle Gro helped a bit to produce some undersized tomatoes on scraggly plants, but not much. They looked like some of the plants in the previous links.

I think the path that I will continue to take as I create my own gardens will be a hybrid of organic and conventional methods. I like growing in "Mel's Mix" medium-- compost/manure, peat, and vermiculite. It's a richly organic mix-- 30-40% organic matter, compared to native soils being less that 5% organic matter. I will continue using this soil mix for the forseeable future.

In addition, I like using Espoma Plant Tone-- it's such a rich, diverse mixture of organics from a dozen different sources. I like adding some extra bone meal too-- because not only is it high in Phosphorous, it's also high in Calcium-- which miracle gro lacks, if you read the label. If I've got some free coffee grounds in bulk quantities (enough to spread about 1/4 cup per square foot) , I'm a fan of that too. And finally epsom salts-- magnesium sulfate-- providing magnesium and sulfur-- i use 2 tablespoons to a gallon of water, once per month.

Ok, so I tinker! I seek optimal growth from the garden.

The comparative observations that I've made about the NKU gardens, compared to mine, is that by harvest, there's signs of acute nutrient deficiency, particularly N. When fruit production happens, this is presumably when plants are consuming the biggest quantities of nutrients .Organics are very slow release. Boosting the nutrition with miracle-gro seems to cure this.

I'm by no means suggesting we abandon the founding organic principles of the NKU gardens. I'm just saying I'm not a purist.

Rose Care

2007-05-29T14:03:00.000-04:00

Here's some summarized & synthesized highlights of what I've read from Jackson-Perkins (the largest mail-order rose company) , The American Rose Society, and Ohio State University's horticultural website:

* Only cut out completely the absolutely dead wood.
* For newly planted roses, for the first 18-24 months in the garden, Prune back only 5% to 15% from the top, or simply dead-head, and don't bother pruning.
* With roses older than two years, generally only cut back up to the top 1/3, and rarely more than the top 1/2.
* Seal a pruned cut on the cane with wood glue or white glue. This prevents disease and insect damage.
* Cut at a 45 degree angle, with the slope going toward the center of the plant.
* Clean tools in 10 parts water to 1 part household bleach solution when going from plant to plant.
* Spray plant with insect spray and anti-fungal spray after pruning.
* In southern Ohio/northern Kentucky, prune roses between March 15 to April 15.
* In our area, we live far south enough that winterizing roses isn't necessary (mounding with mulch and soil). However, if February is dry, giving the roses a gallon each of warm water is a good idea.
* Deadhead and fertilize monthly from April to October.

As with most gardening, rumor and contradictory information abounds. Some bad advice that I was given from non-experts includes pruning roses down to the top six inches, and pruning before the last frost. I didn't actually follow it, but it's worth noting.

More replacements

2007-05-15T13:14:00.000-04:00

I did a good job killing off our plants with the flood I wrought upon the garden. Whoops!

Here are the replacements, so far (I still need to get a Lemon Boy tomato).

"Fatalii
Fiery hot, wrinkled yellow peppers are related to habanero, and are at least as hot if not hotter. The searing heat has an excellent, citrus-like flavor that can be appreciated in the seconds before the heat sets in. Originally from Africa, these plants become 3 to 4 feet tall, maturing abundant crops of fruit earlier than plants of habanero. Peppers are 2 to 3 inches long with a wide top that tapers down to a point, and are shriveled all over. 80 days"

"Mushroom:
Thin-skinned, mushroom shaped red peppers are related to habanero and are extremely hot. Wrinkled peppers have a broad cap and are about 2 inches wide and deep, resembling a patty-pan squash, but colored brilliantly red. Large harvests of these peppers. 75 days. (the tag I have says "sweet-hot" so it might be milder than the description suggests"

Purple Sweet Bell.... It ripens to purple. Not much description needed.

Mountain Spring Tomato
"Beautiful tomatoes are 8 to 10 ounces, bright red throughout, and resistant to cracking and blossom-end rot. Texture is firm, but softens upon ripening and the flavor is mild and pleasant. Very productive. Determinate. 72 days"

Descriptions copied from tomato growers supply

Timer definitely needs to be replaced.

2007-05-14T10:25:00.000-04:00

Um...yeah.

So I stopped by this weekend after my St. Louis trip to plant some seeds, and noticed the water was on, so I decided to wait until today to do it. The timer was set for about 90 minutes so I figured Jim must have been there earlier and I just missed him. However, everything looked really saturated so I reset the timer for 15 minutes and went inside for a bit.

When I came back out a while later, the timer still read 15 minutes, so I did a little deductive reasoning. The ground around the garden was pooling water, so it must have been on longer than a couple of hours on such a sunny day. Then I noticed the test pits.

One of our staff, Dave Kime, had been digging test pits with a student over the spring semester, looking for artifacts in the class side of the garden. They would dig until they hit clay, assuming that nothing would be found below that point. One of the pits was one cubic foot, and I noticed that the pit was completely full of water, which meant the garden had gotten over 12 inches (allowing for evaporation and some absorption, it was likely a bit more than that). I realized Jim must have stopped by at least on Saturday, and the timer simply wasn't working anymore -- I cam by Sunday around noon. (Now that Jim's posted on this, I see that it must have been watered non-stop for at least 40 hours, and may have gotten up to 18 inches!)

I'll get some asparagus bean and soybean seeds in the ground today.

dry spring

2007-05-13T23:36:00.000-04:00

One of the local TV weathermen said that since March 1, we're about 3 inches of rain short of where we ought to be. The next 10 days, the best chance of rain we have is 10%... looks like watering will be needed.

I stopped by on Friday afternoon. I didn't have time to water by hand, so I turned on the sprinkler and put the timer on for 60 minutes.

The timer is springing leaks. That might need to be replaced.

The tomatoes and peppers looked like they were doing ok.

warm day

2007-05-09T17:16:00.000-04:00

It got up to 84, which is rather warm for early May. It hasn't rained much since we've begun our planting.

We planted some Indian (Asia) herbs today-- indian black mustard, fenugreek, cumin, and coriander. Where did we get such exotic seeds? My spice rack. Will they sprout? Who knows!

Some of our tomato seedlings are dying due to damping off. It's a fungal disease that attacks seedlings just at the soil line. The seedling on close examination looks like it has been pinched. It eventually topples over and dies. We're going to need to replace a hillbilly tomato. I suggested lemon boy as a good replacement

Unfortunately, we don't have any back up seedlings. I suggested to Aaron that in future seasons, we might try seed starting using the 36 cell-pack peat pots. This way, we have sufficient back up plants. The 4 inch pots-- though ideal to get maximum size seedlings-- have a drawback in that they take up a lot of room under our single growlight set up.

there's an article about damping off here: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG1167.html

seems hard to control. Other sites mentioned, beyond ensuring sterile planting medium, good air circulation, and watering deeply and then allowing the soil to nearly dry out.

we also finished the repair of one of the boxes today.

2007-05-05T02:12:00.000-04:00

Aaron and I accomplished a ton on Friday. We planted the tomatoes, the peppers, carrots, radish, spinach and lettuce. We mowed the grass. We transplanted some stray strawberry plants back inside their boxes.

We also amended the soil with 320 lbs. of manure. We fertilized all the little transplants.

Most years, we plant closer to May 10. But this year, the weather was especially cooperative.

The transplants were a little puny this year. We've done this for over 7 years, so we've got the procedures down pretty well. I'm guessing they didn't get as much grow time as they could have (about 5 weeks). They also looked like they were beginning to suffer from some nutritional deficiencies. However, we've always used same seed starting formula (the kind sold in 2 quart bags, usually perlite, vermiculite, and peat thats finely milled). Although that formula doesn't contain nourishment, it's also sterile, which means that the fungi that typically attack seedlings don't get a chance.

To correct the deficiencies, beside surrounding them with manure, we also fed them blood meal, martha stewart's organic fertilizer (a pretty good balanced mix-- the espoma is at aarons), and then fed them fish emulsion as well.

We do see nutritional deficiencies show in the plants grown in the seed started, but its typically not until week 7 or 8-- and usually when we grew the plants in the 72-cell packs (we've since switched to peat pots, because they hold moisture better & longer. The cell packs tend to be tough getting the plants out of. The only plus of the cell pack is more plants.

I'm wondering if the honors house was a little cooler this year than usual, and if that might have stunted the growth. I don't know. I was absent, so I can't diagnose it. Obviously, with so many years of experience, Aaron knows what he's doing. Seed starting is a lot of tinkering.

I wish the varieties of tomatoes that we like (from seedsavers) were available as seedlings from the nursery-- so much more convenient. The seedling I bought for home were six inches high.

on the to do list:

buy a 2x4x8 to fix the busted box
buy a bag of peat moss
plant grass seeds in the bare spots
buy a weed-eater
fix the wheelbarrow
plant the remaining squares (some peppers, some indian spices, the melons and cucumbers and such).

Gearing Up

2007-05-04T02:49:00.000-04:00

Aaron and I will be getting the garden ready, perhaps even planted on Friday. He calculated about 8 bags of manure for the garden, which sounded about right to me. We'll also have some home-made compost to spread as well.

I found myself thinking about really, really big tomatoes. I found out the record comes from a variety called "Delicious" (also called Burpee's Delicious) which grew a 7 lb 6 oz tomato in the 1980s. Giant Belgium is also reputed to grow consistently large tomatoes. Our biggest usually come from our Brandywines, though they are more known for their consistently outstanding flavor. We've grown Mortgage Lifter and Omar's Lebanese-- both reputed to grow huge tomatoes-- but neither fulfilled the role of big.... So maybe next year, Delicious or Giant Belgium. I'll be interested to see which tomatoes fulfill each of the categories of earliest, biggest, and best tasting. I've read the challenger to Brandywine on taste will be Cherokee Purple, so I'm looking forward to finding out if Cherokee Purple becomes a regular.

At home, I'm growing:

German Queen (heirloom) [first time growing this variety]
"Luscious, sweet pink beefsteak fruit have an incredible flavor and are large and meaty, making them perfect for slicing. Tomatoes average 1 lb. and grow on tall, vigorous, potato-leaved plants. Heirloom variety renowned for its fine flavor. Indeterminate. Matures 80 days."

Early Girl (hybrid)
"Comes in first as an early slicing tomato. Dependable large harvests of flavorful, solid 4 to 6 oz. fruit. Disease resistance is good, contributing to its excellent performance in almost any climate. A proven variety for delicious, early tomatoes. Matures 52 Days"

Big Boy (hybrid)
"A long time favorite because of its very large, smooth scarlet fruit with meaty flesh and great flavor. Heavy crops peak in midseason but continue until frost. Indeterminate. Matures 78 days"

Roma (Hybrid)
"Prized for making tomato paste and sauces since its introduction in 1955, Roma produces large harvest of thick walled, meaty, pear shaped tomatoes about 3 inches long and with few seeds. Matures: Matures 80 days"

(descriptions copied from Tomato Grower's Supply and Bonnie's Plants).

bulbs

2007-04-08T19:43:00.000-04:00

I was disappointed by the lackluster performance of the daffodils I planted with my fiance at my soon-to-be father-in-law's home. I guessed I planted too shallowly. It seems that suspicion was correct. I think I only planted at two to three inches deep-- most of them probably froze out.... Oh well, easily correctable in the autumn.

For future reference, consult this image:

Peas

2007-04-05T21:05:00.000-04:00

We planted 9 more peas today. The others germinated last week, due to the record-setting warm spell (about 12 days of highs in the 70s and low 80s). Now we're have a record-setting cold spell! (lows in the low 20s).

Spring 2007

2007-03-23T16:28:00.000-04:00

Spring has begun!
Aaron and I drew up this year's garden map/plan. We planted peas. Aaron started our peppers and tomatoes a few days ago. We sowed more grass seed in the bare spots. We cut the grass.
The crocuses and daffodils are blooming. The (invasive) honeysuckle is beginning to bud.

2007

2007-03-23T12:11:00.000-04:00

So here we are! A new garden season is finally upon us here in the good old US of A Zone 6. On Tuesday the 20th I started our tomato and pepper seeds indoors (the full list of goodies this year is below). This will be the first year where Jim and I will also be planting our own home gardens, so our planning will have to take those into account as well. While we may on occasion mention those, the focus here will still be on the Honors garden.

Tomatoes
Amish Paste (Wisconsin, 6-10 oz.)
Brandywine (up to 2 lbs. -- a favorite)
Cherokee Purple (North Carolina, 12 oz.)
Hillbilly Potato Leaf (Ohio, 1 lb. -- a new one for us -- yellow with red on blossom end)

Peppers
Buran (sweet bell shaped)
Jimmy Nardello's (Italian, sweet -- a new favorite for us)
Orange Thai (medium hot, 2-inch orange fruits)

At the moment our plan is to plant three of each tomato, two each of the Buran and Jimmy Nardello, and one Orange Thai (I'll also plant one of everything at home). Jim should be stopping by today to pick up the seeds so he can sow some indoors at his place for the home garden as well. He's also picking up some early season seeds, like carrots, greens, peas and so forth. If the weather stays nice today we may even get some in the ground this afternoon.

Current weather: 72, mostly cloudy, showers later.

'Tis the season

2007-02-18T12:51:00.000-05:00

Our first seeds have arrived for the new season, and frankly I feel a little bit of culture shock. After a month of snow totalling at least a foot it feels a little weird to be sticking my hands into a bag of starter soil. The trees are still encased in ice. But today is the last cold day for a while, with the temps back into the 40s, 50s, and maybe even hitting 60 next weekend. So I thought it would be a little symbolic to buy our peat pots today, and start clearing out my usual space for starting the summer seeds.

So far we've got our tomato and pepper packets from Seed Savers. This year we're going with a couple of stand-bys, and trying some new varieties as well:

Tomatoes: Amish Paste, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Hillbilly Potato Leaf
Peppers: Jimmy Nardello's, Orange Thai, Buran

We had also talked about growing a cold-resistant pea variety (I saw one at the store called "Alaskan" that could bear light frost and would be planted early March/late July in our zone). Also this year we will be planning for two home gardens in addition to the Honors garden.

More later -- time to make room for the coming year.

first garden meeting of 2007!

2007-02-09T01:36:00.000-05:00

Aaron and I met over over sub sandwiches today and discussed our plans for garden season 2007. We're becoming professionals at this. It used to take us a couple of solid hours to come up with a garden plan. It was down to like 40 minutes or something.

We decided to replenish our seed supply this year-- some of the seed we've been using is four years old. We're cutting down the amount of planting in our vertical bed by 50% to ease our harvesting.

Aaron and I will be discussing different varieties for the special, hard-to-find heirlooms over the next week (Brandywine tomatoes, Jimmy Nardello peppers, etc.).

From SeedSavers.org:

I want to try a new hot pepper this year: maybe Orange Thai Pepper (which grows 2 inch long peppers-- longer than thai hots, which are 1/2 inch). This sounds very exotic to: Tobago Seasoning Pepper
I'm also intrigued by these sweet peppers: Buran Pepper abd Chervena Chushka Pepper... the descriptions sound delicious.

200th post / ripening tomatoes...

2006-10-03T02:48:00.000-04:00

This is the 200th post!

...So due to personal employment matters, I've been absent from the garden since mid august. I was growing tomatoes at home, my favorite "must grow".

The frost is coming. Probably not this week, but soon.

So, I wonder how to handle the green tomatoes.

I found the following advice from the University of Minnesota:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/info-u/nutrition/BJ763.html

Ripening Tomatoes and Green Peppers Indoors

When fall frost approaches, home gardeners can pick unripe green peppers and green tomatoes to ripen indoors. Following are post harvest guidelines for your peppers and tomatoes.

SELECTING AND PICKING

* Pick ripe, nearly ripe and mature green fruits before frost occurs. Mature green tomatoes are those with a glossy, whitish green fruit color and mature size.

* Select fruits only from strong healthy vines, and pick only those fruits free of disease, insect or mechanical damage.

* Remove stems to prevent them from puncturing each other.

* If dirty, gently wash and allow the fruit to air dry.

STORING

* Store tomatoes and peppers in cardboard boxes, 1 to 2 layers deep.

* If you have a cool, moderately humid room, simply place them on a shelf.

* Keep fruit out of direct sunlight. They may be stored in the dark.

* As tomatoes ripen, they naturally release ethylene gas, which stimulates ripening. To slow ripening, sort out ripened fruits from green tomatoes once or twice per week. To speed up ripening, place green or partially ripe fruits in a bag or box with a ripe tomato.

Ripe tomatoes keep in a refrigerator for about 1 week but will lose their flavor. Green peppers keep for 2 weeks. Green, mature tomatoes and peppers stored at 65-70 degrees, will ripen in about 2 weeks. Cooler temperatures slow the ripening process. At 55 degrees, they will ripen in 3-4 weeks. Storage temperatures below 50 degrees will slow ripening, but results in inferior quality.

If tomatoes and green peppers are stored where the humidity is too high the fruit molds and rots. If humidity is too low, the fruit shrivel and dries out. Since homes vary in humidity levels, you will need to learn by trial and error what works best.

Tomatoes and green peppers ripened indoors are not as flavorful as vine ripened fruits. However, compared to store bought, you will be delighted with your own home ripened tomatoes. For more information, call your local Extension office.

quick visit

2006-08-13T18:12:00.000-04:00

I harvested 3 cucumbers and a dozen jimmy nardello peppers.
i cut the grass which was a hot but easy chore- done in 10 minutes.
i turned on the water for 60 minutes.

The watermelons, squash, canteloupe, and cucumbers are having a prouductive year.
tomatoes and peppers could be a bit better.

plans for 2007

2006-08-08T01:49:00.000-04:00

not even finished with the gardening season of 2007. And now, I'm making plans for 2007.

The main idea is that we're going to reconcieve the vertical bed as a "modified raised bed" and not a "square foot bed"-- the difference is that I've now realized after a couple of years that although my zig-zag design looked cool on paper, it has unanticpated problems-- that major one is that its very tough to get into the middle of the beds to go after stray vines.

I think what we'll do is only raise the verticals on one side (say, the side opposite the house). Modify the planting so the spacing is 12x24.

Or...

An alternate plan would be to plant the climbers on one side of the bed. use non vining crops in the other side of the bed-- still sticking to the sqaure foot plan. We could also use one 4 foot row from one of the boxes. I noticed that this year we only used about 24 of 32 spaces.

In any case, half of the vertical trellises won't be used.

Also, we will order new seed for 2006-- its been a few years. I really want to grow Creole (nod to Louisiana), Brandywine (Sudduth's strain), Hillbilly, and Cherokee Purple next year.

Still want to plant at least one paste/roma type as well (read about a flavorful market variety called Classica at tomatogrowers.com).
I'd like to try another cherry/grape tomato instead of reisenstrabe.

A couple of tried and true hybrids for productivity.

I'd like to have a very early tomato (Early Girl, or Stupice or maybe a hybrid for cool climates-- i read about tomatoes bred for alaska!).
my idea is to plant one of these Early Tomatoes around april 15th and sheild it in case of frost. And then, plant another Early Tomato on July 15-- so it produces through until frost.

i guess that's 7 varieties... might need to pare that down.

We will order my jimmy nardello pepper seed and maybe look for another interesting pepper. The rest we can get at the nursery.

Also-- shaker yard long beans for next year! And all the usual types.

review of Jim's tomatoes

I'm growing 4 hybrids and 1 heirloom at home. The most productive seem to be a tie between Mr. Stripey and Lemon Boy. After that, better boy.

Pink beefsteak is producing intensely flavored tomatoes-- the best of the bunch. According to my literature, it should have been the size winner and late season. Ironically, it was the first to ripen and the sizes have been about the same as better boy, if not smaller. But I was hoping for the later season on it, because everything is ripening at once-- it was supposed to be 10-20 days later than the rest.

Mr. Stripey hasn't resulted in a striped yellow/orange. Its a solid yellow with faintly orange streak. I was looking for the novelty factor. Nothingl like its picture Oh well. its a big, productive plant. The flavor is good but mild.

The least distinguished of my tomatoes from home is Bonnies Best. The tomatoes don't distinguish much from Better Boy. The plant is less productive. I won't really bother with this one again.

I expect the tomatoes at the honors garden to start producing in two weeks, since we set them out so late this season.

the heat is on (but almost over)

2006-08-07T11:49:00.000-04:00

weather.com has a nice table chart of averages for just about every location in the USA. I was looking at the average high temps for 41099. It would be easier to visualize with graph showing the day by day average highs and lows.

in any case, the temperatures peak in the 87 to 88 degree average from July 5th to August 12. The average high temperatures begin to fall after that point.

So, in theory, we're almost through the thick of it. The average high returns to the lovely 70's about September 14.

I stopped back up at the garden to go over the areas we cut once more with the mower. I figured with the first cutting happening once the grass was about 6 inches long, we'd have a cleaner cut if it happened the next day. I cut some diseased tomato vines and trained many more vines up the trellises.

reel lawnmower

2006-08-06T14:56:00.000-04:00

Aaron and I put together our new reel lawn mower on Saturday.

My father had told me several times that reel lawnmowers were heavy, awful things that did a terrible job of cutting the lawn compared to a power mower.

However, we are only responsible for cutting around the gardens where the NKU Groundscrew lawnmowers can't reach. Its about 400 sq ft, max. So it seemed crazy to pay $200 for a modest power mower. So when researching reel mowers, I found out that although the design of the mowers haven't changed much since the were invented in the 19th century, the materials have changed considerably-- making them much lighter and easier to use. The biggest difference is that reel mowing should be down more often than conventional power mowers because the blade will roll over long gras rather than cut it.

So we plopped down $90 and both took turns mowing. It felt like a moment out of Tom Sawyer when the neighborhood boys paid to whitewash the house. It was fun! It was quiet!

I think that we should be cutting grass weekly from now to november. I can take weekends.

We fixed our sagging vertical trellises, trained vine up and watered. Aaron pointed out that the pasilla peper plants never flowered. Looks like mule seed. We harvested tons of cucumber and peppers-- a few jimmy nardellos and lots of banana pepper.

On our to-do list is giving the garden a dose of fish emulsion and keeping up the watering schedule.

quick visit

2006-07-24T00:32:00.000-04:00

i trained more vines up the trellis. the garden is growing like mad. I still feel like the vertical bed is planted too densely. though i did read from a agriculural experiment (university or virginia or mississippi) that tomatoes will yield more pounds per acre when planted at 1 ft intervals-- but have larger fruit at 2 ft intervals.

it looks like deer have learned to lean in from the fence to eat leaves off of the trellisses-- there's a grazed appearane to the cucumber and squash leaves about 36" off the ground. I don't want to meet a rabbit that can do that!

i think the zuchini is a bush variety and not the vining sort. oh well!

i watered the strawberries, 2 gallons per bed. i turned the water on at the sprinkler for 60 minutes for the vegetable beds.... what a timesaver!

I'm going to bein new york from July 27 to August 2.

mini-harvest

2006-07-21T10:15:00.000-04:00

i went to the garden last evening. I had a mini harvest. I picked 3 way-too-big cucumbers, 8 banana peppers, and a zuchini.

the garden on the other side, the class garden, is going crazy. The weeds are staying low on that side-- for once. I think the densely planted squash has helped. Most of the corn and beans are obscured. Probably be a real challenge to pick.

It looks like soon it will be time for us to get the reel mower- within two weeks. Got some long grass.

had a big rain last night and it's still drizzling this morning. The weather pattern from early june to early was quite dry. But now its shifted to ideal for two weeks. Can't complain about that!

recovery

2006-07-17T10:43:00.000-04:00

i checked the rain gauge on saturday afternoon. it looks like we got slightly over a half inch of rain over a three day period last week. the soil was still quite damp, so watering was just not needed.

i trained about a dozen vines up the trellis. i weeded for about 20 minutes. mostly outside the boxes. the grass seed is coming in ok. not really the best season for it.

i noticed a ton of bees in the fruit flowers, so i wasn't prepared to check for fruit (severe sting allergies). it seems we have a watermelon about the size of a golfball that's beginning to grow.

and then it rains...

2006-07-11T15:53:00.000-04:00

...and the forecast looks fairly wet for the next 7 days. which is just fine with me. the grass is starting to brown on lawns everywhere. it's been a little dry.
still, even if rain was predicted today, it wouldn't have kept me from watering the garden. I think the best irrigation practice is to water deeply every 4 to 5 days. Unless its actually pouring down when its time to water-- just go ahead and turn on the faucet. in the past, suspecting that it might rain has lead to under-watering our plants.

Getting Dry

2006-07-10T21:23:00.000-04:00

It feels like it's been a long time since we've had a good deep rain. I'm not sure how long it's actually been.

I watered the garden today and the strawberry patch (about 4 gallons per raised bed). I put the timer on for 70 minutes for the sprinkler. The water pressure seemed a little low today.

I hadn't seen the garden since July 6. Thankfully, nothing was wilting (Aaron watered last week too). The squash, etc. are vining like mad. It looks like it's planted too densely. But I know we followed the directions, so it shouldn't be too dense. I didn't have the time to really check for any new fruit. I saw some cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen.

Today, I just trained the vines up the trellis and then started up the water. Pulled a dozen weeds. I moved some of the strawberry runners back inside the box.

The newly planted grass (where the garden used to be) could use a deep watering too. Only one sprinkler, however. And I didn't have the time to wait tonight for the garden to finish its watering cycle.

I drove away considering that I'd probably stop by the garden less often if the watering was completely automated. Maybe total autmation isn't the best idea for me. At least if the gardens not in my own yard. I need a reason to drop by. If I only had more time in my schedule to really observe what is happening in the garden. Next week, maybe.