Cucumber Trauma

 The big news is giant rats (aka deer) came out of the woods, strolled down to my driveway, and pretty much ate half the foliage of my cucumbers.

Evidence

Maybe it was more than half :-(

I've taken some weak measures to keep them away - put up some string and a couple tomato cages to make it a bit more awkward for them. No further devastation last night. Maybe I had them planted too thickly. Maybe the deer-pruning will actually help them? *sigh*

Zucchini is getting very close to getting picked!

Zucchini numero uno

Didn't even notice the dead rotting leaf below it or the small weed beside it. So I could be doing things better here clearly. You can see the broken off stem slightly to the left and under it. That leaf was yellowing so I ruthlessly pruned. This years garden theme is pruning!

Zucchino rampicante coming up!

Peppers and Spoon tomatoes coming along nicely!

Roots from a tomato cutting. No real intention of growing this, just wanted to see how it would do if I just set it in a glass with water.

Garlic Harvest!

The garlic is done. I haven't pulled them yet, and honestly they don't look too fantastic, so this might be a bit of a disappointment. Lets go see. 

Well, pretty paltry harvest. Most years I get mostly small bulbs, but two or three that look like they might have come from a supermarket. This year not so much. On the plus side, there's plenty for eatin'. I think I will make something with what the garden has produced so far tonight - garlic and kale.

Garlic Harvest 6-18-2022

One of the tomatoes decided the growing straight was boring and tried to introduce a fancy curve. Well, I don't like that one bit so I tied it up.

Left: Before, Right: After

So I've determined that I have about a bed and a half available to plant _something_ in the beds beside the driveway. Now that the garlic is pulled, there is a full free one. The kale plot closest to the street only is half planted. I only have tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries still in pots. The peppers seem to do very well in pots, so I'm going to put tomatoes and strawberries in the leftover space.

Things to keep in mind when I replant:

• Put some bonemeal in the hole.
• Plant DEEP. As deep as I can go.
• Put in stakes or cages now, when it's easy.
• Hit them with some water right away, so they don't wilt.
• Transplant quickly! It's not too hot of a day, so I don't think they will wilt too badly, but lets not risk it.

I have a number of plants that are pretty healthy still in pots. Like a foot or a foot and a half tall already. I picked the largest/healthiest to move.

Still to do:

• Weed the bean/kale bed in the back. The kale is shading out the beans! Gotta thin it. Time for some more kale in my diet.
• The Barry's Crazy Cherry is very limp, it never really recovered from the transplant. I may pull it and put something different there.
• Plant some zucchino rampicante. Insurance against vine borers.
• Fill up every bucket and big pot I have and start some basil and herbs. Transplant what large tomatoes I can. See what I have for peppers.

Some Repotting

 So I've got two locations that I refer to as "compost heaps". The first is a black plastic container in the near back yard that mostly gets grass clippings and weeds pulled elsewhere in the yard. That does a pretty good job of turning that stuff into compost. I have not been truly scientific about it, it doesn't have the right ratios of "green" to "brown" materials, but it make a nice rich puffy soil. Out back further is a pile near the tree line of mostly grass clippings and overflow waste when the black container is full. Also makes nice fluffy compost. Today I pretty much emptied the black plastic compost heap filling up various containers, some two gallon buckets I got from work (originally used to carry pre-shelled hard boiled eggs), some plant pots, and the bottom half of a recycling container that got sliced up the side and didn't work anymore for its intended purpose.

White Powder is bone meal.

I pulled one garlic plant that was clearly done.It is pretty small, but usable.

At this point, the remaining plants are running low on places to go.I think I will try to fill a few more containers to try to salvage as many peppers as possible. I do have some room in the kale bed - I could put a few tomatoes there. Also the garlic is almost done, I could put a few there. If history is any guide, the ones I transplant last generally produce hardly any tomatoes.

I decided to see if I could make a comparison picture of the tomatoes since I transplanted them and ran into a picture from last year.

There's a bit to unpack here. Firstly, They seem to have put on a lot of growth in just 11 days! The weather has been alternately sunny and hot then rain, so plenty of light and plenty of water. But compared to two weeks earlier last year they seem positively anemic. Last year I don't have an exact date for when I started the seeds, but it was about the first week of March. This year it was the second week of April. Also I did not prune last year, or put up cages even. By the end of the season they were draped over the side of the planter and not very happy looking. This year I am savagely pruning. And I was good about getting cages up.

Tomato Bed is in

I have finished setting up the tomato bed near the driveway. The plants were pretty good sized by the time I transplanted them, and I'm not sure they were too happy to move. I'm seeing some branches being strangely wilty. The days have been hot here already, so it's not too shocking, but usually a day or two after the transplant they are back to happy again. This time several branches on a few of the plants stayed wilty looking. Maybe they were damaged somehow during the move? I think they will survive the ordeal in the end, but not the great start I had hoped for. Also put the large tomato cages up, should help support them nicely.

Kale is a Weed

 I love how hardy and resilient kale is! I transplanted maybe 20 volunteers from last year's kale bed and they are taking off. There are even a few in the grass nearby, but they fell prey to the mower. Today I just noticed a huge flowering plant on the other side of the driveway. Yup, more kale. I guess it bolted and is not getting busy trying to make more seeds. If there's one thing I don't need it's more kale seeds, heh.

Progress

 So things have kind of taken off the last few days. I failed to properly harden off the Brandywine tomato I planted the other day and it has since passed away. Sorry lil plant! It may be cold to speak of replacing it so soon, but I have a couple others that fared better. So the #8 spot from my garden layout map will remain Brandywine.

I had another mishap with a Black cherry tomato - the stem snapped in high wind. I don't have too many of them, so it was a disappointment, but I decided to take a chance on it anyway and bury it well above the break point and see if maybe it would survive. It was touch and go the first day, but by the second day it looked pretty good. I think it will make it. But for added confusion I placed it in spot #5 (was labelled Cherokee Purple, I thought I'd put on of those there.

TL - Dead Brandywine, BR - snapped stem Black cherry!

The TL Hungarian is flourishing. A lot of Hungarian starts did really well! 

The zucchini has come up very fast, seems like I was waiting a long time last year for the sprouts to appear. Not so this year. I think it's much warmer than it was last year. I have 6 hills of zucchini. 5 of them were sourced from leftover topsoil, the last was compost that had been sitting for... 5 years? The compost looks much darker. I think once the sprouts get a little bigger I will put down some straw.

Cucumbers are sprouting. Again, pretty fast. Looking good so far.

Cukes

The overwintered peppers are doing a lot better, really bursting out in green leaves. Even have a few flowers already. The old leaves have not dropped off yet, so they do look a little odd.

Peppers planted in a reused 2 liter plastic bottle. I imagine they need a bit more space! These were grown from seed.

The garlic is getting ready to be harvested. I'm not too confident that I'll get very much.

The raspberry bed seems very happy. Although calling it a raspberry bed suggests it was planned and I did any work at all on it. I did not.

The long beans and kale are doing well. All the transplanted kale survived. And the beans are really popping. Covered it all with chicken wire.

These are Spoon Tomatoes. The tomatoes they grow are tiny. More fun than productive.

I need to pick 4-6 tomato plants to put in the driveway bed. Not sure which. Lots to choose from! Will also probably put a few in buckets as well.

Strawberries are flowering as well. Last year I think they were starved for water and they definitely need to be repotted or planted somewhere. The berries they produced were tiny and not tasty. Been generously watering for now as I consider where they might go.