Month: August 2017

The latest lettuce crapped out after getting to the several leaf stage, not sure if it is because of the intermittent hot weather. I think they were meant for spring here . 

Finally pulled the second planting of “failing lettuce” and planted new carrot and onion seeds in their place, which are just coming up this last week. So now I have three different ages of onions and carrots, established pole green beans that keep trying to grow above the six foot or so trellis getup, and ripening tomatoes. We have had a few of the Oregon Spring ones already, but the Sweet Casady are just starting to get red. New seeds planted today for recently removed carrots, too – I targeted the ones on the south because they are blocking sun from seedlings. The carrots get huge, by the way…almost all of them are quite fat, some are double, and I think they can’t get more than about 10″ long because of the depth of the planter box. They are more tender and tasty than the store bought, as are the onions and green beans.  The broccoli is still in seedling phase. The cucumbers were a bust, next time plant only vine cukes and only on western side.

I am fertilizing them about every three or so weeks with fish fertilizer, and we have them on automatics drip watering. I’ve given the tomatoes a little extra water at the bases because I’d accidentally turned off the drip system and they had a little dry trauma, but they since recovered. In fact the Casady is putting out hundreds of flowers!

Lessons learned ?:

 1. Plant the carrots, and probably all of the vegetables, in square configurations rather than rows. That may minimize the sun blockage from carrot leaves on the other, shorter plants.

2. No radishes. Not worth it, and they have huge leaves that grow fast and early to block out the other seedlings.

3. Pay attention to the seedling packets you buy. I spent a lot of time going through the way too many varieties they had at Sky (have a gift certificate), then ended up buying the way wrong type of cucumbers- a “bush” type, not a vine, but either way they didn’t do well.

4. If I plant cukes again, it will be on the western part of the planter, since they are so heat and sun needy. The two plants on either east/west side had very different growth rates, and it’s only a 4 foot box! It had to do with the other plants blocking, I’m guessing, 

5. Nasturtiums are great for color and vitamin C, and for putting flowers on your salad (I’ve read a LOT about edible flowers and they are extremely nutritious). But, I only need one or two plants, not six. And they can be continually pruned back away from the plants as they like to spill out over the sides.    

            

Lot of warm weather this summer, so the second batch of lettuce failed to grow much. They all sprouted but then stalled out when the temps went into the 80’s.  I left about five plants in a row to see if they’ll take off.  The others were replaced last week by broccoli, carrot and onion seeds. A bunch of the broccoli sprouts are already coming up, so I thinned them out to one about every four inches (a little on the tight side, but I don’t think they’ll get large). They should be ready to harvest by fall, but I think they can overwinter, too. And the one plant I had from earlier planting is still growing, now about ten inches with purplish flowers on several branches. I hope this is what they’re supposed to do.

Had lots of tomatoes yesterday from the Oregon Spring plant…about five ripened at the same time. Also, I watered the front with a sprinkler and when the sun came out some of these ripening tomatoes split, so I had to pick them. We served them with salad to guests, and they were delicious! Still accumulating Sweet Casado small tomatoes,  but no red ones yet.