The Garden Continues
Jun. 13th, 2021 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unicorndukeI went out to my coworkers place on friday to do work, leek transplanting which took a while because we planted about 800. Just a few.
But! We finished up around 2:30 and I decided that if I worked fast, I could probably get the garden weeded and therefore, not need to drive out again over the weekend.
So I weeded the whole thing! The spring rows hadn't been weeded in a little while due to the weather and had larger weeds so I took a little extra time and went at them with a standard hoe. The rest of the field that I planted two weeks ago had only the tiniest weeds growing since I weeded twoish weeks ago and I whipped through it with a coleman flat hoe, which is more of a surface skimming. There was a section of the field that was a little wet and so I switched back to the standard hoe for that.
Gardening is definitely knowing which tools to use, I love the coleman hoe because it allows me to stand upright, skim the surface of the soil and kill weeds that are in the white thread stage, which is the easiest time to kill weeds. But they are bad with rocks, big weeds and wet ground. So the standard hoe has it's uses. But it isn't the most efficient tool and you need to bend over slightly to get the best use out of it.
In total, it took me about an hour and a half to get through the whole thing and I'm very glad I hit it that day because I had an incredible crop of crabgrass that had germinated in my newly planted section and it was going to get big and fast.
Almost all my summer crops that I planted two weeks ago are up! The only thing left is the peanuts and I think I planted them slightly too deep, one or two have germinated but the cotyledons aren't above ground which is why I think I planted them too deep. All my squashes and melons look super good, I'm very pleased with the germination on them and they are going to grow fast!
Sorghum, beans, corn, and all the other stuff is also up and with everything planted in rows, it's easy to weed.
My summer transplants are doing okay, I don't think they've been enjoying the temperature swings. They were planted just before the cold weather two weeks ago and then it went to 90F within a week. They're doing okay and I suspect they'll bounce back. The peppers are just putting on the first buds, tomatoes are doing....whatever. I think the sesame is particularly unhappy, one suddenly produced a flower and they are very small. I may try putting them on plastic next year, they'd probably like that a lot.
In the spring crops, the peas are starting to flower and go up and over as they try and find something to climb. I only grow bush varieties but they do like to hang onto things. My garbonzos and flax look happy. My dry mustard is flowering already as well.
My potatoes are continuing to flower which is interesting but they mostly seem to be aborting them instead of setting fruit and my guess is that they aren't being pollinated. I don't know if the bees can find them and I don't care to hand pollinate things. Or it might be the weather again. Who knows. I'm not super concerned, the place I got the true potato seed has a lot available and seems to be growing more every year. Plus I haven't used up my seed from three years ago yet.
I won't have any major harvests until late July probably and that's alright. I'm busy enough with work and the garlic I've got growing at my parents that I don't really want to harvest anything until then. Garlic harvest is in July and I'm heading down there this coming weekend to pull scapes. Mom will sell those to the strawberry customers. When I was down there in May, I noticed allium leaf miner oviposition marks on something like 25% of the garlic. ALM doesn't do as much damage to garlic as other alliums (leeks are the favorite) but it would cause cosmetic issues. So I did some research and let dad know what insecticides were available and he applied something that he had on hand. And it worked! Yay science! It killed the eggs and probably the adults so I shouldn't have issues come harvest.
My house plants are all still alive even if some of the succulents are rather....floppy. Two of whatever they are just have tipped over and are growing vigorously sideways. I repotted one plant the other day and I've got to separate and repot another set of plants. Otherwise, they are happy campers.
I also seeded buckwheat into the large planter that holds my saffron crocus that I think might still be alive. They are dormant through the summer, so I was just staring at the planter and trying to figure out if I could keep the squirrels from burying things in it. So I planted buckwheat! And it grew hilariously tall for the little sun it gets. It's starting to flower so I'll cut it soon and mulch the planter with it.
Just a few garden things :)
But! We finished up around 2:30 and I decided that if I worked fast, I could probably get the garden weeded and therefore, not need to drive out again over the weekend.
So I weeded the whole thing! The spring rows hadn't been weeded in a little while due to the weather and had larger weeds so I took a little extra time and went at them with a standard hoe. The rest of the field that I planted two weeks ago had only the tiniest weeds growing since I weeded twoish weeks ago and I whipped through it with a coleman flat hoe, which is more of a surface skimming. There was a section of the field that was a little wet and so I switched back to the standard hoe for that.
Gardening is definitely knowing which tools to use, I love the coleman hoe because it allows me to stand upright, skim the surface of the soil and kill weeds that are in the white thread stage, which is the easiest time to kill weeds. But they are bad with rocks, big weeds and wet ground. So the standard hoe has it's uses. But it isn't the most efficient tool and you need to bend over slightly to get the best use out of it.
In total, it took me about an hour and a half to get through the whole thing and I'm very glad I hit it that day because I had an incredible crop of crabgrass that had germinated in my newly planted section and it was going to get big and fast.
Almost all my summer crops that I planted two weeks ago are up! The only thing left is the peanuts and I think I planted them slightly too deep, one or two have germinated but the cotyledons aren't above ground which is why I think I planted them too deep. All my squashes and melons look super good, I'm very pleased with the germination on them and they are going to grow fast!
Sorghum, beans, corn, and all the other stuff is also up and with everything planted in rows, it's easy to weed.
My summer transplants are doing okay, I don't think they've been enjoying the temperature swings. They were planted just before the cold weather two weeks ago and then it went to 90F within a week. They're doing okay and I suspect they'll bounce back. The peppers are just putting on the first buds, tomatoes are doing....whatever. I think the sesame is particularly unhappy, one suddenly produced a flower and they are very small. I may try putting them on plastic next year, they'd probably like that a lot.
In the spring crops, the peas are starting to flower and go up and over as they try and find something to climb. I only grow bush varieties but they do like to hang onto things. My garbonzos and flax look happy. My dry mustard is flowering already as well.
My potatoes are continuing to flower which is interesting but they mostly seem to be aborting them instead of setting fruit and my guess is that they aren't being pollinated. I don't know if the bees can find them and I don't care to hand pollinate things. Or it might be the weather again. Who knows. I'm not super concerned, the place I got the true potato seed has a lot available and seems to be growing more every year. Plus I haven't used up my seed from three years ago yet.
I won't have any major harvests until late July probably and that's alright. I'm busy enough with work and the garlic I've got growing at my parents that I don't really want to harvest anything until then. Garlic harvest is in July and I'm heading down there this coming weekend to pull scapes. Mom will sell those to the strawberry customers. When I was down there in May, I noticed allium leaf miner oviposition marks on something like 25% of the garlic. ALM doesn't do as much damage to garlic as other alliums (leeks are the favorite) but it would cause cosmetic issues. So I did some research and let dad know what insecticides were available and he applied something that he had on hand. And it worked! Yay science! It killed the eggs and probably the adults so I shouldn't have issues come harvest.
My house plants are all still alive even if some of the succulents are rather....floppy. Two of whatever they are just have tipped over and are growing vigorously sideways. I repotted one plant the other day and I've got to separate and repot another set of plants. Otherwise, they are happy campers.
I also seeded buckwheat into the large planter that holds my saffron crocus that I think might still be alive. They are dormant through the summer, so I was just staring at the planter and trying to figure out if I could keep the squirrels from burying things in it. So I planted buckwheat! And it grew hilariously tall for the little sun it gets. It's starting to flower so I'll cut it soon and mulch the planter with it.
Just a few garden things :)
no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 10:15 pm (UTC)Yay garden! (also yay! timing)
It continues to sound like a lot of garden, too.
Hoes are supposed to have longer handles but sometime around 1960 people stopped making them because no one able to complain effectively was using them for real. (Same with a lot of shovels.)
Buckwheat is supposed to be unstoppable.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 11:42 pm (UTC)The funny thing about hoes is that my coworker's partner is from Holland and has a vast collection of different types of hoes, so I really have my choice of hoe types to work with. Some definitely work better than others.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-14 01:07 am (UTC)Nifty!
So much specialization for crop and dirt and whatnot, as befits a neolithic implement.
(I am presuming you sharpen them, because of course you do, but having watched people who I would have thought would absolutely sharpen gardening implements just not, I feel compelled to mention.)
no subject
Date: 2021-06-14 08:50 pm (UTC)