Garden is going in

[Blueflint]

Hello to all AHSC members and all heirloom friends. Well it is time again to plant. I started planting beans April 30 and so far have ten 10' rows of beans planted plus two 4' rows planted. All of these are pole type, each row a different type. Soon I will start on bush bean varieties. And I almost forgot the one Runner bean too. I'm not sure how many bush types there will be but 6 will be a minimum. Tomato plants are actually a little behind for me this year but will be ready to transplant into the garden around the 15th of May. My favorite tomato being Black Mountain Pink but there will be 6 different varieties this year. Also I will have two varieties of sweet peppers and one egg plant. On squash, I have yellow pattypans coming along in pots and will be transplanted in about a week. I'm not sure if I'll have room for a winter squash this year as the ones I usually grow will cover a 500 square foot area (well...4 plants of one variety in a group planting). I have one short season corn coming along well.

How is everyone's garden coming? Anything in the ground yet?

Blueflint
Southwest Ohio

[lavandulagirl]

I'm pushing my season here in the Shenandoah Valley this year - we've had warm soil for the season for awhile, well, warmer than normal. I took a calculated risk, and put out just about everything this past couple of weeks. Eggplants even went in 2 days ago. The only things I have left in the start room are my black plum tomatoes, which were very slow to start, and some seeds I saved out of a beautiful, huge, pleated toamto in a friend's garden that she didn't know the name of. Also slow starters. That couple sets of seedlings are only about 2 1/2" high yet, so too weeny to hit the outside.

As to why I'm pushing my season - I've been having nightmares about selling the house this summer, and leaving all my veggies to someone who isn't interested!

[brook]

Nobody likes a braggart, Blueflint. :>)

So far I have nothing in the ground, except the fall-planted garlic. Part of this is due to the non-stop monsoons, which have turned the garden into a quagmire. And part is being up to it in alligators working on AHSC stuff---putting the newsletter together, handling renewals and new members, dotting Ts and crossing Is for the conference.

Tomatoes and peppers are waiting to be transplanted, if it ever dries up. I'm only planning on 4 pole beans this year, plus the bush beans you sent me. One good aspect of running late is that the onions won't get planted, which gives me room for things like the heirloom tobacco Alan sent, and the new-to-me okra that came from a Creek woman living in the Nations back in the late 1800s.

All dependent, of course, on the rains stopping.

[Blueflint]

My fall planted garlic is doing well. I planted 100 cloves last fall, all are Inchelium Red. Once the garlic is removed, I'll plant a bush bean where they came out. The rains are missing us all together. Due to this short dry spell, the farmers are going like mad planting the fields. I have read about the Okra you are planting this year Brook. Let me know how it does for you. Ohhh, and I put in two more pole bean varieties tonight. Both are Cherokee varieties. And corn...oh I wish I had some isolated areas to grow some more corn varieties this year. Like the late Wade Wofford use to say...too many corns, too little time. If he only really knew.

Blueflint

[Blueflint]

A little update on our garden. I transplanted tomatoes today: Black Mountain Pink, Yellow Pear, Old Ivory Egg, Wisconsin 55, Matina and Cherokee Brick Red. My peppers and eggplants will not be planted for another week or 10 days since they still need a little more size before they are ready to fend for themselves. I transplanted six yellow scallop summer squash also. Pole beans are starting to come up nicely (the ones planted April 30th and May1st). All of the local farm fields are planted and the field corn is up several inches. This will allow me to put in a late corn crop and still allow a good length growing season and still alternate (miss) tassle (pollination) times with the field corns. My short season corn is doing well and will actually tassle in less than 2 weeks. Strange enough with all the rain everyone seems to be getting, here in south-west Ohio we are missing most of it. We had 1/2" or so last Saturday but within a day things were dry enough to garden and allow farmers back into the fields.

How is everyone else's garden coming?

Brook?

Hey, has anyone talked to Bill Best lately? How about other AHSC members? How are their plantings coming?

Blueflint

[rodger]

I have my garden in and I wish I could get some of your rain Brook heres is a picture a couple weeks ago of some of the tomatoes
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/rodgerwinn/DSCF0038.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>
Some of the beans
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/rodgerwinn/DSCF00042.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>
and some poppies only because they look good.
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/rodgerwinn/DSCF00051.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a> Rodger

[mbrown]

Rodger,

Looking good. What area of the country do you live?

Mike

[rodger]

I am in Little Mountain SC, which is 40 miles NW of Columbia.

[mbrown]

Rodger,

Glad to have you here. I think you will enjoy this group of folks.

Mike

[bluelacedredhead]

The pic of the tomatoes was a bit dark to get a close look at the plants, but those poppies are beautiful!! Thanks for posting your pics Rodger. And Welcome.


Blueflint, When do you usually harvest your garlic? Mine usually is ready in July, but I've never thought of doing anything with the plot after the garlic comes out?? Maybe I should be. I'll have to look up DTM for the bush beans I have onhand.
Thanks for the idea.

[Blueflint]

I usually harvest my garlic the last week of June to the first week of July. Once the tops start to yellow down (top 1/3) you can go ahead and start digging it up. I figure the longer I leave it in the ground past this point, the better chance grubs will get to some or I have seen late June rains cause problems with it rotting once it stops growing provided it is in a place with not so good of drainage.

Usually within a week I plant the area with bush beans...double crop the area. This is like the local farmers do...harvest wheat around the first of July and then plant a short season soybean afterwards. It doesn't make sence to let the area go unproductive (in my opinion) for several months.

Give the double crop a try. The best bean I have used for this late planting would be the Hidatsa Red bean or the Arikara Yellow bean. Both do well in slightly drier areas which by July most areas are getting less rain. Also these do not like early plantings (wetter season) as they are prone to Rust. These 2 beans are well adapted to the limited rains of the upper Missouri River basin. If you water your garden regularly...then about any bush bean will work.

Blueflint

[bluelacedredhead]

Blueflint, Our farm is sand/sandy loam. Drainage is definitely not a problem here. Water retention can be.
I just plant a small patch of garlic in the kitchen herb garden. 30 or so cloves (definitely no more than 50) a year. A successive planting of something Dual Purpose like a short season pole bean would be attractive in that spot as it in the first thing that folks see when they pull up to our house.

I'm probably a week or so behind you as far as gardening season, so for you to harvest garlic in late June compared to my harvest in mid July seems about right.
Thanks for the input.

[brook]

I usually lift garlic in early July, Blue.

You can follow up the garlic with beans, as Blueflint and I do. Personally, I go with one of the 6-week bush varieties to assure maturation before I have to start reprepping for the garlic again.

However, you could also second crop with any of the hardy fall types. Broccoli and its kin, for instance. Or, if you want a root crop, turnips or beets. Or even give thought to some of the very hardy greens, like arugala and mache, which will produce for you well into the winter.

[bluelacedredhead]

Remember my mentioning trying to overwinter kale in the herb bed? Well the kale's colour was only there until I removed the mulch. It hadn't made it through the winter.
However, a very small head of Jersey Wakefield has more than doubled it size in the past week or so. And Friday, when I weeded between the garlic, I noticed a 2 " high Swiss Chard plant. So the little hoop house got the cabbage and chard through. But mulch alone just wasn't enough.

Carolina Family Farm is sending me some Sieva butter bean seeds.They are short season for that type of bean, only 60-75 days. They might mature in time to be grown after the garlic, or Not..

But yeah, I'll probably just put something in like Black Valentine or Tobacco Worm Bean Less chance of losing a crop to frost.

[vgary]

Blueflint, The Cherokee Brick Red Tomato is doing very well for me. I talked with Craig LeHoullier several weeks ago; he introduced the Cherokee Purple variety. I was surprised that they are one and the same. Cherokee Brick Red was the working name before it was named Cherokee Purple.
vgary/Louisville, Kentucky