Dewdrop's Doings

[Dewdrop]

2019 Dewdrop's 'Wide Garden Row'  
Normally I do single rows, so this 'wide row' is something different I am 'playing around with' this year, among other things.  My 'wide row' is marked about 20" wide, and is down to 30 feet long.  The garden was tilled beforehand.    
First is the 'Bouncing Betty' Soapwart (Saponara officinalis), to play around with saving dried roots, and perhaps using said roots to make a gentle laundry 'soap'.  It spread locally on it's own, even helping itself to the flowerbeds.

Next is the flax (Linum ustatissimum), I hope it's the kind used to make Linen cloth.  Due to the lack of planting instructions I 'fell back on' sowing it on the way I was finally able to find 'my knack' of growing any carrots from seed.  I sowed them on May 9th, directly on the soil's surface, gently patted them in with my bare hand, then put one-ply paper towel over them and weighed it down with rocks.  I removed the paper towel once most of the seeds sprouted.             

Then the Peas:
I am using part of a 'cattle panel' trellis for peas, even though it really is overkill in strength.    I am growing mostly Wando shelling peas on it.  On abit of the left end of the 'cattle panel' trellis I am 'playing around with' a few Tall Telephone peas to taste.  On one spare tomato cage (in front of the 'cattle panel' trellis) I am likewise 'playing around with' Tom Thumb peas, to try a taste.  I first planted my peas on April 20th, initially with last year's seeds, but have since planted this years Wando pea seeds as well.        

Then a sweet corn I have grown a taste for, the Country Gentleman.  It is a white 'shoepeg' sweet corn, but it grows really tall.  Unfortunately, only two came up, probably because I didn't plow just prior to planting, as I usually do with the cultivator/'push-plow'.     

(Edited: the pictures didn't work, hopefully I can try to figure them out later)

[Dewdrop]

The flax seems to be doing well, it is now about 11 inches tall. The Soapwart is about 1 foot tall and continues to produce a few new plants from the roots.

The Tall Telephone pea plant is dying. I had two pods of the Tom Thumb peas, and they tasted delicious, so they pass my taste test. The Tom Thumb peas are up to about 7inches tall on the tomato cage, with 7 and 5 peas per pod so far. Other than the some of the pea plants getting eaten by an animal earlier in the year, the pea plants are doing fine. Both Tom Thumb peas and Wando peas have white flowers in my experience.

The Sweet 100 spare cherry tomato plant was severely yellow, but has since recovered.

My Country Gentleman corn overall did not appear to sprout well, but then it had few other new variables this year.
The ratio I planted initially in total (and replanted most of) was 8 corn seeds saved from the garden last year and 27 from the seed packet that I stored in the closet last year. I suspect now that it is also because of my not-so-much of a 'brilliant idea' to add 'fresh mulch' of spoiled silage straight on the garden for all the 'organic matter', which (in hindsight) probably in turn led to a nitrogen deficiency as it decomposes this year. It is possible I might have weeded out the very young corn sprouts, thinking them to be grass, even though I've nurtured sweet corn for years.
The corn seeds that sprouted were almost entirely the ones I saved from the garden last year, instead of the seed packet corn seeds in storage for a year. Some of the corn plants were yellowing, but only one of the garden-saved corn sprout appears to be yellowing severely. The only trouble is those seeds were from a mere four corn plants in the garden, mostly because I was just 'playing around' with saving a few ears of corn for seed, so I was hoping to save from alot more new corn plants this year. The Country Gentleman corn seems to have dark purple stalks at the base, and last year displayed dark red corn silks and numerous dark red pollen-holder parts of the tassel.

Since a lot of my replanted corn didn't appear to sprout either, that left me with a lot of 'newfound space'. I set up another 'cattle panel' trellis and planted 1/2 Runner Beans to save for seed from the garden. Yesterday I also planted seeds of Spaghetti Squash to sprawl out on the ground, to see if I like the taste of Spaghetti Squash.

On a different note, the earthworm population is evidently thriving with the 'silage mulch' and I can't look at the garden without seeing some robins or other birds in it this year.

[Dewdrop]

I'll start off with a yarn from yesterday. I was hand weeding the garden and tying up pea plants for about a good hour while two wrens kept chirping at me and wouldn't stray from the garden for long. I knew it was abit odd, but didn't think too much on it. What I didn't quite figure out was that the whole time, they had a fledgling baby in the middle of the garden, hiding perched on a 'cattle panel' trellis just under a pea plant branch. Surprisingly, the baby stayed put, even though I unwittingly walked right up to it. I didn't see any obvious injuries so I did just a bit more hand weeding and finally left the little wren family alone. When I checked again late this morning, it was gone, presumably it either moved elsewhere or was eaten.

Otherwise the rest of the garden seems to be doing ok overall. I had two 1/2 Runner Beans sprout but a pest ate on both of their leaves somewhat. I went through the trouble of tying up the pea plants to the trellis this year.

[Dewdrop]

The flax first started to branch out a little at the top and is starting to blossom with blue flowers. The flax overall varies from about 14" tall to just over 2feet tall. The flax plants that were the most shaded were abit yellow and are still noticeably shorter; one of the shortest ones are 5" tall.

The Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant has yellow flowers and two little green tomatoes forming.

Tom Thumb peas are still producing pods. The Wando peas are doing well overall and just starting to produce pods.

The few corn plants I have are doing well. All three of the Spaghetti Squash seeds sprouted, although I suspect the frequent rains helped. A few more of the 1/2 Runner Bean plants have sprouted.

[Dewdrop]

The Soapwart patches are fine overall, some of the plants along the perimeter were 'trimmed' by the lawnmower.

I culled the shorter flax plants. I saved the culled flax plants whole, roots and all, to 'play around with' processing them for any fibers. This is my first year with flax, so I am still learning. The small flax patch did get somewhat wind-blown after a thunderstorm with at least 23mph high wind, so I tied up the perimeter of the flax patch abit. The flax started to develop mostly round seedpods prior to July 13th, and at August 14th some of the brown seedpods were dry enough to sound like a rattle when shaken. I harvested some of the flax plants for seed, partly to avoid losing the whole seed crop in case flax likes to disperse its seeds. I started to separate out a few flax seeds out with my bare hands, and a few of the seeds were black rather than the brown seeds like I planted.

The partially shaded unpruned Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant grew very leggy, and is over 5ft tall now. The tomato plant is coming into full production now. Some of the earlier tomatoes were split, but that was probably due to the abundance of rain. I tried one of the cherry tomatoes, it tasted ok, but I'm not the biggest fan of tomatoes off the vine at this time. Luckily I can give my cherry tomatoes to family members who enjoy them more than I do just yet.

I harvested my few Tom Thumb pea seeds on July 27th, from one pea pod. I was surprised that they were much smaller in size than the seeds I had planted, but the garden-saved seeds appeared healthy otherwise. It is very possible that the Tom Thumb pea plant was in too much shade.
I started leaving the Wando pea plants be to go to seed on July 23rd, and harvested most of my Wando pea pods for seed around August 14th.

The Spaghetti squash plants sprawling on the ground have flowers.

The 1/2 Runner Beans have long since overcome the damaged leaves, and are climbing the trellis after I trained them to grow on it.

[Dewdrop]

I tried to harvest the soapwart roots, but with the dry soil already compacted again the plants just broke off. I may try again with more moist soil.
I harvested all the flax plants, particuarly for the seeds. The seed pods get brown/golden in color, and you can may hear the seeds rattle when you shake them! In hindsight, it is best to pull out the patch all at once, if not culling plants. Leaving too 'thin' a patch left a lot of individual flax plants to 'flatten out' on the ground for about half of the plant. The plants did yellow just a little bit on the bottom, particularly notable with the remaining patch of flax I still had left.

The Sweet 100 cherry tomato is slowing down in production. I am enjoying the tomatoes just a little bit more now occasionally.

I harvested the remaining Wando pea seeds.

I later neglected to manage my Spagetti Squash plants on the 'tiny' trellis against the powedery mildew. One plant was half dead, but then it seemed like the weight of the otherwise unsupported Squash helped to tear apart a section of the plant. The Spagetti Squash plants on the ground are doing poorly overall, two of them died; I think I shaded them too much with the volunteer sunflowers.
I was able to harvest my first Spagetti Squash when it was a decently bright yellow color on all sides. I used handheld pruners to cut the vine. I like it a lot, it tasted like just a hint of squash flavor, so I can enjoy a plain-tasting meal without an overpowering flavor. I only wish I hadn't just had a meal beforehand, so that I could do more than just nibble on it. I have another smaller one maturing on the vine that I didn't expect, so I might be able to get one more off of it. My biggest problem was in simply cutting the Spaghetti Squash in half.

The chickadees and other birds love the sunflower seeds. I fed some of the sunflower heads full of seeds to the chickens, they loved it. The morning glories (a very vigorous climbing weed and flower) are still putting on a pretty good show of flowers.

I harvested all the dried 1/2 Runner Bean pods for seed.

Lessons (including from my own mistakes) I learned so far:
-Don't put excessive layer of silage 'mulch' on an active garden, especially don't pile it on too thick to till it in. Alternatively, wait until after vegetables start sprouting out, since it did suppress weeds for a while as a 'mulch'.
-Earthworms loved the silage mulch, and the birds loved the earthworms in turn.
-Remember to alternate years of growing plants with the same particular weakness, such as powdery mildew between my neglected Spagetti Squash and my previous Luffa 'Sponge' Gourds.
-A single row is less work with the push-plow/cultivator.

[Dewdrop]

Prior to Oct. 25th were some freezing nights and heavy frost, so this year's outdoor growing season is definitely concluded by now.

The Sweet 100 cherry tomato is completely dead.

All of the trellises and t-posts are finally put away.

[flowerbug]

what type of flax do you grow? we have two types we grow here. one is a black seeded semi-perennial plant and the other is a golden seeded annual. i don't grow them for any specific reason other than we like the flowers and once in a while i'll eat some of the seeds, but that's about it.

[Dewdrop]

The only kind of flax I have grown so far is Linum ustatissimum.   It grew as tall as a little over 2 feet tall, which should be the same kind as usable for linen cloth.  I pulled all mine out by hand for seed and potentially the fibers, but it might be an annual plant.  Last year was my first time growing flax.
If I'm really energetic in the future I might go through the trouble of processing the flax fibers, but for now I'm content with growing it and practicing saving the seeds.  

[Dewdrop]

I gathered 'my rocks' together again.    I have recently started to use some of the larger rocks to slightly elevate the cattle panel trellis off of the (wet) ground, even though they would have lasted for years anyways. 
  
It's a great garden, but it always has a nice little 'crop' of rocks.  The rocks vary in size from say 1/2" to the occasional ones over fist-sized.  Mebe I better put a few rocks back to 'go to seed'.  

[xdrix]

Can you posted a photo of your treillis?

[Dewdrop]

I would be happy to if I can learn how to post pictures on the forum with success.

[flowerbug]

i have my own website for hosting pictures so that is what i do first (i put them there) and then i link to them using the bbcode editor and write the following (using my picture post in the Deer Fence thread as an example):

[ i m g alt="Deer" src="http://www.anthive.com/img/critters/thm/100_9107_Deer_thm.jpg" style="max-width:100%;"]


remove the spaces in the i m g part.

i'm not sure this will post but i'll try it...

[flowerbug]

and as it turns out when you use Reply instead of Quick Reply there is a bit there about Add Attachment but i have not tried that...

[Dewdrop]

Thanks flowerbug. I guess I just needed to 'sit down to it' again. I tried postimage./ and it seemed to work. I guess I just had to learn what to do to 'enter URL', since it didn't seem super obvious to me at first (I finally tried using a thumbnail). I'm not sure I could figure out how my own how to make my own website, nor if I really want to at this time.  I'll probably be busy enough between life, the garden, and the forum as it is.    

I'll probably end up taking a new picture of the 'cattle panel' trellis.