Vegetable Garden 2010 – #2
We had a cold April so it has been a little slower getting the vegetable garden going. The lettuce which we did start early and have babied it through the cold is finally paying off. It is almost time to eat which is about 3 weeks earlier than last year. The peas are a little behind. We are still having problems with the peas especially in the first bed. We have started to give that bed heavy doses of fertilizer (20-20-20) to get it going.
We started the beans inside and just transplanted them outside this year. We are trying a different arrangement. Instead of Teepees we have a trellis. I’m not certain how this is going to do. The bush Maxibels are up and so are the Blue Lakes Poles. Our yellow Italian variety of Romanos did not have a good germination rate so we have seeded some directly in the ground. We have an extra bed so we may directly sow some yellow wax bush.
We started the carrots in plugs and they were planted out last week. they seem to be taking so it may work. The radishes are up. The squashes and cukes are going in the pots.
We are definitely two weeks behind on our tomatoes. They are pretty tall and budded up but still in the greenhouse. We had put them out with cloches last year which we removed just about this time last year. But we may keep these in the green house for a bit more. It has been cold still at night – in the 40’s – so it may benefit us to keep them inside until it is warmer at night. All of the tomatoes are going to be outside this year. We are only growing the cucumber and a Gypsy pepper in the greenhouse this year.
The big surprise and shock is our columnar apples. They were in bloom last year at the beginning of April. We realized several weeks ago that they were not blooming. Either the sever 11 degree temperatures in December or the 28 degree night in April has damaged both the buds and even some of the wood. They have not leafed out and are actually starting new bud branches. So no apples this year and we hope we can at least save the trees.
Nevada green leaf lettuce almost ready
Peas on the climb
Peas, radishes and carrots
Squash ready for planting
Tomato starts still in the greenhouse
Blue Lake green beans
Damaged Apple Tree
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I’m always so happy to see your vegetable garden posts, Marta!
It’s fascinating to see how things are progressing for you and always an illustration of just how different your climate is from mine. And it prompts me to stop putting off posting about how my own garden is doing.
I don’t understand what you mean by planting your carrots in plugs. Did you start them in pots as clumps or something?
I’m sorry to hear about your apple trees. I hope they recover. I lost all my bougainvillea to frost this year, but that’s always a risk here.
Yes, we started them in small seed trays, thinned them and then put them out. I’m not convinced this will work because I don’t think carrots transplant but we’ll see.
I’m always a bit jealous of how early you can plant things in California. But I don’t miss the bugs. 🙂
My mother used to plant carrots in gallon cans, thin them and plant the whole clumps(in Montana). She had good luck doing it that way.
Bugs? What bugs? I have my lovely tomato hornworms, a few aphids and snails, and that’s about all. I did have a horrifying infestation of squash bugs one year when I still had my community garden plot, but I don’t like to think about that because it might give me nightmares.
Maybe the carrots will do okay. The hornworms used to creep me out. We also had a lot of problems with viruses especially on our squashes.
Slugs and leaf miners are a little bit of a problem here in the NW. Fortunately, Sluggo works well and we’ve got the slugs controlled. We kinda gave up on chard because of the miners but maybe we’ll try it again.
The lettuce looks really GOOODD…
I had to start my lettuces all over again last week. Damn bunnies at them down to the crown.
I guess we need a greenhouse to start the plants in.
Bill lost his first batch of tomatoes because it got below freezing, but now there’s another batch growing OK so far.
So sorry about the apple trees. I hope they survive.
It’s fun to look at your garden and compare its progress with mine. I ate my first salads this week. A hot spell last week has my arugula on the verge of bolting. My green beans are about the exact same size as yours, and I’ve got lots of little green tomatos on my plants.