Mid-Summer Garden Update

Fruits of our labor...ok, veggies...but you
get the point. Watermelon, squash & cucumbers.

I can empathize with the heat wave moving across the country this summer. We have a "heat wave" every year here in the Arizona desert. Temperatures of 109 degrees settle in for many weeks and it is just considered the norm around here.

I didn't expect much of the garden to last through the heat and since we're still relatively new to gardening, I was curious to see how the different crops fared. The corn has been picked over and is already dried up, withered and brown. I'll be pulling it out of the ground in the next few weeks.

I'm leaving the potatoes in for a little while longer. I'm not sure when they come are ready to harvest but I've read that I should leave them until the part above ground withers and looks to be near dead.  I pulled some a week or so ago and they were little golf ball size potatoes. About eight of them were dangling from one root.  I microwaved them for about five minutes and served 'em up with butter, cheese and salt. They were tasty and I was now sure that in times of need I could grow potatoes for food.  I'm hoping that they grow much larger as I leave them in the ground to grow.

The butternut squash and cucumbers are producing nicely.  Wifey has learned how to bake the squash into what I'll call long squash fries.  They are quite delicious with a little butter and salt, similar to a mashed potato consistency or maybe a baked yam. We've had one sitting on the kitchen counter for a few weeks now and it doesn't show any signs of going bad yet. We're still learning the shelf life of different organic items. Wifey's homemade bread starts to mold in under two weeks. She made a batch of eight loaves a few weeks ago so some actually sat around for a bit as opposed to her usual four loaf batch that gets eaten in four days.

The cucumbers are growing great but I don't really have a taste for them. Never have. That is, not until we recently started to juice produce.  Now, for breakfast, Wifey goes out to the garden and picks a fresh cucumber and tosses it into the juicer with apples, plums, kale and broccoli or celery and I'm able to enjoy a smorgasbord or fruits and veggies in a refreshing morning beverage. I'm thankful for finding the joy of juicing as it allows me to consume the things I normally found unpalatable but yet wanted to grow in my garden.

Growing fewer than I thought based on
all the vines & smaller than I expected too.

The watermelon and pumpkin are growing but don't produce as much as I thought they would. I mean, these things vine out all over the place. You'd think I'd be able to feed half of our block with the amount of leaves and running vines that are busting out of our gardening area and running onto sidewalks and non-garden areas.  But it seems they are producing few and far between.  We got ahead of ourselves and picked a watermelon that we THOUGHT was ripe.  Turns out...not so ripe. A little bite indicated it was certainly sweet enough but the pinkish color just hadn't quite settled in yet.

We only have a few pumpkins that are in the grapefruit size range.  The rest a just little golf ball sized fellas.  I was hoping that my Halloween we'd be up to our knees in pumpkins and each child would be able to carve their own as well as having plenty for pie making.  Not so sure it's going to work out that way. We'll have to wait and see I guess. At least they're growing. I'm happy about that.

Strawberries have made it this far so they should continue to grow. They sprout out a little red gem every now and then.  I pick them whenever I see one in hope that the plant can focus it's energy on growing stronger for next season, as some have suggested.  Out of five strawberry plants purchased from home depot, three remain and one had a runner creating a daughter plant. So I still have four plants growing. I'm happy with that ratio too.

This watermelon wasn't quite ready yet :-(

Grandpa Neff's Beans are flourishing wildly but no bean pods yet.  The French horticulture beans looks like the took a beating from something. Either they went without water unknowingly or the sudden heat blast that is our desert summer was too much for them.  I've lost an estimated 70% of that raised garden bed.  Some are still struggling though. So we'll be waiting a little longer on any bean harvesting.  I should note that my Neff beans are right next to a sheet metal storage shed. At the beginning of our hot summer I noticed they were taking a turn for the worse.  Gardening neighbors advised us to put up a trellis with a vine type plant to help absorb heat radiated from the shed.  I draped a blue tarp down the side of the shed and the Neff beans made a terrific comeback.

All in all, our gardening experiment is proving to be a success.  We've learned the beginning stages of what it takes to grow our own food (tilling, planting, watering, hand pollinating, pruning, predator proofing, heat shielding) and found it to be both entertaining and enjoyable.  The children ask to be involved and have picked their own corn and planted seeds. We set out to add self sustaining skills to our knowledge base this year and gardening certainly leads the pack in usefulness. Now if I could just find some affordable farm land.

How much land do you think is enough to support your family's gardening needs?

~OJD

Self Sustaining Garden Under Way with SeedForSecurity

Our SeedForSecurity vegetables have REALLY started growing fast, faster than expected. Just a few weeks ago, I blogged about planting pumpkins, watermelons, cucumbers and beans. These seeds are already reaching for the sun and are above soil level.

As I've mentioned, the pumpkins that were planted in the front yard for Halloween harvesting are coming along nicely. A few raised mounds have taken a beating from passers-by (aka toddlers) and I've lost a little in the process. When I arrived home this morning from my night shift, I found the same pesky cat pooping in my pumpkin patch that had required me to bird net my raised box gardens in the backyard. Oh, he's really climbing to the top of my list. Keep you're fertilizer to yourself pal! It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't paw at the ground like he's trying to cover up his big, heaping pile. He's pawing right were my struggling seedlings are blooming. Grrr.

The Jacob's Cattle Beans and French Horticulture Beans which replaced the uncooperative carrots are producing nicely in our raised box gardens.

I took pictures of all the veggies starting to bloom and am still thankful we found a good seed supplier (SeedForSecurity).  Here's the pics (click on pics to enlarge them to full size):

Dirt mounds containing watermelon seedlings

Mostly bean seedlings, one lonely carrot on the left



Row of cucumbers looking good (planted 2.5 rows)




Squash making a "run" for it



Indian Corn outgrowing my bird net cage




 

Successful Gardening Seeds From SeedsForSecurity.com

Indian Corn (Link to purchase)

Wifey and I are new to gardening. We have two man-made gardening containers: cinder block pictured below with corn and raised box gardens. These have bags of soil and fertilizer from the local gardening center. Our other backyard garden area is simply hard, Arizona dirt. The same goes from our front yard garden. We purposely plant in both improved and unimproved gardens to see what works and what doesn't.

So far, we've had terrific results. In plain dirt, lettuce (pictured) has done VERY well. The butternut squash is starting to really take off. We have several little ones that play in the dirt and it is possible that seeds get dug up from time to time (or seedlings pulled out.) I covered all raised gardens with bird net to discourage critters and rugrats (cats, birds, and kids).

Most of our seeds were bulk purchased from SeedsForSecurity.com. We didn't know where to get our start in gardening seeds and took a chance on an internet ad displayed at InfoWars.com. We bought the Super Survival Pack.

SeedsForSecurity has turned out to be a terrific source for high quality seeds. We highly recommend them and we are NOT sponsored to say that in any way. Here are some of the plants we have grown using SeedsForSecurity:


 

Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage (Link to purchase)



Lettuce

Not pictured yet:

peas (Super Survival Pack)

french beans (Super Survival Pack)

cattle beans (Super Survival Pack)

waltham butternut squash (Link to purchase)

cucumber

sugar pumpkin (Link to purchase)

Strawberry Gardening Tips and Information

Thanks to a post by Mindy over at Housman Farms, I was encouraged to do some research on strawberries. Since I'm growing some strawberries and don't know the first thing about them, this little research project was very fruitfull (pun intended!)

A nice pdf drawing found on google docs shows the parts of a strawberry plant. Now, instead of pointing at my plants (when talking to my wife) and saying "this one spread out and started another one!" I can intelligently say "we've got a runner with a daughter plant!"

This same document also recommends pulling off the blossoms during the first year to encourage the plant to redirect all the energy into plant growth instead of fruit production. This must mean that strawberries can stay in the garden for several years? Think I'll experiment and pick blossoms off of half the crowns and see who grows more fruit in the next couple of years.

Looks like Mindy uses straw to cover her strawberries in the winter. My pdf document says to cover them after the first hard frost, up to four inches. Covering them too early can reduce their "winter hardiness."

During the second season, when the berries are ready to pick, just pinch them off at the stem between your thumb and forefinger and give a little twist. Freeze what you don't eat within the first week of picking.

Do YOU like strawberries?

Lettuce, Mushrooms and Corn...Oh My!

Baby lettuce growing between the mature heads.

The stuff we planted in late March is coming along nicely. The lettuce was planted last season and we decided to let it stay. It has continued to bloom and provide well for our meals (condiment on hamburgers and salads mostly). We've planted newer crops between  the old ones and they are sprouting up nicely too.

The corn, as it did last season, it blazing a trail towards the sun. It is by far the fastest growing crop I've ever seen (and I've been gardening TWO whole seasons!) It has done so well that we will be buying more seed from the same company just to store it away (haven't learned how to save seeds yet).

Peas from last season on the left (producing nicely too).

The only problems we had last season with the corn was little larvae looking worms inside the ears. You couldn't really see where they had dug in from but once you peeled away all the layers, you could see the little boogers lounging in a dark whole on the ear.

Still not seeing much action on the potatoes and carrots. There is a possible sprout of potato but were not sure. I'll take a picture of it and post it. Maybe someone can identify it for us. Half of the block wall garden is stocked with potatoes, the other half is corn. We left two little pea plants from last season to see what they'd do (they're doing better now than last season).

The carrots are sprouting up but only ONE stem in each of the TWO 3x3' raised-box gardens dedicated entirely to carrots. Pretty disappointing. I still have hope that they're just still below the surface but I've seen plenty of cat pawing in the same boxes. I also wonder if seeds were washed away since they're planted just under the soil surface. I planted purple carrots and traditional orange from seed.


The third raised-box is nursing wounded strawberries. I planted five transplants from Home Depot. They were sporting berries when I bought them. I got them planted in the boxes and sure enough, the kids ate the berries within days. The berries were barely bigger than a chocolate chip! Argh!



"We're here for your water!"

 You can see in the picture how they are turning brown. There are some new buds coming out though so we'll keep our fingers crossed.  My gardening neighbor told me he planted the same thing and all the original leaves turned brown and fell off but were soon followed by healthy green ones.

I pulled some mushrooms up from the carrot beds. I was told it was possibly a sign that I was watering too much.

Netted Gardens for Pesky Pooping Cats

Can you see the bird net covering the garden?

Busy weekend with Easter and chores. Finished quite a few odd jobs. Our three raised-box gardens and block wall garden got framed and covered with bird net.

For the raised beds, I went to home depot and bought some wooden stakes (about $7) and bird netting (about $20). I simply drove the stakes into the corners and used my trusty staple gun to secure three sides. I hammered a few nails into the fourth side and slide the netting on and off the nails for easy access.

I had originally planned on building a pvc frame around the raised beds. I changed my mind and used the pvc on the block wall garden. I just draped the bird netting over the pipe and used stepping stones to secure the net.

Bird net here too. That's corn growing on the left.

This will hopefully keep the neighbor's cat from pooping and clawing in my garden. Yes, manure is fertilizer but he's also clawing up my seeds. Pesky cat. Neighbors that garden have also warned me to net my stuff to stop birds from picking at it.

So, for the most part, my gardens are covered. I still have a stretch of garden along my south wall but everything sewn into that was just put straight into the ground. No boxes built, no bags of manure hauled. We just ground-weasel'd it and planted seeds. I don't feel as obligated to protect that one, as dumb as that logic seems.

A friend from church told me he went to the local Starbucks and picked up a bag of used coffee grounds. Once mixed into his garden, he has had no more cat problems. That's next on my list.

Mixed Results Among Our Garden

A quick update on the garden. The corn (pictured) is coming along VERY nicely. This is from a non-hybrid seed purchased from Seed For Security as advertised on InfoWars.com.

The carrots have sprouted ONE stem in each 3x3 foot raised-bed garden box. Bummer! The potatoes haven't grown at all. I dug up one purple and one regular potato and they looked exactly like they did when I planted them two months ago. (Update: potatoes are growing like crazy now in June!)

The strawberries are withering away and turning brown. I was warned they don't do well in our Arizona sun outdoors. The kids picked/ate the first few tiny strawberries and I haven't seen any since. (Update: 4 out of 5 crowns survived, one had a "run" and created a "sister" crown so we still have five growing. Not producing much but still green in June!)

The cucumbers and squash have sprouted 3-4 stems. We planted two rows of cucumbers and one row of squash so not TOO bad...I guess. (Update: these are growing well, especially the squash in June)

The lettuce is doing amazingly well again.