SUMMER GARDENS

Continuing on from the Spring thread here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1346021/

Hello, warm weather!

Hey, Christie!

To set your ZONE:

►Click on PREFERENCES at the very top right of a page
►Click on LOCATION in the "My Preferences" box to the extreme left of the Preferences page
►Scroll down to "Please select the USDA Zone that most closely represents your winter climate: (Look it up here)"
►CLICK on the drop down box arrow and select your growing Zone
►CLICK on "Update the Preferences"
►Go to any thread (preferably this one) where you made a post, and CHECK under your Avatar. Your Zone should now be visible.

Voila! ^:-)^

Thanks, Nicole. You are so smart!

Ken

Thank you from me too Nicole love the Turtle .
Greens is all so far here still .

The turtles were posing so much, I don't think they wanted to give up their spots in the sun. Usually they plop in the pond as soon as someone gets within about 20 feet.

I just worked up a good sweat weeding in the garden. It feels good! Scarlet runner beans, asparagus beans, sunflowers, zucchini and melons are up; I'm still waiting on the cucumbers. Tomato and pepper plants look great. The radishes pretty much all ripened over night. My peas are covered with blooms but unfortunately I'm going out of town for a while so I hope they don't decide they've finished seeding and started to die by the time I get back.

Thanks Nicole. Love the turtle too, very photogenic!

Well how are the gardens going? I fear I left my seedlings in their peat pots too long and they are just so TINY! Anyway, rather than plant nothing, I transplanted my fish peppers, ghost peppers, and peperone de cuneo peppers yesterday, along with my kentucky wonder pole beans. I also noticed that my corn and squash are finally up! And out of my 32 tomato transplants, I lost 3, but that's okay, I have replacements at the ready. Also they have been in the ground for 2 weeks and have only had to water once! The rain has been taking care of the rest, praying for El Niño this year like I've heard rumors of..

Anywho I am so happy to finally get this garden growing! 😄

We have peas!! First pea pod showed up today.

Also, the blackberries are starting to set. I have no idea how we're going to harvest them all when they're ripe. I guess we'll have to trim canes as we go so we can get them all. LOL

My cherry tomatoes have blooms on them, too! Woot!

Nice Steph! Can't wait to start seeing the fruits of my labor too, til then keep the pics coming :)

You know, this site is a great place to get a sense of just how big this country and continent are. We have such widely, w-I-d-e-l-y varied environments. Which is to say, I can identify my pea plants now.

Once you see pods, it's not long till they're ready for harvest!

If you mean me, Stephanie, I know! No pea pests stand a chance finding those pods before we've downed them. Nor are any peas in any danger of extreme high heat )cooking(. :~D

I have a hard time not eating all the peas I harvest before I get them in the house! They are so good raw straight from the garden.

'Exactly

I have started to harvest tomatoes: Gold Nugget, Supersweet 100, Sweet milions.
My plants are loaded of fruits.
This will be my best year so far. I do have a lot of very large tomatoes this year.

Eggplants and zucchini are forming.
Peppers are loaded with fruits too !
Also, my onions tops are falling down ... could it be possible that they are ready to harvest too?
Saturday I am transplanting outside my okra plants and I am DONE !!
Happy gardening y'all !


This message was edited May 1, 2014 1:03 PM

Once again, drthor, I look at your pics and wish I was harvesting those scrumptious looking veggies! Mmm I can almost taste tomato cheese pie!! And grilled zucchini! Y'all are eating good in the neighborhood :)

You continue to blow me away drthor! And we are in the same zone?!?!? I expected to see, based on your photos, that you're in zone 10! Wow.

13turtles I find it hard to believe that we are in the same zone. It's a strange world.

Remember, those zones are USDA hardiness zones and are a measurement of the cold levels of an area that will affect the survival of perennial plants. They identify areas that have similar length and depth of cold and perennial plants that are expected to survive those conditions. USDA zones don't say anything about how many warm days an area will have or how high the maximum temperature will be. Death Valley is zone 8A, but way different than Oregon or Austin, : )

David R

Thanks David. I know but forget, because I keep thinking length of cold means number of days, and that if subtracted from 365.25 it would give me number of warm days.

And I can attest that Oregon is indeed nothing like Death Valley!

I have peas, peas, peas everywhere! I harvested my first little pod yesterday, but it didn't make it inside the house before I popped it open to eat the peas. LOL My onions have started bulbing and the tomatoes have lots of blooms. Still have a few things to plant, too.

Congratulations !
I cannot grow peas.

Mmmmm yummy peas! What are you planning on next Stephanie? I'm too chicken to start my yardlongs, my soybeans are just coming up, and sunflowers too in the 3 sisters garden :)

I sowed 3 kinds of cucumber seeds today, Ashley, Muncher, and National Pickling. I also sowed gray zucchini seeds. I will soak my fortex beans tonight and plant those tomorrow after my doctor's appt. I think the only things left are watermelons and okra, and a few tomatoes.

I came back from vacation to find lots of strawberries, peas just about ready (might be today), baby peppers, lots more radishes and tons of lettuce. It seems I have some work to do today!

Sounds like you should go on vacation more, LOL!

Congrats!

Stephanie, sounds yum! Wish my fam ate cucumbers, I'd grow them also (or attempt to at least), but afraid I'd be swimming in cucumber kimchi and one can only eat so much!

Yeah I second Gymgirl, you came home to a pleasant surprise! I come home from vacation usually to find new holes my dog has dug, dry houseplants and yuck food in the fridge (even if I clean it out first, I don't know where it comes from)!!

I harvested my first zucchino, my artichokes, few strawberries (the others are eaten straight in the garden), a few tomatoes, onions, lettuce ...
I am leaving for 2 weeks too .... my DH will be my assistant.
I have very large tomatoes this year and they are starting to turn color ... I hope my DH will do his job.
Probably my zucchini will look like watermelons by the time I came back ...

My artichokes are almost that size can't wait. Cherry tomatoes are devoured by Grandson daily. drthor , you have a safe trip will miss your wonderful pictures for two weeks, darn.

I'm not sure if vacation is worth it, though. I spend a week trying to get everything in order to leave, and then spend a week catching up when I get back!

Given the upper 80's this week, the lettuce may be bitter by Friday. We'll see; it's fairly cool at night and nowhere near as humid as usual.

My cucumbers did not come up. Or they did and something ate them. Grrr.

That's my experience of all vacations Nicole. Maybe that's why some European nations have a full month? So they get an actual two weeks relaxation? Sorry about your cukes, that would get a grr from me too.

My thumb-size butterhead lettuce gleanings are already bitter, even though not bolting. So weird. Oh and I'm trying another go at the lemon cukes so I can have single-serving fruits. I don't like having the second half go mushy before my second salad, it happens so fast.

Nicole, my cukes have not come up either, but I can see them. All the seeds Ive sown have taken forever to germinate. I sowed beans 1 month ago and some are still sprouting. I think the night time temps have been too low to let the soil get warm and then there is evaporative cooling. I have one watermelon seedling.

This is my dinner for tonight.
I decided to pick under the zucchini covered hoop and I found a nice surprise: I have zucchini !
Probably the most zucchini I have ever harvest in my garden ... definitely it is working to grow them under the Agribond protective cover !
In picture #3 you can see how easy is to spot the yellow blossom under cover.
The first larger tomato is from NINEVEH (from Baker Creek).
It is a very small plant (I am guessing it is a dwarf), but it is loaded with large tomatoes.
I think this little plant will produce more than my large Cherokee Purple.
The cucumbers are forming too ... I am leaving tomorrow sadly ....
I hope to see everybody else harvests while I am gone.
Happy gardening

drthor, I'll send my address & you can send me a care box!

We planted out Kohlrabi, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Kale & Cabbage today.

This weather is so strange. My volunteer Tomatoes are just starting to come up and it's May? Only took 1 month for H2O seeds to germinate. Supposed to storm tonight.

I'm not sure what you have going on there, Lisa. Our nights have been pleasantly cool (50s), but the soil is quite warm. My other curcurbits sprouted immediately and are well sized, and my volunteer tomatoes were up in March (although that was a deadly decision).

I needed to buy sweet potatoes anyway, so I bought cucumber plants. Cucumbers are in the two beds that don't do as well as the others this year. I think they might be too close to my big poplar tree -- you'd think 40 feet away would be enough, but maybe not. It's a strong healthy tree and not close to full sized, so I hope it's something else. If not, I may start to "lose" more beds.

Well, last nite I sowed more cuke seeds bc the others didn't sprout. I went out today and the first ones I sowed had sprouted. Going to have lots of cuke plants but I can transplant the crowded ones.

Nicole I know here it is the temp. 3 weeks ago it froze. Then there is the wind and rain which cause evaporative cooling. I live very rural so there is no concrete to hold the heat. When I dig down I can feel that the soil is cool. I've planted tomatoes early and if the soil hasn't warmed up they just sit there.

It frosted about 3 weeks ago here, too, but I guess we've gotten enough sun and warm temperatures. The day after the frost the soil temp was still 68F and we've been fairly warm since then.

My first harvest! These are part of the Alaska peas. There are more out there because I wasn't dressed in my gardening clothes, just my work clothes. I also have 2 other varieties that will be ready for harvest soon.