I picked my first of this season's large red tomatoes today if you can believe it! They are Better Boy. I can't ever remember waiting SO long for tomatoes! Yes, I've had lots of the cherry types & a couple of Mountain gold, but good grief! Anyway, I got plenty of hot peppers too & a couple of my many onions (I pick 'em as I need 'em) so now I can make some salsa, yaaay!
WOW! Wonderful bounty lisabees.
lisabees, I am so jealous. I haven't got anything but some swiss chard and some jalapeno plants that are just starting to bloom. I fell down on the planting job this year. I am hoping to do better next year. Maybe I could put some spinach in, today.
Great minds think alike ^_^ I just sowed some spinach seed last night. I'm hoping a fall crop will be more successful.
You did good lisabees. I'm not having a great year with veggies at all. My ornamentals are growing great but maybe the edibles require a richer soil? I started my first compost pile this year. Hoping that will help.
Compost and poop definitely helps for me plutodrive.
Yep. In the Rockies the most important element in the garden is organic matter -- compost, poop, alfalfa pellets, and bone meal among many other kinds of organic matter.
What's up with the alfalfa thing paj? I hear many raving about it but haven't had time to learn about it.
Congratulations lisabees - well done, very nice harvest. What vars did you plant that did so well in such a short growing season? My DH and I just started dabbling with edibles this year. We proudly ate our first tiny harvest of potatoes a couple of nights ago. Our little plot of corn was doing well until the below freezing night we had earlier this week. I wonder - does an August freeze count as the last frost of spring or the first frost of fall? :)
LOL snowlinerose I think spring cuz summer hasn't happened yet. I have my shower curtains and sheets ready. We're supposed to dip down under Monday night.
Sigh, I feel so sorry for those of you with freezes already or soon to come. Our average last freeze date is October 15 and it is pretty reliable plus or minus a week. But things slow down gradually for a long time before Oct 15 and I have already notice some yellow on cottonwood trees in low valleys.
DN,
Alfalfa pellets are ground up alfalfa extruded into little tubular pellets. They are used as animal feed, especially rabbit feed and are quite inexpensive. ( 11.50 for 50 pounds, locally. ) They are almost as good as compost in gardening. They slowly release nitrogen over time and fiber and minerals and all the things that alfalfa carries. Around here there is a rather expensive fertilizer, advertised for soil ammendment called Yum-yum mix. It is really just a mix of alfalfa meal, which is what they make alfalfa pellets out of, and some minerals. It is quite expensive.
Alfalfa pellets and bone meal and possibly some powdered rock minerals make the same fertilizer cheaper. The alfalfa comes in little pellets, but if you pour them on the soil, they quickly degenerate into alfalfa --- sludge or some such? In a day or two you can no longer find it, but it slowly feeds whatever you put it on. It is not like putting nitrogen fertilizer on the plant. It is much slower release than that, but it really enriches the soil and for very few $$$. I put it in every planting hole. When I was at Bellingrath Gardens in Southern Alabama for the azalea bloom, the rose lady was putting alfalfa pellets on the roses. She said they also add slow release fertilizer, but in March, she was adding alfalfa pellets.
Great stuff, alfalfa pellets!
I've never tried alfalfa pellets, but I do make my own compost out of kitchen scraps, garden trimmings, shredded junk mail, even weeds as long as they haven't gone to seed. It's so satisfying to start out with smelly garbage & end up with black gold for the garden - for free!
Snowline, my growing season isn't as short as yours but as far as what vegetable varieties I grow: In March I planted out Oregon Sugar Pod II peas, Nantes half-long carrots, French Breakfast radishes, and Burpee Gourmet Blend lettuce seeds, plus Walla Walla onion sets. It's great to be able to get those cool-weather crops in the ground so early.
Everything else was planted in mid-May. From seed: Early White Bush Scallop and Dixie Hybrid squash that have both been producing really well for me, plus Kentucky Wonder Pole beans. I also bought Supersweet 100, Sungold, Mountain Gold and Better Boy tomatoes; tomatillos, cucumbers & 16 assorted pepper plants.
I've never done well with seeds for those veggies, but this year I did start some German Heirloom Striped tomatoes and yellow hot pepper seeds in my little tabletop greenhouse way back in February - I saved the seeds from last year's veggies. The seedlings were planted outside at the same time as the purchased plants, and the plants look good but no actual produce from either yet.
I make compost, too, but there is never enough. I get leaves and pine needles from my friends, manure from a horse owning friend and put my own grass clippings in. I also got a truckload of grass clippings from the local lawn mowing company, but the neighbors complained of the smell. ( I thought it was rather a nice smell, myself.) And then there was the time I bought a truckload of chicken manure. Got in trouble for that, too. I so need to live on a farm.
I recently attended an American Iris Society Convention for our region. They had a speaker there who was selling red wiggler worms and worm poo for about $5 per pound. I was astonished at how many people bought one or both. It turns out that my compost pile is absolutely full of red wigglers and worm poo if I just keep it moist. I keep telling people that just a sack of leaves or a pile of manure will bring all the red wigglers and worm poo that you can manage.
My compost pile is full of worms too - how can you tell if they're Red Wigglers? I have zillions but they just came up from the ground (or the worm fairy brought them).
Well, I assume they are red wigglers because they are red and they wiggle. LOL! They do the same thing as red wigglers -- reduce organic matter to worm poo. I don't think red wigglers are any different. I once had a friend who ordered some over the internet and I could see no difference between hers and mine.
There is another kind of worm that is common -- an angle worm or night crawler. I have those, too but they tend to live in the soil rather than the compost pile. Around here, people wait for a heavy rain then go out on a lawn and grab them -- for fishing. I leave them alone because I don't fish. The angle worms are gray. Red wigglers are red.
I gather they live in the ground in little balls when there is nothing to eat. I know that if you sweep up a pile of leaves or manure and wet it down they magically appear and their residue looks as if it has been pushed through a sieve and makes one's garden happy.
Who needs to buy worms? I like that about the worm fairy. I haven't ruled that out either.
Onions, peppers, potatoes! I'm jealous. Here are my brandywines. Have enjoyed a few of those, along with beefsteak, Souix, Dr Carolyn, Reisentraube and Sweet 100's. My peppers, like paja, began blooming and that is it, except the tomatilos.
Paja, does this look familiar. Galeux D'eysines winter squash. Can't wait to taste it! lisabees, is that a patty pan in your pic?
This is the view from my patio. Winter sqaushes to the left. Summers are behind the cannas on the right. Behind that is my original bed, which runs the full length, 18' I think. It has all the extras- beans, collards, carrots, beets, etc. Also has the cold season veggies, which I too just planted yesterday.
Wow, vadap! You have really transformed your back yard! And yes, I am delighted to see you growing galeux D'eysines! As far as I am concerned that is the best winter squash I have ever tasted. I didn't grow any this year, but I assure you I will grow them next year. Let me know what you think of the flavor.
I am very impressed with the improvement in your yard. You have really come a long way.
Yes that is a patty pan in my pic, Vadap. It's Early White Bush Scallop.
Thanks paja. I've got 3 of those growing. That's the oldest, and the other 2 are split in age. I planted them last year, but all my squashes (except summers) were miserable. Added a lot more compost and manure this year.
lisabees, does it taste different from the regular, yellow pattypan? I got those as a bonus seed this year, and am enjoying them.I had to dig into some cooking books and online to figure out what to do with them. Really like them stuffed.
