Garlics In

The garlics went in yesterday.

We planted:

1) Music

2) Inchellium Red

3) Big Unknown (one that we've had for a couple years and don't know what it is)

I was sad to see that someone helped themselves to my cabbage. In a little garden plot, you only get so many cabbages.

One of them was gone and another had all the leaves trimmed off. Garden pests!

Kohlrabi.

Freeze Warning

It has been a tough summer for plants. I haven't had a single red tomato this year. But the peppers did well. Now we have a freeze (not just a frost) warning tonight. That's early!

http://www.startribune.com/local/129747843.html

STRONG CANADIAN HIGH PRESSURE WILL SETTLE OVER THE AREA TONIGHT... BRINGING A COMBINATION OF LIGHT WIND... A CLEAR SKY... AND WELL BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES. A WIDESPREAD FREEZE APPEARS LIKELY WITH LOW TEMPERATURES IN MOST LOCATIONS BETWEEN 25 AND 30 DEGREES. TEMPERATURES WILL DROP INTO THE MID 30S IN MOST LOCATIONS BY AROUND MIDNIGHT... THEN SUB FREEZING TEMPERATURES WILL BECOME LIKELY AFTER 2 AM.

I covered up the tomato and the flowers. I harvested the basil and the peppers. We will see what the night brings.

It is a beautiful night out. Cool. Crisp. Almost full moon. The morning glories are in full bloom. I especially like the blue ones with streaks of white on them. I will get more of those next year.

Blue Moon Gladiolus is Pink

This is the picture on the package:

This is the flower that is growing in my garden:

Beautiful, but not what I had expected.

Bonnie Best Tomato

I removed dear Bonnie Best from my garden today. She looked so beautiful when I bought her at the green house. But one leaf turned brown and the rest followed. With so many varieties of tomatoes to try, I think this is not the most disease resistant.

Fall Seeds Planted

I planted my fall seeds. Some should have been planted in July. But I figure late has better odds than never.

Pac Choi -Ching-Chiang. 40 days. "Dwarf."

Chinese Cabbage - Soloist Hybrid: 40-50 days. "Baby." Recommends planting indoors in July and transplanting in August.

Beets - Merlin: 55 days. Neon-colored red. Recommends planting in July.

Kale - Wild Garden Kales: 30 days. An array of Siberian kales. Recommends planting in June-July.

Lettuce - Arctic Tundra Blend: 50-75 days. A blend of the most winter-hardy lettuces. Recommends planting in August-Sept.

Spinach - Bordeaux Hybrid: 40 days. Recommends planting in July and August.

Thirty Minutes Later

Downpour

I went out to take pictures and got caught in a downpour/thunderstorm.

Seeds Arrived

I got my seeds for fall gardening in the mail today. I am eager to get them in their pots. But we're going on vacation soon and I don't want to kill them by dessication.

Early Summer Success

It has been in the 90s with high humidity (heat index more than 100F) every day this week. And it has rained every day or two. The plants are loving it. I wish we could order up this weather every summer!

My peppers look better than ever. My bella hot peppers have many, mature peppers on them. The thai dragon peppers have many big green peppers. Last year was such a bad year for peppers. Even the thai dragons didn't grow well. And this year is great. I'll have to take note of when I planted/transplanted. I think it helped to make more room for them when the peas came out.

The kohlrabis are small right now because they're very crowded. I picked a couple to thin them out this evening.

The first small, green tomatoes have arrived.

The garlics should have been harvested a couple of weeks ago. One of these years we'll learn and get out there on time.

This guy was supper. I fried up onion and hot italian sausage, then steamed the cabbage over it. Delicious.

This is the first cauliflower I've grown. It is thigh-high now due to our recent heat wave. It takes up a lot of space in the garden.

Garden Weather

It has been rainy and hot. They're predicting thunder storms every night and heat indexes in the 110s every day until Wednesday. Everything should grow now.

Winter Garden Order

I ordered seeds for these items today. I will plant most of these seeds as soon as I get them to get my fall/winter garden started.

Kale - wild garden kales mix

Beet - merlin

Lettuce - arctic tundra blend

Spinach - bordeaux

Chinese Cabbage - soloist

Pac Choi - ching-chiang

Last Year's Garlic Notes

My garden map is on a piece of paper on a clipboard. It is messy and dirty. But it gets the job done in a garden-friendly way.

I wish I had kept better track of which garlics we liked, which grew well, and which came from where.

Here's our sheet says about the garlics we've tried so far:

Chrysalis purple: small

Big unknown: big cloves

Italian late: small cloves, some bite but sweet aftertaste

Little purple: good producer

Chinese pink: tasty

Polish softneck: hot, milder flavor

First Garlic Harvest

Some of the garlics declared themselves done this week. I think the hot temperature accelerated the process. It has been in the mid-80s most of this week. So some of the garlic plants had entirely turned brown. I only harvested two because that is all I can use at once. Here they are:

Inchelium Red

-grown from last year's garlic

-5.0cm wide, 3.3cm tall

Polish Softneck

-grown from last year's garlic

-3.9cm wide, 2.5cm tall

Inchelium red on left, Polish softneck on right.

*******************

Harvested 7/20/11:

Music

-grown from last year's garlic

-5.2cm wide, 3.2cm tall

102F, Now 60F

Yesterday it was 102F. Right now it is in the 60Fs.

The green house was taken down today.

The plants in the greenhouse are doing remarkably good. This is my plot. I have six turnips which are taking up most of the plot now.

In the foreground are the yellow tulip tops. I removed some today and left those that were still greenish to gather more energy for next year.

Some of the garlics now have two brown leaves. The kohlrabis are starting to grow.

Transplanted Peppers Today

Sunburnt basil.

I am wondering if the chives flowering is an indicator that the soil is warm enough to plant other plants. I'll try to pay attention to this in the future.

Peas.

Peas.

East side of vegetable garden. My six peppers are planted here.

From far to near:

Bella hot

Carnival mix

Carnival mix

Bella hot

Thai dragon

Thai dragon

I deliberately planted them in this order for two reasons: to keep the bell peppers away from human pests and to allow people to enjoy the beauty of the Thai Dragons.

West side of vegetable garden.

Greenhouse. The big leaves in the foreground are turnips (which thrived in the greenhouse last year).

Tomato Lesson Learned

I always get eager to start planting seeds. This year, I did not heed the warnings that I had read about NOT planting tomatoes too early. My tomato seedlings were leggy with small leaves.

According to my March 26th blog entry, I planted my tomato seeds 6w4d before last frost. Next year I will plant them later. Perhaps more toward the four-weeks-before-last-frost end of things.

So I bought a tomato plant from the greenhouse. It is a variety that I have not tried.

Bonny Best. An heirloom tomato.

Sweet pea in greenhouse.

First garlic scape.

Zinnia.

Before a quick rain shower.

Catching Up

Yesterday we bought and planted:

Tomato - Bonny Best

Cauliflower - Graffiti

Today we transplanted:

Tomato - Beefsteak

Celeriac

Sage

Basil - Spicy Globe & Sweet

Gazania - Gazoo

Gladiolus - four more

Zinnia

We harvested:

Spinach - from outside, healthy & delicious

Garlic - one head that we left in last fall to see what would happen

Radishes - from outside

Lettuce - from greenhouse

Miner's Lettuce - from greenhouse

Mizuna - from greenhouse

I made a trellis with stakes and strings for the peas.

Hardening Off

Day 1: 1.5hr - evening

Day 2: 2hr - evening

Day 3: 0hr - between work/social activities, I didn't get to it

Day 4: 3.5hr - afternoon, partly sunny, calm

Day 5: 6hr - afternoon, cloudy, light rain, light breeze, 65F

Day 6: 8hr - midday to evening, cloudy, light breeze, 60F

Day 7: 8.5hr - midday to evening, sunny, 85F+ (plants got pretty wilted)

Day 8: 0hr - they were predicting hail (which didn't happen)

Day 9: 13hr - morning to overnight, highs in lower 60Fs, lows in high 40Fs

Day 10: 24hr - all day and night, highs in 50Fs, lows in 40Fs

Day 11: 11hr - night to morning, highs in 40s, rainy all day

Day 12: 12hr - day, sunny, windy, highs in 60s, possible frost (brought in at night)

Day 13: 11hr - day, sunny, windy, highs in 60s, lows in 40Fs (brought in at night)

Day 14: 15hr - day, sunny, windy, highs in 60s, lows in 40Fs (brought in at night)

Day 15: 19.5hr - day, sunny, windy, highs in 60Fs. Now, I plan to leave everything outside until planting. The 10 day weather forecast doesn't have any lows below 50F. Most of the highs are in the low 7oFs.

Frost Advisory

There is a frost advisory in effect tonight. We will most likely be spared due to the heat island effect of the Twin Cities.

Trees