Garden Notes

Hi.  I really don't recommend that you read this.  I just need a place to put my notes about things that go horribly wrong in the gardens, and I write here more than any other place.

9/24 - Center bed tomatoes 40 % (?) bigger than South bed, and cauli transplants put in two weeks later are bigger.  This bed gets more sun and has had bush beans in longer.  Nitro?  Sun?  Going to Remove shade cover from South bed.

9/27 - Center and north beds have multiple tomato fruit on new plants.  Old celebrity has tons of baby tomatoes.  Front squash is taking over Manhattan - few fruit not fertilizing.  Few bees in front flower bed but not in veggie bed.  May have to manually fertilize.  Turned compost.  Top-dressed with Veggie tone.  Need to spray for loopers, but rain in forecast.  Will spray next week.

10/2 Pulled that damn squash.  Taking over 6-7 square feet with no fruit.  Going to plant it along pathways and in gardens next year.  It's more ground cover than anything else.  Planted garlic cloves and onion and leek seeds.

10/12  Fair amount of green beans and several peppers.  All plants have multiple tomatoes on them except cherokee purple.  Central bed tomatoes are 2-3 times bigger than north or south.  Very weird.

10/22  Terrible blight or something on one Roma tomato, but still growing out the top.  Lots of fruit, including one already harvested.  1# green beans and 1# peppers (they're still going!).  Kentucky Wonders are going gangbusters, but by the time I actually get them picked, they're large and flat and a little bland (nothing a little soy sauce won't cure, but still).  Not sure if I need to pick them earlier or if they're just like that.  Onion seeds are not looking good.  Probably not enough sun.  May put sets in in January.  Leeks seem to be flourishing.  Will add more.  Garlic is rampant.  Will put more in in back beds.

10/29
Found the scariest, biggest caterpillar devouring one of my tomato plants and then found two more.  Tomato hornworms or tobacco hookworms - who can tell the difference.  And really, who cares?  I killed them, but then found that they are parasitic hosts for these really beneficial wasps.  Who knew.  I was so pissed that these giant things were eating my babies that killing seemed completely reasonable at the time.  Still have lots of green tomatoes.  Really need the warm -up this week to hopefully turn them red.

11/17
Covered all the tomatoes in preparation for the freeze that was forecast for Monday and Tuesday of this week.  It never froze.  Last night's forecast was for 41.  It froze.  Edges of all plants are black.  Four are total loss.  Several have already started dropping tomatoes.  Am saving as many of the green ones as look viable.  Trimmed off all dead parts - hoping to get a few more days for some of the green tomatoes to ripen.

11/29
At some point, I planted cauliflower and broccoli.  Both are doing well - no blooms yet, but hearty.  Cauliflower is a little stunted because of the vines for the beans.  Too little sun.  On 11/27, pulled out all tomatoes, replaced with spinach, kale, chard, red and white onions.

2013

11/20   Cauliflower decimated by cabbage worms, but too busy to do anything about it.  Suck on it, Martha Stewart.  Mustard greens look yummy.

12/10 Gar.  Everything frozen for what seems like weeks (so maybe 5 days).  Greens all still looks pretty good. Water backed up in frozen hoses, so things are a little thirsty out there.  Need to put in onions.


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