Well, allow me to sum up the updates in the next few posts, and then continue with the current plans.
Broccoli Harvest
February 02, 2016
We harvested the broccoli!! It got quite big. |
| Figure 1. Full broccoli bed just prior to harvest |
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| Figure 2. Broccoli bed with other plants for scale. In the foreground are the seedlings from the "Psychedelic Salad" kit that we got for Christmas. |
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| Figure 3. Grape vine potted and fully trimmed back. Two basil plants in the background. |
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| Figure 4. Broccoli harvest! |
Added bonus! Here is a photo of the grape vine growing back in it's early stages, early March.
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| Figure 5. Grape vine new shoot in March 2016 |
Summer Summary Photos
July 28, 2016
On this day I took a lot of photos to put together a visual summary for some of my far-away family. I wanted to show case all of the plants we currently have, including the
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| Figure 6. Both of our two hanging strawberry baskets. |
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| Figure 7. A selection of our outdoor potted plants. Including two of the basil plants from the background of Figure 3. Yellow pots are basil (either Thai or Genovese), the middle pot is Coleus (Redhead?), and the right-hand pot is Citronella for mosquito abatement. |
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| Figure 8. Cucumber vines at their current state. Note the exceptionally dwarfed one in the back, and that one of them has been completely cut down at this point. |
Figure 9.a.b.c. Grape vine after not more than four months of growth! Very proud of how leafy it got. You can see I went with a different type of trellis. More on that for a later post. In 9.c you can see the close-up of the two major vine shoots that I kept.
Cucumber issues
Saturday,
August 13, 2016
Suspecting the cucumbers got some borer damage from first visual inspection. Did some research, and since we aren't seeing the typical residue from the borer's, now I think not. Requested some help from online. Here is the discussion I started on the gardenweb.com forums: http://www.houzz.com/discussions/4088158#18095401
Made two gallons of the home-made organic soap pesticide, sprayed all the cucumbers today. Also sprayed all of the cucumber 2016-08-14 with that same stuff. Photos from August 14th below:
Figure 10.a.b.c. Left showing damage to the base of one of the cucumber vines (this had occurred on at least two vines). Middle showing prolific mushroom blossoms which were strongly indicative of excess/standing water in the soil. Right showing where one cucumber vine was removed due to massive die back after vine base damage as shown in 10.a.
Week of work
Sunday,
August 14, 2016
2016-08-14
- Trimmed out the fork of Cucumber B that was almost completely wilted due to basal stem damage. Also trimmed back Cucumber C for a long tendril that wasn't a true fork, but was early in the vine and has no flowers.
- Wall garden plot seems to be holding/pooling water after long rain. Need to consider raking back the topsoil, digging out the clay underneath to a depth of 10" or 12".
- Plan to spray all cucumbers and grape every evening with home-made pesticide. Also plan to fish-fertilize starting tomorrow. Considering purchasing neem oil soon, as a spray.
- Also considering new planting of cucumbers, on the ground, with compact vines to compare growth.
- Carrots are starting to show!!
2016-08-15
- Sprayed around midnight with soap pesticide
2016-08-16
- Watered with new fertilizer, 2-7-4 (?)
- Received key soil advice from Jean on gardenweb, leading me to believe we need to do a complete overhaul of the garden bed. Soil just isn't deep enough for veggies.
2016-08-18
- Strawberry #1 has a long runner that is starting to show roots.
- Cucumber leaves showing more signs of something weird… Fungus?
- Lots of mushrooms growing up behind the cucumbers.
- It has rained almost every day for the past four days. I haven't been watering
