Fall Gardening in the sun.

I am really enjoying this fall. It is the middle of December and it is still sunny out and mid 60's and some say a chance of hitting 70 this weekend. I really think that some of the summer veg's could easily continue till the end of the year with protection, but with slow growth. I really have enjoyed the little I have grown this fall. Enough Lettuce that we eat almost daily going on now for 2 or 3 months, and I haven't done much to tend to it. Some of it is a bit bitter, but I'm thinking some fertilizer through out its growth could help with that.

Some of the other things I'm growing, but are much slower are Broccoli and spinach. I just kind of took a few Broccoli starts and planted them. I would say To grow a lot more of these, especially as the cost in the grocery stories are up about $2.50 for a not so big head of broccoli.

The Spinach is a lot slower than lettuce, but it also shrinks when cooked. So even though this kind of food is relatively cheap in the frozen foods, I could see them being worth while just because of the little tending it needs.

First Frost and bitter lettuce.

Well I was wrong about a descent frost on my last blog, but this past weekend on Nov 11, we had our first real frost. In fact my volunteered tomatoes did not survive. I did get a chance to cover my lettuce garden with plastic over the nights and seems to have done well, expect for the basil that was in there didn't make it either. but so far there has only been one frost and infact this week is in the mid 70's, so November has crazy weather.

But with the crazy weather there hasn't been much rain. There has been dew in the mornings which I think has kept the lettuce from doing great. With that said, why is my lettuce bitter? The simple answer is I Don't Know. There could be a few reasons.

1) Inconsistent watering: Like I said I have not been watering my beds for fall, they are to survive on their own. But inconsistent watering will stress the lettuce and it will become bitter.

2) Heat: Even though the temps have stayed low since the lettuce has been growing well, it is still in full sun, which as we all know in S.C. is quite hot, even in the fall. So growing in the shade would be a better option.

3) Nutrition: Growth has been slow much slower than it is suppose to be, but like I said I'm letting them fend for them selves. I could have kept on a nitrogen / fish emulsion fertilizing system to perhaps keep them growing in a quicker manner.

4) Variety: The kind of lettuce can effect where it is grown. I have a couple different varieties and can notice a large difference, being the spotted lettuce is much less bitter than the variety pack I have.

First Frost

It's the end of October, and it really hadn't been that cold, that is until this weekend. It will be a high of the low 60's and a frost is possible. My lettuce garden has really been doing well, and I'm not having to water, since it actually rains here in the fall, unlike the summer.

So I will need to prepare for a frost. Lettuce as I understand can with stand a light frost. Plants that can with stand hard frost is spinach, broccoli, Collards, kale, Onions, etc. I do have broccoli and spinach in another bed, so luckily I won't have to worry about them.

I'm planning on getting some thick plastic and some pvc pipe and see if I can build little green house.

DIY HOOP HOUSE

End of A Summer Garden: learning from mistakes.

What did I learn this summer.. I learned it's HOT and a lot of my plants did not like it. I hardly had any tomatoes. By the time they bloomed, it got to the HOT stage. So either plant them early or plant MANY of them, preferably where shade will exist in the early afternoon.

I also know, Peppers are my friends. They did awesome. The only thing I couldn't do is find enough ways to eat them. I did find out the frying them up with some onions are delicious, also grilling them and taking off the skin, cutting them, and mixing them with a bit of olive oil and garlic. NOTE: find different peppers, not just bell peppers, and plant jalapenos, they are great for poppers. I could probably fill a whole bed with peppers. Guaranteed to grow here in the midlands. Also easy to freeze.

I had a huge problems with squash. I didn't add fertilizer soon enough and by the time they where grown, they got eaten by squash and vine bugs.. booo! Perhaps try only zucchinis.

Green beans grow, but are just to cheap to just buy, so use that space for something else.

What I for see the next years garden being: Plant fewer types of plant, and much more of the same.. What I mean by that is pick 4 or 5 types of plant instead of 10 or 12. Then grow more than I think I will be able to eat. Because in this heat, plants can still produce fruit, but perhaps not an abundance, so multiple plants means more chances. Also, perhaps build beds closer to my east facing back of the house to give those plants some shade in that 100 degree weather, because in the sun, its more like 120.

A watering system is great, but I did notice that when it actually rained, I saw growth, not so much with the watering system. Perhaps add another barrel and water in multiple areas for plans to grow out.


Good luck, and start early. It starts getting hot in May, but REALLY HOT in Middle of June, and stays that way till August 15th, where there is a greater chance for the heat not to reach 100.

September Planting...

August is way too Hot. I waited till labor day to mix some compost in my beds that I cleaned out all the plant from that just weren't making it though all the winds we had. I ended up just planting seeds of Lettuce and spinach. I did try to grow some indoors with grow package, but I didn't have a light. I have changed that, and although I won't be using it this year, it should be perfect for the early spring. Remember to plant seeds in doors about 6 weeks before they are suppose to be planted out doors.

Growing Cucumbers

I DON"T KNOW HOW TO GROW CUCUMBERS. This is the second year that I have attempted to grow cucumbers. They tend to just be bitter and the skin is more pale green with white specks more so than a dark green color.

I can't even eat them because they just don't taste great.

I finally read some articles and even heard of other people with problems of having TOO MANY cucumbers, and found out what they suggested.... Shade.

Apparently even though every article you read says that cucumbers are a sun loving vegetable, around my part, the heat of the sun in just too much. Suggestion, grow them where they get morning and noon sun, then get shaded for the rest of the day... I will be trying this next summer, although I may try to grow in my regular, full sun bed for a fall garden.

So remember, these things need sun, but need a lot more shade that what I have been giving them.

How to transplant a plant.

On my struggle to grow squash this year, I thought I'd need to plant a few more plants than just one or two, because who knows when there will be flowers on them to be pollinated. More plants means more flowers.

So today was topping out at 100 degrees, so I would not recommend transplanting plants ad such hot temps, but around here that's all we go.

For squash the second planting is from August 1 - 15th, so doing it a bit early could help or hurt my situation. Only time will tell.

As for transplanting, the key is moisture. First completely soak the plant down in its container or in the surround are if its already planted. Once I found a few good spots for my squash I added some compost, bone meal, and Garden Tone fertilizer and mixed. Then move in your new plant and fill in with all the added material and dirt. Then once again completely saturate the ground. Continue saturating the planted area for a few days until its 'Shock' period is over.

I also have to move a full grown marigolds to make space for my squash. For a full grown plant transplant, it is recommend to cut up to 75% of the foliage off, including flowers.

Hopefully I can keep it wet enough to get through this heat.

How to self pollinate summer sqaush.

Where have all the bees gone? I've had the hardest time getting any squash to grow this year. From wilting yellow leaves, stunted growth and my flowers falling off instead of fruiting. I've been taking one problem at a time and figuring out why they aren't doing the well, and fixing the problem, and here is another one.

The other morning as I walked through my garden as I usually, do I found both a female and a male flower open and on the same plant. I thought I would try my luck at hand pollinating my squash.

Apparently these flowers are only open in the morning and close for the day with the heat, so the morning is going to be the best chance to get this done. What I did was take a cue tip and found the male flower. The male flower being the flower with a skinny stem. I placed the cue tip in around the center of the flower, where to my amazement was a lot of pollen. I then found the female flower, the flower with the bulky almost ball shaped stem and rubbed the inside of the flower with the pollinated cue tip.

In just a few days I could tell that it had worked, and now I have a little baby squash growing in my garden.


SIDE NOTE: How to self pollinate tomatoes? Luckily for tomatoes, you don't need to hand pollinate with a cue tip. Since tomatoes can be pollinated by the wind, I wait till the weather is cool, usually the evening or a cool morning, probably with out a lot of dew. Then I will slightly shake either the cage or the net it is growing on, basically to imitate the shaking of a bee. So far I have had a lot of success with this.

How many plants are the perfect amount to plant.

Last year, I think I had a bout 16 Jalapenos plants, and I eventually had to just let them die off because there was no way I could eat that many Jalapenos.

So this Year I though I would plant the 'Perfect' amount of plants. Unfortunately I did not account for some plants dieing, some not producing as much vege's as I was expecting. So the only suggesting I would give my self is.. plant more is better than less. Last year I felt the garden had gotten out of control, and in fact it did, but this year I feel like I'm just sitting around waiting for more veges to grow. When I do have some veges that are ready to pick, it doesn't seem like any other are ready, so I end up with one sad vegetable that needs a friend.

I planted 4 indeterminate, and 1 determinant tomato For the indeterminate plants, one died, one I broke off what I thought was a sucker and in fact was the only growth on the plant, so it not growing any more, so that leaves me with 2 indeterminate that I am trying to single stem grow, and 1 determinant that I grew from seed because the others I tried to grow from seed died. grrrrr...

I also planted 2 bell peppers, I banana pepper, and 1 egg plant. I ended up planting 4 more bell peppers. It ends up that I"m not a big fan of bell peppers, and I do miss those Jalapenos from last year.

Suggestions for the following year.
Tomatos: maybe a bed of determinantes (4 or 5), and maybe 8 indeterminantes, which means I will need to get another trellis system for the other 4. I just love tomatoes. Oh.. even cherry tomatoes, they are guaranteed to grow, even in this heat.

Peppers: maybe 4 jalapenos, I really got into jalapeno poppers. Banana peppers, even the hot, maybe 2-4 plants.. use for salads or grillen. Maybe only 2 plants of bell peppers, and try others like, chili poblano, etc.

Beans: beans where really poor this year, which is surprising since they did so good last year. But bean are cheap in the grocery store, so maybe ditch these unless I can't find any others the plant. note: the organic seeds I bought did not grow.

Cucumbers: I love these but have yet to grow them consistently. It tends to be to hot, and they turn yellow FAST. I would suggest growing 4 - 8 plants and grow them early so they have time to grow before its hot.

Squash / Zucchini: it takes up a lot of space, but they are good eating. I only have 3 growing, and after the stunting situation, I don't have a single veg. I would recommend 4 - 6 plants. I know they take up a lot of space, but maybe a 2 x 8 foot raised bed could hold 4 of these and til gives enough space.

Strawberries: The farm around here grows great strawberries, so I know they are able to grow here, but I will need to plant the season or fall before.

Corn: I've only heard corn takes up a lot of space and steals all nutrients from the soil.. I think they are also cheap to buy.. so I'd say skip it unless I would just like to try it.

Herbs: I did not have much success growing them from seed in the garden. I would either buy the transplants or grow them inside first then transplant out side, and probably in a bin or something I could move around and not in the actual garden.

TO TRY: Tomatilloes, carrots, onions, garlic, strawberries, blueberries, watermellon, mellon.

Yellow and stunted plants.

For some reason I have really had a hard time with my squash and zucchinis. I've grown my own plants from seed and as well as bought transplants from the home depot.

The plants would start off strong when I put them in the garden beds, then I noticed after a bit that the bottom leaves would start to turn yellow. I didn't panic too much, I've read that transplants can go through a bit of shock, as well as the bottom leaves of zucchinis are know to die off anyways. As this continued it would go up through the other leaves. I've even cut them off thinking that would help.. but .. NO CHANCE.

I have used two different type of soils thinking that that also could help. Later on after my 3rd.. er 4th.. plant, I was told.. it was a lack of Nitrogen. WHAT? How could this be. I use compost, even manure compost, there should be plenty of nitrogen in that. But I did notice that my compost, that was purchased from a store, is not necessarily completed compost, and could have been stealing the availability of nitrogen.

My choice for the lacking nitrogen was: Alaska Fish Fertilizer. It was about $7 from the Home Depot. It was a 16oz bottle, directions 2 tbps to a gallon of water.

I could tell within a couple days, the plants sparked up and even all the yellowing vanished. Now they are doing well.

I'm adding this fertilizer along with a bone meal about every 2 or 3 weeks. We will see if my plants thrive.

When to plant for my summer garden?

For South Carolina, the last frost day is sometime around April 15th. I heard about a 'rule of thumb' around these parts, that 'Good Friday' is the best time to start your garden. Last year Good Friday was the first weekend of April, this year was at the end, April 22nd.

I feel that starting April 22nd, was not the best approach. Down here it just gets way too hot, too quick. I did notice that the weather was getting nice in March. I can't say for sure if the nights continued to dip into the frost temps or not, but if I got the chance to re-plant my garden, I would say March 15th would be the date to shoot for.

I would recommend to have my starts from seed planted a head of time, as I don't remember much choice for plants at the home depot / Lowes type stores. For these transplants, they started coming in pretty regularly at the beginning of April.