DW Garden 2020

Yea, okra and cotton are related, and 2-4-D applied at the wrong time will cause some strange things to happen to both! I remember my Father telling about the County or State Road Dept. spraying the weeds on the roadside and having to buy a farmers cotton crop because of drift.

 

Little peek at the bluegill

 

Just a little walkthrough this morning. Some stuff has really taken off, some not so much but overall the garden is doing nicely, particularly given we had a 10 day stretch of 100+ heat.



Little lookdown at the wicking beds to the left of the chicken house. That's a patio cherry tomato hangin over the edge there. Looks great, tastes ick. I like sweet cherry tomatoes. These just taste like really acidic tomatoes. Peppers are doing great though.


Looks like we'll finally get to try that ardvark or arjuvarki or whatever it is. I can never remember the name. Gonna throw a few on the grill and see how they taste.


Really want to make some fried green tomatoes with this.


Been seeing a lot of these pests. Pulled 6 off the vines yesterday, saw this one taking a dirt nap this morning.


So this was supposed to be a sugar baby watermelon but I realized a few days ago that it's a cantaloupe. I planted Hales Best 'lopes and Sugar Baby melons in the beds but forgot which went where. Something ate what I thought were the lopes but I guess it ate the melons. Fortunately my BFF and across the alley neighbor had the opposite problem so we'll be swapping lopes for melons when they are ready. Can't see them here but there's quite a few baby cantaloupes starting on this now.


This is the pumpkin patch. The big max never sprouted but I have quite a few Black Knights and now the Connecticut Fields are starting to put on. The wicking bed corn is finished, need to rip it out this weekend. The hubs wanted to try corn in them. I told him to plant 3 rows of 4 and he'd have to feed the hell out of them. He planted 4 rows of 8. Results were as expected. Corn in the ground from now on, lol. Some things just need to grow in the ground.


There had been a metal dog run here but I pulled it out and moved it to the aquaponic side to turn into a little greenhouse this fall. We'll clean this up this weekend and set up wicking beds along the fence and maybe a second row between them and the shed to the right. If there's room, I haven't measured yet. I always think things are bigger than they really are, a trait that makes my husband happy but gets me in a mess when I build things.


Back side of the media bed on my little temporary AP system. I'm starting another cantaloupe in the white fabric pot, and those green onions were ones I got at the grocery store. Used the tops, then stuck the bottoms in the bed. I just pulled up the ones I planted last fall after they bolted, so these should give me tops for a long time.


Another quick peek at the temporary AP setup. The mollies are keeping the mosquitoes in check down in the sump and we planted some aquatic grass we got out of the lake to see if it'd take hold. Bluegills are still small but they're young. This time next year they'll be good sized.

 

your garden looks amazing! especially give the hot weather. Most plants are just trying to survive at temps above 90 degrees. Makes me think the wiking beds are a great thing for hot climates

 

@ditch witch amazing garden. I agree with Ganado, wicking beds may be the way to go. The west is so hot/dry, I look at my squash plants and they are all wilted over by 11 a.m. I have to water everyday.

 

Thanks guys. We've had a good year as far as rain but also some serious heat with hot winds as well. If I water as much as the plants in the ground want, the bermuda grass makes a beeline for it both above and underground. The wicking beds do have their limitations, as the corn proved by sucking up every available nutrient faster than we could add it, but for most of what we grow they've been far preferable to fighting the stupid wire grass and we do save on water. There's also the advantage that your plants never go through the stress of being too dry, then too wet. Plus it raises things up a bit so I'm not crawling around on my knees.

I tell you what, that black knight pumpkin LOVES the heat. The Connecticut field wilts midday but the black knight reaches up for it. I planted it for the novelty of black jack o lanterns but if they taste good I will make that a regular citizen of the garden. Even when the temp hit 109 it didn't wilt.

So far I'm super happy with my modified aquaponic bed. In the past I had a lot of issues with plants grown directly in the gravel. The salad greens liked it but they were tasteless. IDK what the Youtube guys do differently (probably use a fish safe liquid fertilizer but IDK) but in what, 7 years? I've never gotten their kind of results. The only thing that did well for me was green onions and mint. This time I've put stuff in those fabric pots and set them on the gravel, with the water just barely under the top of the gravel, and everything has taken off. The pots I have the zucchini and tahitian melon in are too small but I only had 3 gallon on hand. They're just beginning to set squash so time will tell if they can continue to do well. I ordered 5 gallon pots for next time though.

 

black knight pumpkin LOVES the heat

not to mention they are going to look so cool on halloween!

its gonna be 'Ditch_witch spooking halloween' with those black pumkins

 

Finally got the crazy tomato plants cleaned up a bit, getting lots of little tomatoes now.


On the left is the Jimmy Nardellos, the right is the Avjarki or Armadillos or whatever. Jimmies are great for raw or cooking. The Arkj are not good to eat raw but AWESOME roasted so ill be canning those.

 

Up before the heat kicks in. Gonna be another hot one today.


Melon in a melon sling, heh.


Habaneros are about ready to start picking. Habanero Mango salsa and jelly!


I have a supervisor this morning. Toothless gramma here has these weird moods every now and then where she's glued to my ankle. Looks like today is one of those days.


Another wicking bed about to get set up. This one will be a bit of an evolution of my others, based on 5 years of seeing what does and doesn't work.


This is the dog kennel to greenhouse project. Before you ask why I don't just frame the whole thing out and use the kennel elsewhere, I am terrible with building doors. This saves me the hassle and I wasn't using it anyway.


Mystery tomato. This plant and 3 others were supposed to be a roma. I got them at Home Depot after my own roma seedlings crapped out. Apparently some tool switched the tags on 3 of them.

Italians with a name I can't remember.


Peppers! Roasting up a bunch today to can. I need more jelly jars.


Since the roo was shooting blanks I ended up ordering chicklets. Americaunas, Blue Andalusians, Silverlaced Wyandottes, Buff Orpingtons, and they tossed in a "surprise" that I think is a Red Star. Two of the Americaunas are roos so hopefully one will be nice and I can throw 3Bs (big blue bastard) in the stock pot. That one runt isn't dead he was just asleep.


Bees! All up in my punkin patch!


Speaking of punkins, the Connecticut Fields are coming on now. There's a LOT up under those leaves!


The Black Knights were ready to pick, will have to remember they mature faster. The description said they'd turn a dark green with orange speckles when mature and my nail wouldn't pierce the skin. Will give one a whirl (pie mebbe?) this week and see how it turns out.

 

I know, I'm just lazy and I hate touching tomato plants.
NEXT YEAR though... I have plans. Like responsible plans where things are tidy and tied up properly.

We make a LOT of hot sauce and Romas are the first choice. I do have some San Marzanos (marinos? marianas? I always forget) but they're in a bad spot so they are barely producing. Neither of us like tomatoes with guts so I never get the big hamburger ones.

 

A couple years ago, my buddy put out a few 'mater plants by his garage/drinking area,, they put out extremely well this year . I told him one day ,, if he came home from work and found 2 empty bread bags , an empty mayonnaise jug , and no 'maters,,, he'd know I'd been there.

 

When I lived in the pacific NW I trimmed a trellises all my tomatoe left a few leaves and had great tomatoes.

Here in the desert SW I have to trim the indeterminates but I leave a lot more leaves on the upper part of the vines because its so mush hotter and brighter that the maters burn it i don't leave them some shade.

Just gotta know your growing area

Garden looks awesome DW

 

Nothing like a morning stroll face first through 4 spider webs to wake a girl up.

Cantaloupes in slings. Got quite a few on the fence now.


Roma tomatoes


Got a few sugar peas, a cabbage, and a spinach in kratky mason jars. Will end up swapping them over to a kratky tote when they get a little bigger.


Detroit beets in one fabric pot, Parisianne carrots in the other. The carrots are those little ball sorts so they don't need a deep place to grow.


Pumpkins!! Can see some of them through the leaves.


Got the former mess all cleaned out and tilled up. Need to clean the chicken coop and dump the old litter here, then till it in again.


I have wild purslane growing everywhere.


Peppers in the tub. Some hanging baskets I have nowhere to hang. That serrano pepper was in a failed wicking bed and half dead so I dug it up a few weeks ago and stuck it in a fabric pot. Seems to like it's new home.


Zucchini in the temporary AP setup


Some cucumbers on the AP


Better look at that. It's just temporary until I get the other one running and cycled. Excuse the mess. To the right is the chicken yard, and a raised bed that I still need to rip out.


Greenhouse still nowhere close to done. I had the fish tank/filter/sump running but have to make a change to the pipe diameter because I was being stupid and as it stands now it floods over the solids filter. Waiting on bigger uniseals now and then have to build in the flood bed.

 

Yeah we did that right at the tank overflow but we could never get it to balance so I'm just swapping out the pipe that was smaller than the tank overflow to pipe that is bigger than. I knew better than to use that 1" pipe on the filters but it was lying around and I was too lazy to go to the hardware store for 1 1/4".

 

This morning's pickings. Got this x5 in the fridge, guess its canning day. Pickles, salsa, fire roasted peppers, and curry pumpkin soup.

 

Wow. What a great yard and system. To my practical mind this is far more beautiful than lush grass and intricate flowers / shrubs. I'm going to go back and look at your container system and see what I can do in a colder region. Thanks for sharing.

 

We had an unexpected cold front come in that did a number on some of the stuff, namely the canteloupe vine. Strawberries seem happy at the cooler temps, pumpkin vines are putting out last minute pumpkins that will never ripen but the chickens won't care. I'm holding off long as I can to cut and cure the big ones, since most of them will be decorative. I give the prettiest ones to the neighbors for fall .... my version of schmoozing. Peppers are still putting on, tomatoes too. I was sure that cold snap would kill the 'maters but nope!

Just an FYI, for those of you who try to keep the front of the house pretty, the tubers on ornamental sweet potato vine ARE edible. They're not yummy, taste halfway between a sweet potato and a really starchy normal tater, but hey salt and pepper make everything decent.

Ripping everything out of the front of the house planters now, reseeding with kale and cabbage and pansies since they can handle the winter months. Edible but also quite pretty. I have half a mind to seed some of my planters with wheat.

I just dug these out of a couple of flower pots to dry out and then put away with the caladium bulbs to replant next year. Ugly taters lol.



Ornamental sweet potato, in case you don't know what I'm talking about. You can use regular sweet potatoes but the vines aren't as pretty. I shoulda cropped this pic before I uploaded it, excuse my little walkway maker project there.