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Harvesting Dad

A dadding and homestead lifestyle blog.

Garden 2019 Update – Week 6

Posted on by ronunz

Notes

Everything seems to be going rather well this week. All of our plants are growing a breakneck speeds. Tomatoes, cucumbers, cucamelons, zucchini and squash all have flowers. The bees are very active. 

The cucumbers and tomatoes are getting big enough they are being trained to the trellis.

The strawberry production is starting to slow down. I think by the end of this week they’ll be done for the year. Some of my larger strawberry plants are starting to grow more upwards instead of out. Next year I’ll consider using a better netting/cage system to keep the pests out instead of laying nets across the plants.

Our corn is almost knee high. I think I am going to have problems with the corn laying down. Some stalks are already kind of starting to lay on their sides a little bit. Next year I’ll have to make sure I use a larger tiller and get the soil a little more loamy for their roots to get a better hold. I may also need to consider sowing a little deeper too. I will put steaks around the bed and string them up.

The seedlings we planted last week are doing well. In a few weeks I should have some more tomatoes to stick into the ground.

Harvested

Even though production has been low, we harvested about another half pound of strawberries. We have a lot of crookneck and squash in progress, so maybe by the end of the week I’ll have some of them.

Weather

It’s been very warm this week. We’re already into the mid 90s during the day. High humidity. Virtually no rain. The garden got some sprinkler time on Wednesday and Saturday.

Looks like another dry week ahead. I’ll plan on running the sprinklers again on Wednesday and this coming Saturday.

Garden 2019 Update – Week 5

Posted on by ronunz

I need a place to leave notes and journal logs of my garden activities. These garden updates are going to be where I do that. Nothing special here. This is just a place for anyone who is interested the status of my garden and for me to ramble.

Notes

So the garden is five weeks old this week, at least that’s when I started the seeds. All of the seeds I started are now in the ground: tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, cucamelons, zucchini, squash, corn, purple hull peas, jalapenos, and bell peppers.

Everything seems to be doing ok and has transitioned outside ok. I put the jalapenos out this weekend, a week later than everything else. The jalapenos got acclimated to the sun at the same as the rest of the vegetables and spent another week in this house. They weren’t really big enough to be put in the ground. Apparently they needed to be acclimated again because some of them had a little bit of burning, but otherwise seem ok.

Critters and bees are plentiful in the garden. Don’t see any pests besides some slugs feasting on my strawberries.

All of the zucchini and squash plants are flowering pretty vigorously. I also have a few cucumber plants that are flowering.

The cucamelon and cucumber plants seem to be training themselves to the trellis arches, but they all need to be tied to the trellis for better support.

We have some extra room leftover in the garden. We started some money maker tomatoes and herbs. We also had some friends and family who wanted some starters. We have a large section of the garden that was going to be used for arugula, but I think the weed pressure is going to a struggle for them, so we’re going to use that area for beets and onions. Those will get planted probably next week.

Harvested

Strawberry patch output so far the year has surpassed 6 lbs as of yesterday. I need to consider expanding this. Right now I have enough strawberries to keep Leah entertained.

Weather

Weather this week has been warm. Didn’t really have any rain this week. The weather started off warm and ended up pretty hot by the end of the week. Temperatures reached into the 90s. Garden got an hours worth of sprinkler time. Soil felt a little dry when I was planting the jalapenos.

We are expecting rain this coming week on Sunday. The rest of the week looks dry and HOT. I will plan on using the sprinkler again sometime around Wednesday. I really should look into a soil moisture gauge and a rain gauge.