We needed lettuce for tonight's salad, so I went out and picked some. I also picked the first Early Girl tomato that I remember spotting. It is still obviously very green, but I want to see how long it takes to ripen if I bring it inside. The little sweetie tomato that I did the same thing with is now turning nice and red, though it has taken it's time to get there.

Corn and such

I just thought I'd throw up a few pictures of the current state of my corn. Quite a bit of it has tasseled, and I actually have a decent number of ears coming. I wasn't sure if they were going to produce or not, seeing as how late I got it planted. According to the seed package, the maturity date would be Dec. 20. I'd say it's on track for that. So far we haven't had any temps below about 40, so if that holds out for a few more weeks I should be ok. I also harvested a good amount more beans and peas a few days back. I think I'm going to make some of that famous Harder green bean soup!

Green Beans

The results of today's stroll through the garden. A good fistful of beans (I'm trying to get enough to make green bean soup), my first pea pod of eating size, and a green sweetie tomato that I knocked off by accident. I brought it in to see if it will ripen up anyway. I can say the pea pod tasted just as it should... yummy!

Tandem anyone?

This would be my first post generally unrelated to gardening, but still pertaining to the title of this blog. Anyhow, Dierdre and I went on a bike ride with mom the other day. Naturally we opted to ride our sweet 1970ish made in Chicago, Schwinn Deluxe Twinn. The deluxe part means it has a five speed rear sprocket and derailleur, as opposed to most, which are single speed. It is mostly original. The rear seat, front grips, cables, and tires have been changed. It is a cool mettalic emerald green type color, and the chrome on it polished up quite nicely with a little NeverDull considering it is almost 40 years old!

Yesterday I picked more beans, and made my second lettuce harvest. It filled another gallon Ziploc or so. I also picked my first spinach. It definitely grows slower and produces less then the lettuce. Or course, I only ended up with one plant as well. Since I pulled out my nasty buggy cucumbers and zucchini, I seem to be fending off the spider mites on my beans and tomatoes using insectisidal soap. Wish I would've known that sooner.... Also, it is better to sacrifice a few leaves, or even a whole plant early on, and save the rest, then to "wait and see". That definitely doesn't work. Pull the infested stuff right off, and hit the rest with insectisidal soap hard and fast. That will be the strategy next time I plant.

Darn Pests

Due to a nasty infestation of spider mites I had to rip out all my cucumbers yesterday :-( Didn't get to pick a single one. I didn't realize what the mites were until it was too late to control them. Live and learn. Next year if I see signs of them hopefully I will know to address them immediately. The mites have also spread to the zucchini, but I think I can fight them off the rest of the stuff if I take some quick action. I got some insectisidal soap concentrate, so I'll be spraying stuff this evening.

First Fruits!

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Life has been busy. I think I'll give my carrots and beets another week or so, though I did pull up a few beets to see how they were doing. I just made my first harvest of lettuce and filled an entire gallon zip lock till it was stuffed. The zucchini will be quite numerous, the beans have a lot of flowers, and quite a few pods, though I haven't picked any just yet. The cucumbers have a ton of flowers, but so far I haven't spotted any fruit. They also, unfortunately, have a ton of these little brown bugs of no particular shape. Soapy water spray doesn't seem to affect them. They just look like a bunch of little brown dots. I need to do more research to try and find an effective way of dealing with them. I have some nice round green tomatoes coming. The pepper plant is doing fine, but is starting to get crowed out by the tomatoes (note to self, more room between plants). Peas are finally doing a little better, but I haven't seen any flowers or pods yet. Enjoy the pictures!

New Growth, New Pictures

The title pretty much sums it up. Trying to deal with the white flies with a soapy water spray, and ants with Terro. I seem to be making progress on the ant front. Less so on the white flies. Hopefully it will be cool enough soon to get rid of them, but we'll see.

Corn is up

I noticed when I was watering today that some of my sweet corn has started to come up, hurray! I also purchased some 8ft tall garden stakes for my pole beans to climb, and some smaller redwood garden trellises for my peas.

Fall is Here!

Oh, on a related note... the National Weather Service said we saw our last triple digit day this week. No more 100+ till next June, YAY! I'm sure my plants and my water bill will appreciate that. It's supposed to be windy (12 gusting 20) and a high of about 87 today. I know, it still sounds hot to some, but that is GREAT here in AZ! Needless to say, Steve, Pat, and I are off to Lake Pleasant with the Hobie Cat and the jetski today.

More Seeds

Yesterday afternoon I planted some more seeds to replace some stuff that didn't make it, and a few others that I just wanted to try. I planted a bunch more spinach, since only one came up before, one more lettuce, four more sweet peppers (2 green, 2 red), and three different types of hot chilies, two of each kind. The spinach, lettuce, and peppers were all of the same varieties as I planted before. The chilies are some older seeds I had but never planted. They are Tepin, Jalapeno, and New Mexican (Anaheim) Chilies. They all came from a "grow your own salsa" packet that I picked up probably a few years ago. There are also Tomatillo and Cilantro seeds that I think I might plant as well. They're old so they may not germinate, but we'll see. I figured it didn't hurt to try. I'm mostly out of space in the garden now, but I think if a lot of them come up, I'm going to put whatever I don't have room for in the garden, in the planter. A little manure and nitrogen, and it would be ready to go very easily.

Almost all of my transplanted stuff seems to really be taking root now, and is showing a fair bit of new growth. So far I haven't had to do any weeding. I would summarize it as, water, monitor, and wait (for food) :-). The only pests I've had are microscopic white flies that seem to be chewing on my tomatoe leaves. It doesn't seem to have affected the plant too adversley yet, but I need to find something to keep them off. Other than occassional big chunks of work, such as the initial digging and prepping of the ground, and then sowing over 150 plants at once, it has been less time consuming than I anticipated, which is nice. That definitely increases the probability of me continuing to garden.

Beets and Corn

Today I finally managed to find some time after work and transplant my red beets, carrots, lettuce, and spinach. I also planted four rows of sweet corn. I think I will try to start some more spinach, and maybe lettuce. I only had one spinach plant come up, out of like five that I planted. Plus I still have some room in one of the rows for a few more plants. I'm sort of excited about the corn. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to come up. There's just something about big tall corn stalks that makes it seem like you're really growing something...

Transplanted

Well, I actually transplanted my seedlings about a week ago now, and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. I think it's a bit hot for them, we are still hitting 100 or so in the afternoon, but so far most of them seem to be doing ok. I watered the plots the night before I transplanted, and watered the plants in their cups right before moving them to their new home. I did not, however, water the whole garden after transplanting them. That was a mistake. I thought there was enough moisture still in the ground from the day before. When I came home from work the next afternoon however, they were all totally wilted. I was afraid I had killed them all. However, with a good soaking, and after the heat of the day was off, they sprang right back (mostly). So, note to self, always soak well after moving plants. Perhaps some of it was just the shock of the move, but either way, more water would've done them good.

So a week later, and most of them look like they are going to make it. I've lost a few, but most of them are putting on new growth. They were definitely right on the verge of becoming too big for their coffee cups when I decided to move them. I think the new space for their roots has done them good. Now to just water and wait I guess, while watching for problems. Now that they're in, a good soaking every other day seems to be keeping them happy.

I do need to transplant a few things yet. My beets, carrots, spinach, and lettuce have yet to get moved. I also need to get the corn planted. Hopefully I'll get that done tomorrow or Wednesday.

From the "Eat The View" campaign

Eat The View is a campaign to get the next president of the United States to plant a kitchen garden on the White House lawn. This is a 60 second promo video they have out.

http://vimeo.com/1519380

http://www.eattheview.org

One Week

Well, after one week things are looking decent. Everything has come up now except two of four peppers, and most of my spinach has yet to show. There might be a few other random things, like a bean or pea here or there that are slower starters then the rest, but almost all of the cups now have something showing in them. Yesterday I finally got around to building up the sides of the beds so that I could flood irrigate them. Then this afternoon I flooded the beds to water in the fertilizer and manure. I will probably do that at least once more. I was also advised that it is a good idea to cover the garden with clear plastic for a week or so after watering in the fertilizer, but before planting. Supposedly "solarizing" the soil in this way preemptively kills a lot of weed seeds etc... and sort of sterilizes the soil of harmful organisms. So I will probably give that a go. Here are some snapshots of my cucumbers, zucchini, and beans.

Today I thinned out the plants that had multiple sprouts in a cup. Some of the seeds are very small, and I put multiple seeds in a cup. Turns out that is quite unnecessary. So far I have lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, red beets, both types of tomatoes, beans, and peas all coming up.

Sprouts (aka the beginning)

So for the time being this blog will mostly be documenting my first gardening attempt ever. The fall/winter season is supposedly the best time to garden here in Phoenix. The season is basically from September till the first frost, which is usually December sometime. I am using George Brookbank's Desert Gardening, Fruits and Vegetables as my guide, and I'm generally following the recommendations found therein. Hopefully my backyard will be transformed from an empty dusty nothingness to rows of green veggies. This first post encompasses the work of Aug. 30 through today.

Background and research recap:

Although looking at the number of days between first and last frost, one might assume that you can garden year round here in the desert southwest, and to some extent, you would be right. However, the summer, particularly July and August are so hot that not much survives, so it is not entirely as it appears. We essentially have two fairly short seasons that are really prime for growing between a scorching summer, and the winter freezes, so often the varieties that do well here are short season types that were developed for more northern climates, where they also have short seasons, though for different reasons. I ordered all my seeds in the middle of August from Ed Hume Seeds. They specialize in short season varieties. My order arrived a week later. A complete listing of what I'll be attempting to grow this year, is as follows:

• Early Girl VF Hybrid tomatoes
• Sweetie tomatoes
• King of the North green peppers (sweet)
• Marconi Rosso red peppers (sweet)
• Red Ace Hybrid beets
• Marketmore 76 cucumbers
• Jackpot Hybrid bush zucchinis
• Blue Lake Pole beans
• Oregon Sugar Pod II peas
• Ingot Hybrid carrots
• Parris Island Romaine lettuce
• Olympia Hybrid spinach
• Arrowhead Hybrid bicolor sweet corn

Implementation:

With Steve Schrock's help we dug up three plots. The first is 10x10 ft just for sweet corn, then there are two 6x15 ft plots for everything else. Then I added steer manure, ammonium phosphate, and soil sulphur, dug those in and raked the beds. There rates were as followed, 1 cu. ft. manure for every 8 sq. ft., 3 lbs ammonium phosphate, and 5 lbs soil sulphur per 100 sq. ft. Those amounts are basically straight out of Brookbank's book. The soil here tends to be basic and very low in organic matter, and those additives work to correct that.



I started everything except the sweet corn in syrofoam coffee cups on my covered patio to give them an earlier start, while keeping them out of the heat/direct sun (we're still hitting 105). I used an organic potting mix, and they were all planted on Labor Day afternoon (Sept. 1). So far I've had to water them once in the morning, and once in the evening to keep them all moist. By Yesterday afternoon (Sept 3) I already had sprouts coming up! My lettuce was the first one I spotted, and the largest in number, with a few cucumbers peeking through as well. I was pretty surprised, but excited to see things growing so fast, since most of the seed packets said it would take at least a week.