The infamous SNE lawn thread

[eekuasepinniW]

I'd build another box with soil to let them sprawl out on

You appear to have lawn space... why not make some garden beds and put the plants in the ground?

Doing things in containers is so much more difficult. You only need to forget to water once on a hot afternoon and all your hard work will be dead by the time you get home from work. Containers are great for smaller plants like peppers and eggplants, but not for huge vines like melons and cukes.

It would be a wise investment to get a small drip irrigation system on an automatic watering timer. They're not that expensive and eliminate the hassle.

[snowNH]

Thanks zuck... two sunny days coming up here... should see another explosion as the soil is very moist right now

[nzucker]

You appear to have lawn space... why not make some garden beds and put the plants in the ground?

Doing things in containers is so much more difficult. You only need to forget to water once on a hot afternoon and all your hard work will be dead by the time you get home from work. Containers are great for smaller plants like peppers and eggplants, but not for huge vines like melons and cukes.

I agree that having the plants in the ground is generally better for larger crops, although the soil can be a bit slower to warm. It might be a slight exaggeration to say that the plants will be dead if you forget to water one day...even during the early June heat wave when temperatures were in the mid 90s here, the plants didn't look totally desperate for water after 24 hours. I gave them a drink anyway, but it wasn't as if they were dying of thirst. I find most of the problem is with overwatering, to be honest.

I love containers for peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes (especially cherry/grape). But as you say, there are some things that just work better in the ground...I find lettuce, beans, radishes, and squashes just aren't well suited to containers in many cases...with the exception perhaps being small bush squashes like zucchini or yellow squash, and even then a longer rectangular container is much better than a standard round pot.

Thanks zuck... two sunny days coming up here... should see another explosion as the soil is very moist right now

Yeah, NWS has low 80s here with sunshine for Wednesday and Thursday, should be good for the garden. I have 2 Early Girls and 1 Beefsteak tomato that could easily ripen with a warm spell, so bring it on! It's funny to get excited about one or two tomatoes but so it is in mid-June, just as the first frost brings excitement in Sept/Oct despite months of below 32F readings ahead just as there will probably be handfuls of tomatoes to harvest every day in August.

[skierinvermont]

Trellis is complete!!!

Nice! Way ahead of me with the cukes and zukes. You may want to think about scrapping the watermelon and letting the zukes grow over them. I don't know if you've done them before, but any type of melon is pretty tough in New England. The watermelon vines get pretty big too so you might not have enough space. I don't know about you but I never had much luck with them beyond a few mediocre melons across several years of trying. I don't do them anymore but maybe you'll have better luck.

Ah I see zucker mentioned this already.

[skierinvermont]

I find lettuce, beans, radishes, and squashes just aren't well suited to containers in many cases...with the exception perhaps being small bush squashes like zucchini or yellow squash, and even then a longer rectangular container is much better than a standard round pot.

handfuls of tomatoes to harvest every day in August.

I've done lettuce and beans with good success in containers and I imagine radishes would do well too.. lots and lots of people do lettuce in containers and it works great. You can give them a bit of shade in the hot afternoon to prevent wilting and bolting and you get better germination in the potting soil since germination can be a bit tricky with lettuce.

[skierinvermont]

I've been getting boatloads of lettuce and greens the past couple weeks, especially the black seeded simpson, mustard greens, and arugula, but also the red and green oakleaf, red sails, spinach, and a few other varieties of lettuce. Peas just started. Not much besides that yet but most things are doing well.. I'll post pics tomorrow.

[nzucker]

Nice! Way ahead of me with the cukes and zukes. You may want to think about scrapping the watermelon and letting the zukes grow over them. I don't know if you've done them before, but any type of melon is pretty tough in New England. The watermelon vines get pretty big too so you might not have enough space. I don't know about you but I never had much luck with them beyond a few decent melons across several years of trying. I don't do them anymore.

Black plastic is the key according to the people I worked for, in this climate.

I did a few melons from seed (Amish Melon, designed for cooler climates) and bought a couple watermelon plants, popped them in. That being said, not going to be disappointed if they don't work as I know it's tough.

I've done lettuce and beans with good success in containers and I imagine radishes would do well too.. lots and lots of people do lettuce in containers and it works great. You can give them a bit of shade in the hot afternoon to prevent wilting and bolting and you get better germination in the potting soil since germination can be a bit tricky with lettuce.

I don't know why I wrote beans there...I have a big container of green beans right now and it's doing great! Should be ready for harvest in a few weeks considering they've all got flowers. The ones in the ground are slightly taller but otherwise about the same. Both should provide a successful crop by early July, great timing to go along with the tomatoes.

It doesn't really seem you get much lettuce or radishes in a container....pots generally work better for things that grow up and then out, like tomatoes and peppers, since then you aren't as directly limited by the size of the pot. I mean, how much lettuce are you really going to harvest from your standard 12" pot? Also, you do better if you get rectangular storage containers for stuff like radishes and lettuce rather than the classic round pots since you want to have rows to maximize the yield and keep things organized. I use rectangular containers for my peas and zucchini while I use round pots for tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers...seem to work nicely.

How are your Early Girls doing? I've got two fruits on one of mine as you see in the pic. I find that the tomatoes are moving unusually fast this year. So are the eggplant...already got one fruit that's about 3" long on one plant, and looks as if another fruit is growing. May have fresh eggplants to eat in 1-2 weeks as long as everything proceeds smoothly. I usually think of eggplant as late July or August up here, not sure why it is moving so fast but my plants are going crazy. Each eggplant has like half a dozen flowers and one has a quickly maturing fruit!

[nzucker]

I've been getting boatloads of lettuce and greens the past couple weeks, especially the black seeded simpson, mustard greens, and arugula, but also the red and green oakleaf, red sails, spinach, and a few other varieties of lettuce. Peas just started. Not much besides that yet but most things are doing well.. I'll post pics tomorrow.

Yeah, I have a couple beds of arugula, mixed in with smaller quantities of spinach, red lettuce, chard, and oakleaf lettuce, and I've probably harvested nearly 1/2 pound in the past 3 days. I let it grow for a while as I was busy with work and not paying much attention to the new bed (first bed was finished after 4 nice harvests of arugula, sowed on 4/9)...all of a sudden this second bed, sowed around 5/10, was going nuts and I picked a ridiculous amount, put one bunch in a bag for a friend, and have been eating tons of salad. Healthy but that arugula is real peppery when it dominates the mix.

I just sowed two beds of Four Seasons red lettuce mixed with spinach. It says it handles heat well, but do you have any experience with this variety? How will my spinach fare once we start getting consistent upper 80s/90s?

On hot days, I've been taking a spray bottle and spraying the lettuce, arugula, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower...this helps a bit in the heat waves as they don't wilt as much. I also water the greens every day when it is 90+ and nasty.

[nzucker]

Also, when did you start the peas Skier?

Mine are almost done, sowed them 4/9. First round was yellow snap peas, and I have harvested about 4 dozen, maybe a couple dozen more to go but plants are withering. Second round of regular peas should be coming in 1-2 weeks. Peas are fun to grow but relatively unproductive...I don't have the space to get an appreciable amount. I made a nice side dish tonight with yellow snap peas sauteed in garlic, olive oil, butter, and fennel seed. Not bad. Wish I had more though, 4 dozen isn't a lot.

[skierinvermont]

Black plastic is the key according to the people I worked for, in this climate.

I did a few melons from seed (Amish Melon, designed for cooler climates) and bought a couple watermelon plants, popped them in. That being said, not going to be disappointed if they don't work as I know it's tough.

I don't know why I wrote beans there...I have a big container of green beans right now and it's doing great! Should be ready for harvest in a few weeks considering they've all got flowers. The ones in the ground are slightly taller but otherwise about the same. Both should provide a successful crop by early July, great timing to go along with the tomatoes.

It doesn't really seem you get much lettuce or radishes in a container....pots generally work better for things that grow up and then out, like tomatoes and peppers, since then you aren't as directly limited by the size of the pot. I mean, how much lettuce are you really going to harvest from your standard 12" pot? Also, you do better if you get rectangular storage containers for stuff like radishes and lettuce rather than the classic round pots since you want to have rows to maximize the yield and keep things organized. I use rectangular containers for my peas and zucchini while I use round pots for tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers...seem to work nicely.

How are your Early Girls doing? I've got two fruits on one of mine as you see in the pic. I find that the tomatoes are moving unusually fast this year. So are the eggplant...already got one fruit that's about 3" long on one plant, and looks as if another fruit is growing. May have fresh eggplants to eat in 1-2 weeks as long as everything proceeds smoothly. I usually think of eggplant as late July or August up here, not sure why it is moving so fast but my plants are going crazy. Each eggplant has like half a dozen flowers and one has a quickly maturing fruit!

Doing lettuce in containers I was thinking more along the lines of 3" deep flats since they don't go deep and you'll get surface area. You can grow enough in one regular sized flat to spruce up your normal salad or do a tomato+arugula salad. If you do 2 or 3 flats you can probably have a 2 or 3 person salad every few days at peak especially if one flat is a vigorous variety that will grow upwards like simpson.

I've got some fruits on the EGs they're maybe 2.5' tall or so. My sungold cherry is probably around 3.5' with a couple sets of fruit. I definitely planted later than you and also it was much cooler the farther east and north you went this May with the anomaly gradient. Most of the heirlooms are around 2' with a set of flowers or two. I'll post pics tomorrow. My pumpkin plant is closing in on 6 feet probably and growing 4"/day.. very excited about that.

[skierinvermont]

Also, when did you start the peas Skier?

Mine are almost done, sowed them 4/9. First round was yellow snap peas, and I have harvested about 4 dozen, maybe a couple dozen more to go but plants are withering. Second round of regular peas should be coming in 1-2 weeks. Peas are fun to grow but relatively unproductive...I don't have the space to get an appreciable amount. I made a nice side dish tonight with yellow snap peas sauteed in garlic, olive oil, butter, and fennel seed. Not bad. Wish I had more though, 4 dozen isn't a lot.

I just do them around the edges and unfortunately I staggered the planting because I finished tilling one garden first. They are pretty unproductive and I plant them along the edges where there is less sun so they aren't as productive as they could be. In the future i will buy seed in bulk for cheap and plant all of the edges instead of just some of them to get a good harvest. I'm still trying to figure out if I get more production from the regular or dwarf varieties. I had a regular 5' snow pea variety that produced a ton last year.. Oregon Sugar Pod II. This year I bought Oregon Sugar Pod I by accident and it is dwarf and I don't think I will get as much. Fortunately most of what I bought is Sugar Daddy which are 3-4' now and just starting to produce.

[nzucker]

Doing lettuce in containers I was thinking more along the lines of 3" deep flats since they don't go deep and you'll get surface area. You can grow enough in one regular sized flat to spruce up your normal salad or do a tomato+arugula salad. If you do 2 or 3 flats you can probably have a 2 or 3 person salad every few days at peak especially if one flat is a vigorous variety that will grow upwards like simpson.

I've got some fruits on the EGs they're maybe 2.5' tall or so. My sungold cherry is probably around 3.5' with a couple sets of fruit. I definitely planted later than you and also it was much cooler the farther east and north you went this May with the anomaly gradient. Most of the heirlooms are around 2' with a set of flowers or two. I'll post pics tomorrow. My pumpkin plant is closing in on 6 feet probably and growing 4"/day.. very excited about that.

OK, when I heard containers I was thinking the standard pots or rectangular tubs, which aren't very productive for lettuce. That's all I have.

I have never had great luck with the germination of lettuce. It always seems to disappear into the ground, just like socks in a dryer. That's why I went with a mix of arugula, spinach, and lettuces for my greens beds. I have three beds near the driveway that I've been rotating. My first bed which I was harvesting late April-late May was all arugula, this new one is about 80% arugula, 10% spinach, 5% chard, 5% lettuce. Nice mix although the lettuce is a little paltry, but arugula is great for someone who doesn't have a huge green thumb for lettuces. I gave away a bag with about two salads' worth on Sunday, harvested a huge salad for two people tonight, should be ready for another harvest tomorrow night. Arugula is crazy when the weather is on the cool side.

Despite my problems with lettuce, I do have this Four Seasons stuff germinating nicely along with the spinach. I hope the two beds of this will get me through the early summer period with lots of salads. My grape tomato has about a dozen fruits so I want to have some nice lettuce to accompany those tomatoes.God knows the heat is bad in Dobbs Ferry during July, however, so we might see some bolting problems if we get heat waves. I wonder if covering the lettuce with a moist sheet might help during a major heat wave?

It's weird: your tomato plants are much taller than mine but sound as if they have less fruit. The plants that I'm mentioning are all in containers, which may explain the size difference, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in maturity. I think I have 3 fruits on my EG, 2 large ones and 1 small, but it's only about 2 feet max, maybe a bit less. The grape and cherry tomato are also small in the containers but seem rather mature with lots of fruits despite their diminutive stature. The tomatoes I have in the ground are much taller obviously: I have two Lemon Boy hybrid tomato plants, each about 4 feet tall, with many flowers but only a couple fruits. I grew the heirlooms from seed (Dr. Wyche's Yellow and Moonglow), those don't have flowers but are near 2' tall. Do have a Green Zebra heirloom from a store that's flowered and now setting fruit. Yeah, we had a mild May here so the plants really went crazy. Containers heat up fast as well with the limited amount of soil, and this kelp fertilizer combined with fish fertilizer for phosphorous is the ultimate. Amazing!

I still can't believe the eggplant though...the fruit will be ready within a week! Are you seeing this rapid growth up there?

Peppers also starting to set fruit, all of them have flowers except one or two plants.

[nzucker]

I definitely planted later than you

I got very aggressive with the planting this year as I sort of anticipated a warm spring with the +NAO and monster Southern Plains ridge. Got the peas and arugula in on 4/9. I put in my Lemon Boy and a couple cherry tomatoes on 4/20 which really paid off....gotta have something to do while you're celebrating 420 anyway. I had to cover one cold night but the plants are really far ahead now. I think I got all my eggplants done between 5/1 and 5/10, still seems early for fruits but I went to a good nursery and paid a bit extra for nicer plants than what Home Depot has. My tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers are split: 50% containers, 50% ground. Interesting to see how much taller the plants in the ground are, but the container plants seem to set fruit faster with the warmer soil temps.

I don't think I told you, but I did corn this year too...it's going nuts:

I have about 12 corn plants in a square, and then 2 more plants in pots. I'm hoping they keep chugging along, biggest plants are like 3' I would say.

Here is the mutant eggplant:

I just do them around the edges and unfortunately I staggered the planting because I finished tilling one garden first. They are pretty unproductive and I plant them along the edges where there is less sun so they aren't as productive as they could be. In the future i will buy seed in bulk for cheap and plant all of the edges instead of just some of them to get a good harvest. I'm still trying to figure out if I get more production from the regular or dwarf varieties. I had a regular 5' snow pea variety that produced a ton last year.. Oregon Sugar Pod II. This year I bought Oregon Sugar Pod I by accident and it is dwarf and I don't think I will get as much. Fortunately most of what I bought is Sugar Daddy which are 3-4' now and just starting to produce.

Tilling, Andrew? Don't you call yourself an environmentalist or something You are upsetting the Gaia super organism that is soil.

I am losing patience with peas...they look cool but suck at yield. However, I love the flowers and taste of this variety...they come from India and are amazing:

http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=230C

[skierinvermont]

I still can't believe the eggplant though...the fruit will be ready within a week! Are you seeing this rapid growth up there?

My eggplants got hit with some bugs that made the leaves all holey. Now I check them every day and they seem to be recovering well. Lots of flowers on the mini-eggplant and a few on the Clara. I've got 4 varieties and the black beauties are still 8 or 10" because I bought them as a six pack. The others are a bit bigger because I bought them as singles.

Your corn looks nice... you might want to read up on how to get them to pollinate better if you haven't already. They recommend at least 5 5 foot rows or else they won't pollinate well and you'll get stunted ears with little or no kernel development. There might be something you can do to help them pollinate though. Mine just came up a few days ago because I replanted it all after poor germination with the first sowing due to old seed. Should still be plenty of time though for corn. What variety did you do?

[Snow Bow]

My eggplants got hit with some bugs that made the leaves all holey. Now I check them every day and they seem to be recovering well. Lots of flowers on the mini-eggplant and a few on the Clara. I've got 4 varieties and the black beauties are still 8 or 10" because I bought them as a six pack. The others are a bit bigger because I bought them as singles.

Your corn looks nice... you might want to read up on how to get them to pollinate better if you haven't already. They recommend at least 5 5 foot rows or else they won't pollinate well and you'll get stunted ears with little or no kernel development. There might be something you can do to help them pollinate though. Mine just came up a few days ago because I replanted it all after poor germination with the first sowing due to old seed. Should still be plenty of time though for corn. What variety did you do?

Sounds like Flea Beetles. Diatomaceous Earth works well to desicate them and its natural so no need to worry about pesticides on your vegetables. Thats if they come back. Usually their not too much trouble as long as the plants are well established.

[nzucker]

My eggplants got hit with some bugs that made the leaves all holey. Now I check them every day and they seem to be recovering well. Lots of flowers on the mini-eggplant and a few on the Clara. I've got 4 varieties and the black beauties are still 8 or 10" because I bought them as a six pack. The others are a bit bigger because I bought them as singles.

Your corn looks nice... you might want to read up on how to get them to pollinate better if you haven't already. They recommend at least 5 5 foot rows or else they won't pollinate well and you'll get stunted ears with little or no kernel development. There might be something you can do to help them pollinate though. Mine just came up a few days ago because I replanted it all after poor germination with the first sowing due to old seed. Should still be plenty of time though for corn. What variety did you do?

I have had this sort of damage on both my eggplant (only the smaller, weaker plants) and Brussels sprouts (widespread problems); I have been using a mixture of castile soap and water, sprayed on the plants every day or two, to ward off these insects. This is working to a certain extent but not perfectly. The varieties I have are: Ichiban/Japanese, White, and Black Beauty. It's the smaller Japanese eggplant that has the fruit, but almost all of them have at least a few flowers. I tried doing heirloom eggplant from seed starting in early April, but it was a painstakingly slow process so I surrendered and bought the plants. There is a nursery nearby that is all organic and has extremely high-quality vegetables, and I figured it was worth it to pay $3.50/plant for a couple eggplant that were well established. So far, nothing but great signs from them, and I should have one to eat within a week!

I have read a little on the corn but was under the impression that I would have enough plants to get some pollination. Thanks for warning me as I probably would have screwed this up....I have about a 4X4 square including the 2 plants I've got in pots, so I suppose I'm a bit short. I am growing Burpee's hybrid "Early and Often" sweet corn, nothing particularly unusual...seems to be vigorous though. Do you think I need to hand pollinate? What is the best way of doing this? I know you have lots of experience with corn so I'm going to defer to your judgment and do whatever you tell me ("global warming will ruin us all so don't bother?"). This is the first time I've ever done corn, I used to think I didn't have the room but I found a spot of weedy front lawn that my parents allowed me to cordon off into a corn patch. I'm trying to grow melons among the corn plants, this may be complicating things but it is the old Mexican technique of Holy Trinity. So anyway, I'd appreciate any advice...the only thing I know is to give them lots of manure for the nitrogen. The corn patch and bean patch, which sit adjacent, are actually one of the best parts of the garden even though they were made rather haphazardly.

[nzucker]

Cucumbers got nibbled by an animal and lost a few leaves, real annoying. May plant a new batch in case these are really slowed down.

[Logan11]

In the past I have had slugs bite holes intro my aubergines (eggplants and also burrow into the fruit itself. You can usually just cut that little sot out of it and salvage it. Two years ago was a slug hell around here.

My eggplants got hit with some bugs that made the leaves all holey. Now I check them every day and they seem to be recovering well. Lots of flowers on the mini-eggplant and a few on the Clara. I've got 4 varieties and the black beauties are still 8 or 10" because I bought them as a six pack. The others are a bit bigger because I bought them as singles.

Your corn looks nice... you might want to read up on how to get them to pollinate better if you haven't already. They recommend at least 5 5 foot rows or else they won't pollinate well and you'll get stunted ears with little or no kernel development. There might be something you can do to help them pollinate though. Mine just came up a few days ago because I replanted it all after poor germination with the first sowing due to old seed. Should still be plenty of time though for corn. What variety did you do?

[eekuasepinniW]

It might be a slight exaggeration to say that the plants will be dead if you forget to water one day...even during the early June heat wave when temperatures were in the mid 90s here, the plants didn't look totally desperate for water after 24 hours. I gave them a drink anyway, but it wasn't as if they were dying of thirst.

It's not, trust me. I speak from experience learned the hard way.

I managed to cut the dripline running up the side of a whiskey barrel by accident with a weed whacker and when I noticed around 6pm the next day, my ornamental sweet potato vines were wilted well past the recoverable point. Those vines are probably fairly equal in size to a mature cucumber vine.

Also - it's early in the season and you likely don't have full grown plants in your containers, so your current watering needs will be less regardless of how hot it is.

Nice day out there now... finally some sunshine.

[Mr Torchey]

Things are finally starting to slow down, I was able to take a couple pics at a few of my properties today.

[Mr Torchey]

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[Mr Torchey]

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[Mr Torchey]

astilbe this year is just chronic

[Mr Torchey]

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[skierinvermont]

Sounds like Flea Beetles. Diatomaceous Earth works well to desicate them and its natural so no need to worry about pesticides on your vegetables. Thats if they come back. Usually their not too much trouble as long as the plants are well established.

Yep it was flea beetles and it was shortly after transplant. I only have 9 plants so it just takes a few minutes a day to hand pick them and there haven't been as many lately.. it was a temporary issue like you said.

[skierinvermont]

Wow litchfield... your pictures always look amazing!

Here are some of my veggie garden. I'm not very good with a camera and it was evening so they're not that good but oh well.

Here's veggie garden #1. Raspberries on the right:

Peppers (6 green bell, habanero, cayenne) front center, eggplant in the back (6 black beauties, rosa, clara), pole beans along back fence, squash back left, leeks front left, and some reseeded lettuce far left.

Here's about half of my 27 tomatoes. There's sungold, early girl, brandywine, cherokee purple, and mortgage lifter, old german, and german green. The rest are scattered around in a few other spots.

From front to back: cabbage seedlings, swiss chard, carrots, large white onions, arugula and radishes, mixed red and green lettuce varieties, simpson's black seed lettuce, beets, turnip greens, mustard greens, spinach. Snap and snow peas along the right wall.

My new garden. Rototilled this and applied 6-8 cubic yards of horse manure. You can just see the rows of corn front center with a row of beans along the right side of the corn. There are 5 hills of butternut squash in the right 1/3 of the garden, cucumbers back center, cooking pumpkins back right, and the giant pumpkin front right. More peas along the left east fence and pole beans along the front north fence.

My giant pumpkin plant's about 6 feet long now. The variety is atlantic giant and this particular seed is named Sperry 1325 meaning it was grown by Steve Sperry and came from a 1325 pound pumpkin. The mother seed (Rhodonis 1161) produced the world record 1810 pound pumpkin, and the father pollinator (Harp 1725) has produced a 1314 pound pumpkin. I can trace the full lineage of this pumpkin back several generations as well as its siblings. It's in a mixture of topsoil and composted cow and horse manure and I've given it a couple applications of fish emulsion so far.

Sweet pie pumpkins:

One of the rows of cucumbers (much smaller than SnowNH's!):

[Mr Torchey]

your veggie garden looks awesome, nothing like fresh veggies in july august and september!

[HoarfrostHubb]

Joe, I love the way you incorporate rocks into your landscapes. Beautiful shots

[snowNH]

Watermelon plants are starting to whither in my planter box... I'm not sure what I should do...

[nzucker]

Watermelon plants are starting to whither in my planter box... I'm not sure what I should do...

Water them?