2022 Veggie gardens!

I was afraid critters could still destroy fruit, but I still plan to try bags on my figs. I better get to it!

You have bald eagles in your yard? Wow!

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There’s a nest 2 houses away. But they circle and of course, land where they want to eat :slight_smile:

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Fab-u-lous!!

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It’s here, it’s ripe, and the ears are well populated - yay! Corn for lunch for the next 10 days…

We should have about 60 ears total. We don’t pick until a pot of water is boiling on the stove. The ears are cleaned and into the pot within two minutes of harvest. So good with salt, pepper and just a little butter!

By the tenth day, they will be past peak and slightly over-ripe.

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Have you tried the reflective tape/ribbon?

Not that I recall. But I thought of it as I tied on all the little bags today! Some of the ties are a little off putting.

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The mini heat-wave here in the PNW has kicked things into high gear, and thankfully so (it’s almost August!).

We harvested and cured our summer potato crop this week. Middling - we’ve had better, we’ve had worse - but I’m happy. We are planting another round for fall harvest.

Another big blueberry pick this morning. I’ll be baking some cakes and tarts this week. :yum:

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I should add we grow those potatoes in 25-gallon containers. Big fan of container gardening here.

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My elephant dill.

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Very nice!

How do you know when to do that? September is recommended for fall plantings here, but I think it’s usually too hot and dry for potatoes. I’d still like to try it.

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We pretty much figured out the “when” through trial and error. We are in the maritime PNW, and typically look to buy spuds for sprouting mid July, and then plant them at first opportunity, meaning after the prior crop has been harvested and when the new seed is sprouty enough to plant. This past spring we planted several 25-gallon pots of potatoes, all of which have been recently harvested. We have replanted one of those pots, and still have a bunch of “seed” potatoes waiting in the wings for the remainder. We’ll plant those as soon as they have enough shoots coming off them, which might be several weeks off yet.

I say “seed” potatoes at this juncture loosely. We plant actual seed potatoes in the spring. We can’t get them this time of year, so purchase un-treated, organic, food-grade potatoes at the co-op for the summer planting/fall harvest. So far, we haven’t had issues with disease, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we run into it at some point.

As an anecdote: a few years we wintered over potatoes in a cold frame, just to see if we could do it. We planted them late-late fall/early winter, closed the cold frame, and then harvested mid-spring. It worked! Not great, but not bad, either.

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I’ve done that too, but without protection. Sometimes the die back wih a frost, sometimes they come back. I use a grow bag, but once it gets hot and dry, the bags dry out to fast. Here are some tiny fingerling I just “harvested”.

Fingerings

Maybe I’ll replant them in September.


I’m hoping the pinkish ones on the right a "La Ratte ".

Also, does anyone know what this might portend?


Not my best gardening year, but not my worst, either. On the balcony, some nice herbs, good-looking chard, probably the only cucumber I’m going to get (the march of the bacterial wilt has begun) and the first of what are likely to be about a million sungolds.

leeks

basil

chard

cuke

tomatoes

And upstate, a very respectable crop of peas, bigger cukes (and no wilt), and the perpetual failure that is my okra. Sigh.

peas

cucumber

okra

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Nice! My bad, but I am stuck on what you see after the balcony. It looks like a beach and blue water! Is that the east river?

Yesterday and today’s tomatoes

Peppers






Figs!


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Hah! Not quite. That’s the ruins of East River Park, razed as part of a flood protection plan. What you see used to be a soccer field. Now it’s acres of dirt. The plan calls for eventually rebuilding the park and raising it up 12 feet, but in the process, thousands of trees were destroyed. It was very tragic.

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@bogman Do you have a good source for sorrel seeds? I’m going to grow it next year. I can’t get sorrel here for <$5/bunch, and I need my schav fix.

The top photo is what I end up with when I try beefsteak types. Cherry tomatoes do best here

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I did the panty hose thing with mine, and I could see little ants waddling around under one of the figs. GRRR! So tomorrow I’m going to dunk each one (there are only five at this point) in diatomaceous earth and hope I get one, at least.
We had an abnormally wet monsoon season last year, and the bug population went supernova, especially the stupid tiny ants. My big ants stay in the front and keep the termites at bay, but the little wankers are fairly new.

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Where do you live? I think they don’t retain enough water for the sonoran desert, especially lately.

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Oh, man!

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