Mid July in the 2024 veg garden
Some success, some failures, so many learning opportunities
This year has been a bit hit and miss, in part because much of my garden time is spent eradicating invasive plants from my property, trying my best to do away with them as best I can. I’d really like the blackberries to stop encroaching on my food gardens from every which direction. As such, the annual veg’s aren’t getting quite as much attention as I’d normally give them. But there is still much info to share.
Cucurbrits (squash, cucumbers, melons, etc) have not gone well this year. My first issue was with damping off, and it took me longer than it should to realize why many of my cucurbrit seedlings were stunted, not sprouting, or dying off. I used the last of my “professional” seed-starting mix to start them, but must have simply over-wetted the mix. I should know better - I’ve had this failure before but I just didn’t think about it much when I was starting them.
Once I realized what was going on I decided to start again, using my own homemade cold-pressed compost. They came up fine, but for some reason the slugs have been particularly active later in the year than they normally are, so many of them were eaten.
I tried again, this time directly sown, since the soil was plenty warm enough and I’m getting tired of fussing with starts. Most of them popped up brilliantly, but this year I seem to have attracted one or more rabbits who is chomping on many little starts. Annoying.
I think the Silver Slicer cucumber will grow ok for me, although it is stunted from initial damping off. And a Bonbon winter squash is growing well. Other than that, it seems I’ll be taking a year off of melons, pickling cucumber, summer squash, etc.
Brassicas have been for the most part going well, although, it does seem to be an outbreak year for cabbage white butterflies. I busted out my old bottle of Bt after hand-picking the ones I could find off. I discovered a fattening butterfly a couple of days after I hand-picked and sprayed, which indicated that the bottle of Bt that had been on my shelf for many years is no longer working well.
So far, cabbage root maggots have not found any of my brassica plants. I may have planted them early enough to outwit their damage. Or, the deep mulch made of shredded blackberry vines is confusing them (mulches are said to do that). Or perhaps it is a year where they aren’t so bad.
The Mamba Kale that I planted back in early March suffered a little slug damage, and some of them are bolting! They have not done that for me in the past. Wonky weather patterns, especially periods of freezing, can cause bolting issues. Oh well. Since I have plenty of space available now that most of my cucurbrits have failed, I’ll be planting several more.
Parsnips haven’t gone terribly well this year. I think mostly because the chickens were scratching around them and covered the seed. Also, my seed is pretty old and they seem to have low vigor.
Parsnips are seriously one of the easiest calorie vegetables I grow. I stick seed in the ground in January or February, and they come up just fine with no slug predation or need to water. They seem to be one of the only veg plants that benefit from a little cold stratification.
Trouble is, I don’t always love the flavor. Sometimes they seem really good, but often pretty bland. I searched around for some OP varieties (so I can save my own fresh seed) that are known to have really good flavor, and next winter I’ll be trialing Bedford Monarch from Adaptive seeds.
Lettuce is something I’d like to get better at growing during summer months. I seem to have the best luck with growing it mid-late spring. But when I really want lettuce is during the summer. I know that growing during the hot summer months isn’t normally very successful, mostly because the long day-length and high temperatures cause it to want to bolt, which turns the leaves bitter.
This year I dug through my stash and looked for a bolt-resistant variety, and seeded it along with several other kales to plant out.
The lettuce is second from the bottom. It’s hard to see in this photo, but something is starting to go wrong. I wanted to show you this photo so that you can see that all the other seedlings are doing fine.
But if you look up close, you can see that the leaves are starting to wither and die.
I looked through all of the disease issues through the PNW Disease Handbook online, and found that the disease that sounds most like what I’m seeing is Tip Burn. Combing through my memory, I’ve definitely seen this phenomenon pop up in summer grown lettuces and wondered what in the world was going on.
The issue is not over/under watering or fertilizing, but a physiological phenomenon that occurs in most varieties during hot weather.
Oh… so that’s why the seed companies like to clarify if their lettuce strains are tip burn tolerant.
I’ll be trialing a new variety that is tip burn tolerant soon, and let you know if it works out.
Artichokes! I harvested a medium-sized artichoke and 2 baby chokes from my Tavor artichoke that I started earlier this year. The flavor was quite good, but I am disappointed that the plant is fairly small and only gave me a few. Maybe it will perk up for next year.
Garlic has been fully harvested. As I noted previously many of my new plantings of Red Toch didn’t go very well (see the info on the seed supply issue) but I love, love, love the flavor. I have a few large bulbs I can plant out, but perhaps I will buy more from a different source to increase my stock.
Beets - I’ve gotten a few harvests from early sowings. I was a little shy in the amount that I put out, mostly because I was afraid that the slugs would get to them. When I harvested, there were so few that it was hard to justify using a pan to cook them. I guess if I am going to chance an early sowing, I need to sow more.
My main beet sowings this year were made after the garlic was harvested. This is the time of year that beets seem to grow best for me. I grew several rows, thinking this would be the year I’d try pickling them. I saw the seed come up, and then they just disappeared. I’m not sure what happened. It could have been the rabbit. But I also had 2 small tomato plants fully disappear, one of them cut off completely at the soil line and left there. It was under a chicken-wire cloche, so I know it wasn’t the rabbit. I’m thinking it is possibly cutworms. I’ve since baited the area with Sluggo plus, which has spinosad in it and will take care of cutworms. I’m also going to build a short chicken wire fence around the area to protect future plantings. We’ll see what unfolds.
What’s new in your garden this year? Any lessons learned?
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