Starting Vegetable Plants from Seed

The seeds have finally been planted in the 72 cell seed starter tray on Sunday, March 3rd. Looks like Golden King of Siberia won this year as the fastest sprouting tomato in just four days. As you can probably tell I'm using coconut coir as the starting medium as well as bottom heat, in my experience peat pellets seem to inhibit the sprouting of peppers.

This year the tomatoes have been narrowed down to 21 varieties with some yellow, orange, green, black, red, and bicolor fruits plus one mystery variety from a friend. Last year I remember waiting for some tomatoes to ripen on the vine, but when the orange tomatoes started to rot I finally realized the orange tomatoes were never going to turn red. Please don't laugh too hard at my mistake. I had only grown reddish tomatoes previously and it must have slipped my mind that Djena Lee's Golden was planted out, which happens to be an excellent tomato nice and fruity with tart citrus overtones.

Tomato varieties:
Djena Lee's Golden Girl - smallish orange tomatoes, fruity tart flavor with citrus overtones
Cosmonaut Volkov - first to produce tomatoes last year, good juicy tart flavor
Prudens Purple
Black Krim
Moneymaker
Mortgage Lifter
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Wapsipinicon Peach
Kellogs Breakfast
Pilcer Vesy
Golden King of Siberia
Berkley Tie Dye
Big Zebra
Cour Di Bue
Purple Calabash
Paul Robeson
Cherokee Purple
Black from Tula
Ananas Noire
Hill Billy Flame
Brandywine - saved seed from 2 years ago, lots of nice big pink tomatoes with a lovely classic flavor
Mystery Tomato - from a friend

Jalapeno, serrano, and anaheim hot peppers were begun with an eye towards canning salsa in the summer. A couple of bell peppers and banana peppers were also started but I am not holding my breath since the seed is fairly old from 2009.

There were some problems with the eggplants last year between the flea beetles and obscenely hot temperatures that came on fast and settled in for 3 months, so none of the plants produced fruits. Hopefully the floating row cover that I ordered off Ebay will provide protection from the flea beetles at least.

The eggplants are being limited to just 12 varieties:
Aswad
Pandora Rose
Bangladeshi Long
Thai Round Green
Thai Long Green
Thai Long Purple
Malaysian Dark Red
Mazu Purple
Ping Tung
Cambodian
Applegreen
Melanzana

Trying Floating Row Covers this Year

Last year was an ongoing struggle against the local bird population who became a tremendous pest in the vegetable garden. A mild winter combined with a record hot summer left a large bird population. Early on the birds consumed 27 of the 52 baby tomato plants set out whiling topping the rest, the okra starts suffered a similar fate to the tomatoes, and the first planted beans and squash seeds were eaten. Bird netting and fencing stopped the larger of the birds but the smaller ones were still able to get into the garden. The garden never truly recovered from the onslaught.

This year I plan on taking a different tactic. Rather than netting the whole garden against birds, I am going to use floating row covers to protect the plants the vile creatures seem to favor. The floating row cover is said to have the added benefit of excluding vine borer moths, Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and flea beetles as long as the critters aren’t already overwintering in the soil. I went ahead and purchased a 25 x 10 feet length of Agribon 15 floating row cover from Ebay. Agribon 15 is said to have a 90% light transmittance and holds heat in very minimally which is useful since I am only planning to use it for pest control rather than frost protection.

This gives me hope for the summer squash and zucchini which I tend to lose early to vine borers and squash bugs. Many people swear by floating row covers as the only surefire method of protecting eggplants from flea beetles and their insatiable appetite for the plants' leaves. Hopefully I will only have to use the covers in the spring to give the plants a head start, otherwise it could be some trouble keeping the garden watered and weeded.

The Garden Is Gone

Grey Seeded Simpson lettuce.

Giant bed of Simpson lettuce.

The Swiss chard is getting gigantic.

The bitter melon was mowed down and has grown back. The fruit is unlikely to mature before winter.

I had to leave town without a watering contingency plan during the hottest part of the summer so it was not a surprise to come home to a burned up garden. Sorry no pictures of the dead garden because it has since been mowed down. It is amazing how quickly the grasses have taken over, it is as though there was never a vegetable grown in that spot.

The summer drought has finally ended and the weekly rainfall has wrought an unusual sight. Lettuce starts abound cutting a chartreuse swath through the lawn, little bush bean plants, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers are starting over again. They are terribly cute, but it is unlikely they will bare fruit even when frost comes late in our area. I have a terrible urge to plant a patch of winter radishes, since they are so juicy and mild when grown in the fall months.

Rain Showers in the Vegetable Garden

A nice heavy rain knocked down a couple of the Philippine Lady Finger okra plants

Stewart's Zeebest okra plant

Costoluto Genovese tomato almost ready to be plucked

The five thicker okra pods on the left belong to Philippine Lady Finger and the three on the right belong to Stewart's Zeebest. Usually I let the Stewart's pods grow to about 9 inches in length but these were picked small because the plants they were growing on are still tiny.

Swiss chard

We had a nice really heavy rain on Monday and the plants were just soaking it up. The okra pods has grown twice as fast since the downpour. A few of the Philippine Lady finger okra plants were knocked down but they are just fine after being righted.

The tomatoes are finally starting to look less brown and burned with many young fruits burgeoning and growing tips starting to swell again.

I haven't been very creative with the Swiss chard, this batch was sauteed in butter which I admit was a little bitter. The thick succulent leaves makes me want to wrap it around a meat filling. Hmmm.

Harvest Monday, July 9, 2012

Tuesday's harvest of green beans, okra, and tomatoes

Thursday, the first harvest of Zephyr summer squash

Thursday's harvest of okra

Two of the okra picked on Thursday were 9 inches long and still tender

Sunday, more sunburned tomatoes and a couple of summer squash

Sunday's okra harvest

Thank goodness it rained a couple times this week and put an end to the 108˚ F heat wave (42˚ C). The tomatoes have some sunburn on their fruit and two summer squash plants have succumbed to vine borers without ever producing any fruit. The beans and tomato plants have gotten fairly burned up in the heat, they're just a little crispy. And I've been finding tomatoes that have been nibbled or pecked at, looks like critters are finding their way through the bird netting looking for water sources.

The first summer squash of the season have been picked! The Zephyr hybrid summer squash is excellent, it has a wonderful texture and flavor that is sweet tender and firm when sauteed with a little butter. Not at all watery or spongy like summer squash can get.

The main green bean bed is definitely winding down production but the smaller plantings are just starting to flower.

This weeks harvest:
2 pounds, 14 oz tomato
2 pounds, 4 oz squash
1 pound, 6 oz green beans
1 pound, 5 oz okra

Total: 7 pounds, 13 ounces

Thank you for visiting. Check out Daphne's Dandelions and her Harvest Monday posts, where gardeners from all over the world take part and post their weekly harvest.