2012 PNW gardens progress

[plainolebill]

Originally Posted by janezee

Whoa! My blueberries are just little white nubbins!

I love this weather for my health, but it really is trying as a tomato grower, and don't even get me started about the peppers!

Smart move if you want to grow. It sounds like a much friendlier spot to garden.

j

Speaking of health, this area is hell on earth for people with allergies - mostly pollen from the turf grass seed farms but plenty of native stuff too. The Kalapooya people used to set it on fire every summer.

I always feel better when I get over to the coast, but the winters..........I lived in Astoria for 5 long years..aargh. Makes Seattle seem like Palm Springs. Great spot for cole crops - year round'.

[gtnate]

Tania, do you grow your cucumbers in a green house? If not, then I am doing something wrong as all of the cuces on my vines are still itty-bitty.

[Tania]

Yes, I grow cucumbers in a greenhouse. There is little hope for them in the open ground here - only if we have an exceptionally warm summer. We are in a colder area of greater Vancouver, BC - and up in the mountains, so it is always a challenge to grow warm season crops here.

I picked 2 Matina tomatoes today. Tasting tomorrow! . Noticed more blushing fruits - on Beta and Hana and Visitation Valley. All these are in containers, and were not under cover. For some reason greenhouse plants are behind setting fruit and ripening, strange!

Dug more potatoes - they are getting really huge, some are the size of my hand, but the foliage have not died off yet.

[Jeannine Anne]

Tania, sorry to be so late getting back to you..not so good days.

No it wasn't the Queen of Hearts, I dare not eat that one LOL.It was Kimberley.Outside too.

The weeds are incredible now, barely keeping up as I am not too well and Jihn doesn't know a weed from a plant so I have to be with him.

I have flowers on my Gigandes beans now which is great.

All my garlic harvested as someone was picking it,I grew 24 varieties so having a taste test soon.

French Grey Shallots were super this year I have loads of them now pulled.

Lots of broad beans, we have eaten loads of them and they are still coming.

All my winter Sprouting broccolli is in now, a few varieties with harvest dates starting in September right through to May.

I tossed a large bag of very old mixed lettuce seeds on a patch of land, some seeds were more than 10 years old. I now have a forest of seedlings..I should transplant some but we are enjoying the leaves right now.

Another laugh.. a friend gave me an old variety of very tall growing peas to grow up a fence also a 18" variety to put a row in front of them.. he he, the dwarf ones are 4 feet tall and thr tall growing ones are attching to them rather than the net fence we put up for them.. so we have a forest of entwined peas too..

XX Jeannine

[Tania]

Thank you Jeannine!

Looks like we are back to June weather here. If what I see now is what they call 1-3 mm 'light rain', then I am truly terrified to see the 10-15 mm showers forecasted for later. It it back to 16C here and rains heavily since I woke up this morning at around 6 am.

I found another branch on 1 tomato plant affected by late blight yesterday, and I cut it off. But I am worried how much of spores may spread around in this rainy and cold weather

I covered everything I could this morning, but all my container tomatoes are not under cover, and soaking wet as we speak.

The good news is I found blushing tomato on Sibirjak plant (and it is a larger, 6 oz tomato), 1 ripe on Visitation Valley (very small) and 1 on Hana (3-4 oz), and a few ripening on Lollipop and Beta. Everything else is far from getting ripe any time soon.

[Tania]

2 more chilly and rainy days, and I hope we'll be back to warmer and sunny again.

First imposter found yesterday - a tomato that was supposed to be Brown Flesh I grew from a seed received from a SSE member - it turned out a small red, nothing remarkable other than it was the first ripe tomato in one of my tomato greenhouses. I am so glad I am also growing the same variety from a different source (Val and Dan McMurray), and these look promising so far (but very far from getting ripe)

Sibirjak is getting ready to pick, actually two of them, I am so looking forward to tasting these tomatoes!

We ate 3 Matinas and 1 Visitation Valley and they were very good but seedless. Today is the tasting day for Lollipops, Peacevine, and Al-Kuffa.

Harvested some garlic - Susan Delafield. It is not as huge as last year, but still large - I think it did not like to be growing in standing water. This garlic bed is still so wet, it is simply unbelievable, at this time of the year! My other two garlic beds are on elevation, and much drier, so we'll see what I get there.

I pulled most of the broccoli plants and planted 2nd crop of carrots, winter radishes and daikon yesterday. Soon to be a grand potato digging time! I hope I will have enough strength and energy to manage that.

[plainolebill]

We ate our first slicing tomato yesterday - a Jet Star. BLT sandwiches, I'd almost forgotten how good vine ripened tomatoes taste.

Our garlic is harvested and drying, dehydrated some basil and oregano as well as some blueberries.

Planted in the past week: Kale, Carrots, Beets, Parsely Root, Salsify.

Beans are over the top of the trellis, Zucchini coming, Tromoncino coming, Cukes look good but are not quite ready to produce. Have harvested and eaten one Eggplant more of them are some time off. Late planted potatoes are flowering.

Basically nothing here to eat but tomatoes.

[Tania]

Very nice plainolebill!

[jwr6404]

Tania
We always grow a Korean variety Cucumber in the ground.They are a larger cucumber and we've been eating them for 3 weeks already

[Tania]

Jim, that's amazing! I have not been able to grow any cucumbers in the ground since 2009, it has been too cold here. Is this one particularly early?

[pdxwindjammer]

So fun to see how everyone here in the PNW is doing!

Out of my 45 or so tomato plants, all of them have now set fruit although they are far from blushing. All have plenty of blossoms and look healthy.

Anyone else in the NW growing Indigo Blue? All three of my plants have serious leaf curl so I suspect it is normal for this plant.

Healthy is my first pepper to produce but several others have flowers and shouldn't be far from setting fruit.

My 3 different types of green beans are all looking great and have some blossoms.

Lemon cuc plants are looking great as are my eggplant but not setting fruit yet.

I imagine I will harvest my garlic in about 2 weeks as the bottom set of leaves are drying out.

Lots of lettuce and some kale and chard.

Thanks to marycibel, I am eating some garden fresh tomatoes, a couple of cucs and a little squash! I donated a bunch of plants to her for a garden for the needy and she kindly dropped of some ripe tomatoes and also started some winter veggies by seed! Wow! What a nie surprise to find this on my porch today! Thanks!

[Tania]

I am growing Indigo Blue this year, and yes, I observed some leaf rolling on the plants earlier in the season, but checking it yesterday I noticed all the leaf roll was pretty much gone - I guess the stress is over. This variety does seem to respond to stress with some leaf roll!

I think my garlic will also be ready in a couple of weeks.

The bad news is that my Russian Blue potatoes got late blight after the last rain and the heavy dews we had after the rain, and I had to remove the foliage yesterday, so it would not spread to the other potato beds. Today I will be finishing cleaning the bed. They looked healthy 3 days ago, and yesterday morning the blight was everywhere on the leaves. This is very sad, but I guess it became a normal thing for our area in the last few years (LB coming early). I am glad my tomatoes all look good, no sign of any disease yet, including container plants. But since the LB spores are already here, it will be just a matter of time, they'll eventually spread to tomatoes too when we get more rains. Sigh. My only hope is the covered plants.

[Tom Atillo]

I thought the topic was PNW 2012 gardens progress...........soooooo....My Portland Oregon baby gave up a few very tasty Stupice's and Sungolds ....last week. Early girls and Willamette were in walls O 'water and were planted three weeks earlier , no ripe fruit .....go figure?
Stupice and Siletz are two tomatoes that I WILL definitely
grow next year

[Tania]

Tom Atillo, welcome!

I also find Stupice, Kimberley, or Matina tomatoes to be earlier than Early Girls, at least in our climate. Do you have any ripe Siletz yet?

[Tom Atillo]

Originally Posted by pdxwindjammer

So fun to see how everyone here in the PNW is doing!

Out of my 45 or so tomato plants, all of them have now set fruit although they are far from blushing. All have plenty of blossoms and look healthy.

Anyone else in the NW growing Indigo Blue? All three of my plants have serious leaf curl so I suspect it is normal for this plant.

Healthy is my first pepper to produce but several others have flowers and shouldn't be far from setting fruit.

My 3 different types of green beans are all looking great and have some blossoms.

Lemon cuc plants are looking great as are my eggplant but not setting fruit yet.

I imagine I will harvest my garlic in about 2 weeks as the bottom set of leaves are drying out.

Lots of lettuce and some kale and chard.

Thanks to marycibel, I am eating some garden fresh tomatoes, a couple of cucs and a little squash! I donated a bunch of plants to her for a garden for the needy and she kindly dropped of some ripe tomatoes and also started some winter veggies by seed! Wow! What a nie surprise to find this on my porch today! Thanks!

RE:marycibel
Ain't Karma a wonderful thing :-)