Virginia Gardeners

[shelleybean]

Well, the hot weather we've had lately has been kind to part of my garden and other things don't like it so much. All the tomatoes look very healthy and have lots of flowers. There are a few little green tomatoes out there. Peppers are starting to bloom. The eggplant with the broken main stem is growing quickly now but in a funny shape. I guess it's going to be okay, just very wide at the bottom. This is the nicest cabbage I've ever had. Beautiful! I almost always grow cabbage in the fall but I think I'm going to do it in the spring every year. Snap beans look good. White Acre peas sprouted very quickly. My lettuce started to bolt so I bought huge ziplock bags and put all of it in there and filled my garage fridge with it. I have enough to last a couple of weeks with at least one salad every day. Cucumbers are climbing quickly now. They've really picked up their growth since it warmed up outside. Squash is finally showing a few female buds. Tons of male flowers. Okra obviously likes the warm up. Onions are growing, chugging along. My sweet potato slips arrived from Southern Exposure a week ago. I planted them right away and they're doing well, sprouting a few new leaves. All the herbs look very happy and are big enough to start cutting from now. My zinnias have begun to bloom and I have a vase of them on my counter. So I'm just waiting to start picking tomatoes. I can usually pick by the third week of June. We'll see what happens this year!

[linzelu100]

Wow Michele, your garden is way farther along than mine. My beans haven't even come up yet, tomatoes are just flowering, squash plants are only a couple inches big. My cucumbers feel like they have been out there forever...but are stil just 2 inches big. what do I do wrong with cucumbers? Mine never grow fast like o ther peoples? And I only get a few cucumbers.

Usually I do very well with warm crops and terrible with spring crops, but this year it is reversed. My lettuce is full and wonderful, awesome broccoli, peas are coming in, strawberries have been delicious, and my potatoes are three feet tall and so healthy.

My crops that are done are radishes and spinach (but spinach never grew more than an inch).

[shelleybean]

Lindsey, what part of the state are you in? Has it been hot there? We've been a little hotter than usual until yesterday. We're cooling off for a few days and then back into the 80's. The heat is what caused the growth spurt in my cucumbers and squash.

[linzelu100]

I am near Roanoke- the valley fo the mountains. Yes it has been blazing hot! 100's and 90's. You think my cucumbers are missing some kind of vitamin or mineral?

[shelleybean]

Oh, our niece and her husband live in Roanoke.

I've only fertilized my cucumbers once and I used Garden Tone, which is applied monthly. They're due again on June 1. Mine are mulched with wheat straw and watered by irrigation so the moisture is very consistent because it's on a timer. I planted mine over a month ago and it took a while for them to get going. It's been in the last two weeks they've really taken off because it was so cold for a while. When did you plant?

[shelleybean]

I pulled my first head of cabbage today. There were three larger ones, about the size you'd see at the grocery store, and two smaller ones. I wanted to weight one of them so I could better judge the weight of the others. Once I cleaned off the outer leaves, this one was almost 4 pounds, so I could have let it grow a little bigger. Good to know. This is Charleston Wakefield. I'm going to shred it and cook it with a little bacon tonight. I tried a little of it raw. It was sweet, not "hot" like some cabbage.

I usually have male squash flowers open before the females, but not this time. Yesterday I had two females with open blossoms but no male to supply the pollen. A male was open today and I hand pollinated one squash.

We are still eating lettuce. I have huge bags of Little Gem in the garage fridge. Giving a lot away too. I cut down from last year and I still have too much.

[mecktom]

We have starting getting cabbage and it is delicious. The broccoli seems to be done for the year....we are having very hot and humid weather here. Collards have been delicious. I have picked several tomatoes from a Kimberley....small fruit but big flavor....the other tomatoes and peppers look very good for this time of year. Plenty odd fruit being set. Will plant some more tomatoes this weekend and then again around July 1. We do need some rain here.

[shelleybean]

My sprinklers turned on this morning and a 3 foot snake came out of my beans. I'll have to scope things out before I reach into anything out there! I know what snakes do for us but that doesn't really make me like them any better!

[shelleybean]

Most of my spring stuff is done or winding down. I have a little cabbage left in the garden and I'm working my way through the spring onions. We've eaten squash the last five days I think. Time to start freezing it. My husband got me one of those Food Saver things. I'll give it a try. Next up will be cherry tomatoes. I think they'll be ready in a couple of days. Wax beans and zucchini, as well. Still looking for some bees in my cucumbers. I've been hand pollinating the squash and zucchini. I have a decent number of peppers out there, both hot and sweet, but I'm waiting for all of them to turn red.

What are you eating out of your garden???

[MrsJustice]

Hello everyone From Angel Field.

I am so excited about my Biennials Vegetables Plants surviving a very Very cold winter. I just took pictures of my Leeks and all my other Biennials Vegetable Plants. My Heirloom Broccoli that students from Williams & Mary Colleges gave me 2 years ago was eaten my beautiful Rabbits. Well I learn much from the baby rabbits last year. I studied them to see what food they love to eat from my garden by building them a fence in the garden last year. So this year my Broccoli Plants are surrounded by Hot Peppers. So wish me luck. I really love those rabbits and I did learn so much from them. Their Names was Lucky and Hip pity. They will not eat the carrots if they cannot see the bottoms. So I have beautiful flowers on my heirloom carrots this year.

Did all your Biennials plants survive the cold winter?

[shelleybean]

The time for daily picking has arrived, and with this terrible heat, too. I even have enough to start freezing and pickling some things. This is what we're getting on a regular basis now.

Wax beans
Crookneck squash
Zucchini
Pickling cucumbers
Green onions
Cherry tomatoes

Plus armfuls of zinnias every few days. And I have two heads of cabbage left in the fridge. The big tomatoes and other kinds of beans will be ready soon. And I'm waiting for the peppers to turn red before I pick any of them, but there are a lot of them out there--Jimmy Nardello, Ashe County Pimento, Rooster Spur. No eggplant or okra yet.

[Ken B]

We did our first seeding of fall brassicas a couple days ago (Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage). We'll do a couple more seedings over the next few weeks -- getting brassicas started in hot weather can be unpredictable, so we do several sowings in the seedbeed to see what takes. We keep them under ProtekNet to keep the harlequin bugs off them.

Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon when I was out hooking up drip irrigation in the roselle (hibiscus) and okra, a low flying plane circled over us at least 4 times, probably DEA-type folks looking for pot. I hope whoever analyses the photos is smart enough to be able to identify okra and won't be sending in a SWAT team to burn down our fields...

[shelleybean]

I'm about a month away from starting my fall brassicas, Ken, but I'm already planning. Right now those beds are all full of various beans. They are in what I call my "beans and greens" beds.

I started picking some full sized tomatoes this week but I have to finish letting them ripen on the counter. I don't want to jinx anything but we've had a terrific season for squash and zucchini. I've seen the squash vine borer moth a couple of times but damage is minimal, so far. I see a few cucumber beetles and a few squash bugs. Too many Japanese beetles this year. They seem to favor the zinnias. I don't spray them because the bees like them, too. Pods are beginning to form on the okra. The only thing that hasn't shown up for the party yet is eggplant, but it's feeling a little crowded by the cherry tomatoes behind it. They are hogging the bed. I might have to give them a haircut to give my eggplant some more sun. Peppers are beginning to turn red. The first will be Jimmy Nardello's.

It's been very wet and humid here for the last week, so we'll see how that affects the garden shortly. I hope things are going well for the rest of you.

[shelleybean]

Well, it's been busy around here. Daily picking and a big haul on most days. I spent all day yesterday making and canning bread and butter pickles. Right now I have tomatoes in the canner. I think this weekend I'll halve a bunch of these cherry tomatoes and leave them in the dehydrator for the day. Rooster Spur peppers are turning red so I'll be making some hot pepper vinegar and drying those, as well.

My White Acre peas are almost ready. I've kept ahead of the aphids pretty well. I spray soap every other day or so. Lots of tomatoes, but I don't think my season is quite as good as last year's. Definitely decent though. All peppers are ripening now so I'll have both hot and sweet to eat in a matter of days. Cucumbers are not slowing down at all. I will have loads of pickles and cucumber salads. Crookneck squash is finally slowing down. There is a lot of mildew on the plants. I'm trying to keep them going another couple of weeks. Still picking a few here and there. Zucchini is still cranking them out. Okra is doing great now. Eggplant is beginning to set. Sweet potato vines are running all over the place. My basil plants are big and full. Time to make some presto. I planted another batch of green beans and I'm sure I'll be freezing some of those. Beans are one of my favorite things from the garden.

I hope things are going well for the rest of you! Keep us posted.

[Ken B]

For any Virginia folks who're interested -- we'll be having an open house and tomato tasting here on SESE's farm on Saturday, Aug. 29th, early afternoon -- should have ~40-50 tomato varieties ripe for tasting by then, plus some peppers and maybe melons. PM me for directions if interested!

ETA: we're in central Virginia, in Mineral, halfway between Charlottesville and Richmond.