2012 PNW gardens progress

[Tania]

We seem to have a great summer every 3rd year in PNW - 2006 was awesome, and 2009 was great... So far, 2012 spring has not been too bad - it is showing the same growing degree days as 2006...

... so I am really counting on 2012 to be wonderful for our PNW gardens. We really need to get these delicious large-fruited tomatoes to ripen here this year!

Lets share what we have growing and how things have been doing so far this year.

To a wonderful warm summer in PNW with plenty delicious tomatoes!

[rocan]

Originally Posted by Tania

We seem to have a great summer every 3rd year in PNW - 2006 was awesome, and 2009 was great... So far, 2012 spring has not been too bad - it is showing the same growing degree days as 2006...

... so I am really counting on 2012 to be wonderful for our PNW gardens. We really need to get these delicious large-fruited tomatoes to ripen here this year!

Lets share what we have growing and how things have been doing so far this year.

To a wonderful warm summer in PNW with plenty delicious tomatoes!

I hope you are right, we deserve a good summer after enduring the last two. I planted most of mine in a hoop house this year...just in case.

[Tania]

rocan, welcome to the forum! I hope to see your posts here

Lettuce and radishes have been doing exceptionally well and both have great flavor. They really love this weather - warm and dry for 2 weeks and now colder and lots of rain. Unfortunately slugs have been having a huge party in my garden since last Sunday, they love the rain too.

I have most of my tomatoes in greenhouses, only few are in the pots in my container garden. The ones in the GHs have been growing very well, I see first blooms already on some varieties. The ones in pots have been subjected to the cold and rainy weather in the last few days, and they look miserable. What a difference!

[Jeannine Anne]

Hi Tania, we are doing OK too, I have cukes about 4 inches now from an early sowing. My Gigandes beans are coming on nicely some are about a foot high so fingers crossed on them. Broad beans are over a foot high. Blooms and even a couple of tiny fruit on tomatoes,fortunately I had my tomatoes and cukes in my big buckets before the heat wave came along and fried all my small plants in the greenhouse.So no peppers this year. Parsnips, beets and carrotts all coming through really well . My perennial Chou Daubenton cabbage is really coming through good, just started this year,Skirret from last year has been reborn and looks especially strong, I should have lots of seeds from these plants this year. We have put soft fruit bushes in and the new growth is good, the new asparagus bed has been sending up skinny little spears so it is doing OK. I put out some lettuce plants on the last good day we had. I somehow forget to start lettuce but a kind neighbour gave me a few Romaine and I seem to have lost a bag with my lettuce seed stash in , I have few packets from a couple of years back and I do have my lettuce mix but all the ones I bought last year seem to have dissapeared. I have some seeds en route from the UK and have some varieties in there. I couldn't resist the Thompson and Morgan sale, I got some tremendous bargains there .

I too have a feeling it is going to be a good year..lets all be positive..

XX Jeannine

[Tania]

Wow, another sunny day here today, up to 72F, it is going to be hot in the garden today.

Jeannine, you have been busy in your garden!

So sorry you lost your peppers... Mine got hit by aphids this spring, and it is very hard to manage - nothing seem to work and they keep multiplying. I do not see a single ladybug in my garden this year, not sure why.

Today I am planning to add some coffee grounds to the beds (my men brought me a few bags from Starbucks), and mulch my GH tomatoes with straw - the weeds already started to show up. It is going to be a busy day, and I hope I can do it!

My carrots were re-seeded 2 weeks ago, as somebody ate the new sprouts from the first planting - one day they were there, and the next day most of the row was wiped out clean, not sure who it was...) They started to come up nicely, and I hope nobody eats them this time! I am so looking forward to my multi-colored carrots, it will be disappointing if I lose them again to some hungry slugs or caterpillars...

I have not planted the remaining tomato seedlings into the open ground yet - still keep them in 1 gal pots in a cold frame. Plan to transplant in a week or so, when I clean our the radish from the beds.

[Tania]

Not too much rain forecasted. I hope this is true... I also hope all the PNWers are going to enjoy a sunny start of summer!

[Jeannine Anne]

Tania, I am curious. Do you have any trouble with carrot rust fly and if so what do you do?

I have always grown my carrots is high sided raised beds and as the fly only flies about 18 inches off the ground so far I have been OK both here and in the UK. This year I have some growing in foot high beds and wondered if I should give them more protection. I wondered about putting a 2 foot high frame with plastic or fleece covered sides(top open) so the fly won't get in. What do you think? I am told the fly is very prevalent here.

I seem to be jinxed by peppers, last year they got mite as small plants while still at home, that really surprised me but I had brought a few orchid plants in so I think they came with them. I had never had mite before.

I hope your second garrotts are OK

XX Jeannine

[gtnate]

I planted out my tomatoes about two weeks ago during that stretch of ten sunny days in a row that we had! All of my tomatoes are in containers outside, but I put a WOW around each one. They seem to be doing great, as they are adding a lot of growth and generating blossoms (not sure if they will set, though). I planted

1 Stupice
1 Sungold
1 Roma
1 Old German

Even though last year was supposedly not a great gardening year in the PNW (I have only been gardening for about two years now), I feel like I ended up doing really well with my Roma, Sungold, Stupice, and Sophie's Choice plants. I made about ten cans of tomato sauce just off of those few plants.

I decided to take a risk this year and plant the 'Old German,' which is a really late beefsteak variety that I would love to see ripen up in a warmer PNW summer.

I also planted

2 Tomatillos
1 Chocolate Bell Pepper
1 Lipstick Pepper
1 Paper Lantern Habanero
1 'Gretel' Eggplant

Last year I ended up with a TON of tomatillos, which is awesome as I love to use them in salsa, with pork shoulder, and in chicken chilli verde. I also got about ten lbs of eggplant last year off of two plants, so I am hoping to do as well or better this year.

Finally I have ten garlic plants in two containers that I am hoping to pick shortly. I love garlic, and this is my first year growing it, so I am extremely excited about that.

Does anyone know what the 'normal' harvest time for garlic is here in the PNW? I have heard people say as early as the first week of June to as late as the middle of July.

[Tania]

gtnate,

it sounds like you have your tomato plants very well taken care of I hope your Old German matures fine this year! Same for the peppers.

Re garlic - we do not harvest our garlic until mid July - early August. The normal garlic harvest is when the bottom half of your garlic plants turns yellow / bottom leaves dry up. I think first week of June would be way too early for garlic harvest.

[Tania]

Jeannine, I am not sure I know much about the carrot fly, but I would guess it will fly 18" off the surface of the raised bed... But your idea sounds like a very good one to me! I seem to be able to avoid the carrot fly problem if I skip an year planting carrots, and use a different garden spot every time I plant carrots. Not sure if this is what helps, or something else.

[Jeannine Anne]

Thanks Tania, I think I may leave one raised bed unprotected and see..

XX Jeannine

[Tania]

Originally Posted by Tania

Not too much rain forecasted. I hope this is true... I also hope all the PNWers are going to enjoy a sunny start of summer!

Well... so much hope for a nice weather forecast! They changed it quickly to cold and rain for the next 2 weeks.

It is so cold here this morning. And the darn cold rain keeps coming down on my container tomatoes. I feel so sorry for the poor things, they already started to roll their leaves, begging for help!

[Jeannine Anne]

It is awful, I even began to think it was behind us. I have tomatoes outside as well as in the greenhouse and I feel a bit scared for them now.

I should have expected this, it always rains the day after I sow my beans !!

WE direct sowed quite a few things yesterday so it was inevitable.

Maybe we should knit tomato coats.

XX Jeannine

[Tania]

Got some fruit set on the earlies: Beta, Hana, Matina, and Fireworks. All four varieties are growing unprotected, in containers.

These are Beta and Hana on the pictures -

[tgplp]

Nice fruits, Tania! I'm actually having a strange problem... the plants I set in my hoophouse are doing worse than the ones outside! I think it is because it gets really hot in the hoophouse during the day, and then it gets really cold at night. The plants leaves turn yellow and icky. I had a sad looking Green Zebra in my hoophouse, so I set it outside. Now, a week later, it looks great and has buds and lots of new growth! Almost all yellow leaves are gone! Isn't that weird? I decided to leave open my hoophouse window, to see if that helps any. Unfortunately, my four Dwarf Project Tomatoes were living in the hoophouse! They don't look good at all, but I put them outside and today I will pot up and feed them some yummy liquid seaweed, fish emulsion, and earth juice bloom.

I have fruit on Micro Tom! (LOL!) But that doesn't count, because he's been living inside for a few months. I do have buds on some of my plants, and open flowers on Yellow Pear. I hope we have a great year!

Taryn