New England, June 2016

+3.  Beautiful CC; I'm jealous!  

And Rock, thanks for putting up pictures of the flowers in your garden, a while back. They’re gorgeous!  I just now saw your post on the turkeys getting into the beets – somehow I missed it the first time around. Suddenly all of the comments about tripping turkeys and safety make a lot more sense, to me.  Funny how context makes all the difference!

SR, I too am curious about how I’m going to overwinter twelve buckets of tomato bushes (plus two, in smaller containers).  Any suggestions?  We don’t have out-buildings, a green house, or heat in our garage, so they’ll probably end up under grow lights, in the basement.  The plants may well mature and produce fruit through the winter, if the conditions are right, but I'm not gonna push 'em.

As for a general update:

While watering this morning, I noticed several more of my red potato cuttings have sprouted, and both sweet potato halves are crazy covered with leaves. Some of the slips near the soil have self-rooted off the mother yam; I'm interested to see if they'll stay pretty vines or actually reproduce.

In the garden across the street, four small watermelon vines have succumbed to wilt, leaving two robust seedlings unaffected (so far).  I’ve never been successful with melons and hoped this would be the year to reverse the trend – it’s not looking good.   In this case, I’m hoping the wilt is caused by environmental factors, rather than Verticillium or other soil contamination.  Fingers crossed.  None of the other trellised crops seem to be affected (yet), but I’m hesitant to transplant or direct sow anything else until I know more.  The days are flying by; if I don’t get stuff in the ground the crops are a certain loss.  I wonder, should I forge ahead with populating the donated plot, or quickly regroup and put the unplanted seedlings in containers?  What to do, what to do…? 

@Scorpio Rising wrote:+2!  Most excellent!  Grand Rapids, eh?  Might need to find some of that.  Open pollinated?    

Thanks folks! Grand Rapids are heirloom. Here's a strange little website about them.
http://sustainableseedco.com/grand-rapids-lettuce-seeds.html

...and another.
http://www.mcssl.com/mobile/calebwarnock/lettuce/grand-rapids-lettuce

SR, wanna trade some Grand Rapids for some Matchless? If so PM me, please?

Ginger blue, I'll be following your winter tomato growing experiment. I brought a potted one inside for winter one year and was able to have fresh tomatoes for New Year's and for a while after. But the plants succumbed to aphids,  blight and all kinds of things. It was kind of messy and I won't do it again.  I grew the Roma in my bay windows and the warmest the house gets during the winter is about 64 unless the sun is coming in the window.

CC

@Ginger Blue wrote:
In the garden across the street, four small watermelon vines have succumbed to wilt, leaving two robust seedlings unaffected (so far).  I’ve never been successful with melons and hoped this would be the year to reverse the trend – it’s not looking good.   In this case, I’m hoping the wilt is caused by environmental factors, rather than Verticillium or other soil contamination.  Fingers crossed.  None of the other trellised crops seem to be affected (yet), but I’m hesitant to transplant or direct sow anything else until I know more.  The days are flying by; if I don’t get stuff in the ground the crops are a certain loss.  I wonder, should I forge ahead with populating the donated plot, or quickly regroup and put the unplanted seedlings in containers?  What to do, what to do…? 

Hubs and I have decided to move forward with containers, rather than put more dollars and sweat equity into planting potentially bad soil.  I'll continue to tend the trellised plants and give them every chance to succeed, that I can.

It makes me a little sad to abandon that huge space and my carefully planned, thoroughly researched layout, which was so beautiful in my mind.  BUT all things considered, I have more peace about changing course. I've learned a lot these last few weeks.  The lessons will continue, just in a different way...


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Garlic scapes, lettuce, a pocket full of strawberries and good friends. What more could a gardener ask for at 6 AM on a perfect Cape Cod day...

UMass Veggie Notes news...
SVB info starts on pg 3.

https://ag.umass.edu/sites/ag.umass.edu/files/newsletters/june_23_2016_vegetable_notes.pdf

@CapeCoddess wrote:Garlic scapes, lettuce, a pocket full of strawberries and good friends. What more could a gardener ask for at 6 AM on a perfect Cape Cod day...

Can't think of a thing! Pretty!

GingerBlue, Changing plans seems to be the norm for gardening!

CC, Lovely. Thanks for sharing.