Tag Archives: broccoli

Onion and Broccoli Harvest – 5/22/2023

Amber pulled up the onions. Some of there were huge. I think onions are year-to-year the easiest crop we grow. She rigged up some wire fence across a few saw horses and hung the onions on the wire fence to dry for a week or so. He plans on freezing some and storing the rest.

We also harvested broccoli, as the weather is getting too hot. The bugs are eating it up quickly and most of it has already bolted. Good eats though!

The tomatoes are getting really close to being ripe. We picked a few that are starting to turn red because we don’t trust the local wildlife to leave them alone. The bushes are getting really tall, to the point we are going to need to top them to keep them from falling over.

The melons in the backyard are growing well. Sweet corn seems to be doing well too. Okra, not so much. I sprayed it all with a foliar fertilizer (Hasta Grow) and I hope that helps. A big mistake from last year was letting the wild non-edible melon continue to grow. The seed it released is now germinating and I have hundreds of those plants growing, in and among my useful plants. Lesson learned: stay on top of the weeding!

We also harvested a few carrots (meh). The blackberries are starting to get ripe, but they are absolutely covered with moths and wasps. Some of the plums are starting to ripen, but they are all infested with bugs because I didn’t spray insecticide at the right time. And our chickens have been naughty and are hanging out and laying eggs in our raised beds. The local rat snake found the eggs and had a nice meal.

Garden Update – May 7, 2023

My oldest fruit trees along the west side are finally producing fruit! I wish I would have been on top of spraying them for insects though. I lost 7 young fruit trees from last summer’s heat and transplanted the 4 figs that survived in pots last summer.

A few of the blackberries are already starting to ripen. I’m surprised by the number of blackberry plants that have died off. Only the thornless varieties have died, the native thorned variety I have is multiplying faster than I can keep it trimmed. A wasp was occupying the fruit I was photographing.

The raised beds in the front are all doing great. The squash and cucumbers I planted a few weeks ago are all popping up and I’ve already thinned them out. I added a layer of old tree leaves as mulch. We need to hurry up and harvest the broccoli before it bolts. Onions are almost ready to harvest. The peas are putting out fruit faster than we can keep it picked.

In the back in-ground row-garden, all the mellons, corn, okra, and cover crop is starting to come up. I thinned out the melons today and tried to transplant some of them. We should have enough melons to supply the grocery store if these do well.

We planted 4 tomato plants in the raised bed in front of our house. This bed is usually just out-of-control mint. I’m happy to see the start of delicious tomatoes well on their way! We are having a hard time keeping the chickens out of this bed though. The love to hang out and dig around.

tomato
tomato

Cool Season Vegetables Planted – 2/19/2023

raised bed #1: dwarf gray pea, sugar daddy pea, sugar snap pea, imperator 56 carrot, Parisian carrot, red cord chanty carrot, long imperator 58 carrot.

raised bed #2: Oregon sugar pod 2 pea, gurneys sugar Anne pea, top-notch pea, green magic broccoli

raised bed #3: melting sugar snow pea, Cascadia sugar snap pea, sugar daddy pea, black seeded simpson lettuce, mandarin spinach, french dressing radish, cherry bell radish, purple top white globe turnip

raised bed #4: snowball cauliflower, long island brussels sprouts, Catskills brussels sprouts

raised bed #5: Waltham 29 broccoli, calabrese broccoli

Planted Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Carrot, Beans – August 30, 2020

I’m trying once again to direct-seed cool weather plants in the heat of summer. The ‘feels like’ temperature was 105°F today because of the high humidity due to the 2.8″ of rain this morning. Nice to have the rain though! I was unsuccessful in direct-seeding plants like this last year.

Earlier this weekend before it had rained, I was able to move a lot of top soil out of the “pond” area and place it on the eastern part of the Hügelkultur bed #1. Just before dark I added straw mulch and planted about 50 bean plants, then distributed a packet of buckwheat cover crop to a lot of the bed. The plants I’ve had growing in this bed haven’t done very well. I think it is a combination of not enough soil, the typical first-year poor performance of a hugelkultur bed, and not enough water. I added more soil to this part of the bed compared to the part I already have plants growing in– hope that helps. I’m eager to have plants growing in it to hold the steeply-sloped soil in place. I figure beans are a good choice.

Everything Survived the 17 Degree Low Temperature

All of the vegetable plants made it through the recent low temperatures. This morning just before sunup, it got down to 17.6 degrees F. I didn’t cover anything up, and the plants look like they are all OK this morning. I was most worried about the sugar snap peas that just started popping up from the ground, but they look completely unharmed. Strawberries look completely unharmed. Onions look OK. Brussels and broccoli did get some damage, but they should survive.

3rd Seeding of Broccoli and Brussels

Only 3 plants sprouted from the second seeding.  I’m really bad at this apparently!

update 9/29/2018:

A few plants sprouted, but were quickly eaten by either rabbits or worms.  I transplanted 6 broccoli and 6 brussels sprouts from Walmart today.

Planted Broccoli, Brussels, Spinach 8/15/2018

I planted from seed 8 broccoli, 4 brussels sprouts, and 16 spinach today.

UPDATE 8/29/2018:  none of these seeds sprouted.  It was either too hot, or I let it get too dry.  I re-seeded today, and will try to keep the bed covered from the sun for most of the day.