Southern Maine Gardener

Man, where did September go?  Aside from a little trimming here and there, I put the garden on autopilot for the month.  But the month was good to us and I harvested quite a bit of stuff.  First things first, though.  My solution for warding off the groundhogs and woodchucks was finally using some fencing that’s been occupying my garage since Maine.

It doesn’t keep the squirrels out, but they weren’t the main problem.  Combined with the use of row cover at night to cover the right bed completely and the left bed about halfway, I’ve kept pests away almost 100% of the time.  Shame that it took me so long to figure this out.  No, it ain’t pretty.  But it’s removable.  🙂

Finally had a good stream of tomatoes in September.  Also a near continuous supply of cucumbers, beans, peppers, kale and carrots.  Had 2 harvests of potatoes from the bags and they were done.  I didn’t do as well with those this season, possibly due to not changing the soil I used in the bags.  Will start fresh next season.

What else?  We had a bumper crop of apples from the tree, about 10 cantaloupes from the volunteer vine, and pints of raspberries from the vines I got from my neighbor (which we’re still getting every few days).  Good stuff.

Great week in Portland OR, Walla Walla WA and the surrounding areas thereto.  Portland OR shares much with the city it was named after, Portland ME: great foods of local origins, amazing beer, nice open spaces and many recreational activities outdoors.  But really, the food and beer … pretty awesome … though the edge must go to Portland ME in the food category as there are no finer fresh oysters and fresh donuts.  Excellent hike up and around Multnomah Falls, just outside Portland.  Got to see friends at their family’s farm in Walla Walla WA, went to a handful of wineries in the area and had a great day on a ranch near Dayton on the river and getting acquainted with beefalo.

Garden did well while we were gone.  I installed a privacy fence around the two front beds and have been (mostly) covering them at night to prevent critter theft and vandalism.  More later on all that.

Critters, you crossed a line today. I was willing to coexist with you, accepting a little crop loss here and there, but you done chewed my melon.  My one, singular, beautiful honeydew.  It’s on now.  I don’t know what’s on, but it’s on.  ON!

Like a number of states around the country, NJ has been feeling the heat.  Lettuce, spinach and peas are long gone (though we ate more of each category than ever) and the hot weather loving veg has taken off.  Harvest from yesterday shows a typical haul of late:

Cucumber, carrots, corn, peppers.  Kale has been producing like a champ as well and we’re eating it once or twice a week.  Beans come in here and there, but not in the quantities I was used to back in Maine.  I think I’ve placed these plants, yet again, in a bad spot – at the tail end of a bed that is too shady.  I manage to harvest a beet here and there, but the critters dug most of those up and just left them there untouched.  Like they were just disgusted when it turned out to be a beet  and said “awwww man, I don’t want that” and threw it aside.  Oh, how I am mistreated by nature.  I’m looking at you, kid.

Will have some tomatoes ready sometime soon.  And some volunteer melons!  Stay cool, y’all.

Some old favorites and some new things that appeared this year

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

After a couple weeks of high temps reaching into mid 80s and dry conditions, we’re back to normal.  Low 40’s at night, up to 60 during the day with some rain here and there.  All this has freaked the garden out a little, stunting growth and keeping me on my toes.   But there is a bit of growth nevertheless.  Hope to have some peas show up in a week or so and we can definitely start trimming some spinach and lettuce for a salad or two.

Bought some celery seedlings and put those in the ground April 21.  No luck in trying to grow that from seed.  This will be my first time with celery.  I never touched the stuff until my wife and son started eating it this year.  Now it must be grown!

We did a family bike ride on the Jersey side of the Delaware River a few weeks ago (the D&R Canal Towpath, a must-do if you have kids, you like to bike and you’re within driving distance).  The initial part of the trail we rode in Frenchtown allowed us to peek into the backyards of a few homes that backed up to the trail.  I was a little taken aback to see gardens with spinach, lettuce, kale and cabbage already up and about.  The early spring combined with the use of row cover overnight was giving these folks an early start and I resolved to do the same.  My seedlings, along with a few nursery-bought items went in the ground a couple of days ago.  April 1: a record start for me.  Shelling and snap peas in two beds, four types of lettuce, two types of kale, two types of spinach and 3 broccoli seedlings.  I’ll direct seed carrots and beets soon as well.

Seeds started today: lettuce, kale (lacinato and traditional curly), peas (shelling and sugar snap), and spinach.

Welcome spring.  Thanks for getting here early.

Though I’ve still got lettuce, kale and broccoli out there, it’s time for me to assess the end of the season, more or less.

What Went Right:

• Peppers.  Thrived like no other veg I’ve grown.  With a longer, warmer growing season than Maine and no discernible pests bothering them, those plants produced pounds of bell, shanti and jalapenos month after month.  I gave away around half of each harvest.  If anything, I need to reduce the number of plants (though I do want to introduce more varieties next year).
• Lettuce, Spinach, Kale and Swiss Chard.  I finally planted spinach at the right time, e.g., in a cool spring, and it did really well.  Felt good after prior years of utter failure.  Lettuce (I’m including arugula and other varieties in that term) and kale did great, though midway through the season a lot of small white flies set up housekeeping in the kale.  Didn’t adversely affect the plant itself, but cleaning cut leaves was time consuming.  Got some seeds for lacinato kale for next year.  I think we’ll eat that more often by itself as well as mixing it in with my traditional variety.  And swiss chard made its first appearance in my garden, doing well despite being dug up a few times by critters.
• Cucumbers.  Another victory after years of failure.  A combination of consistent heat, no pests to hinder growth and a new trellace to climb on, these guys did well.
• Broccoli.  I didn’t quite achieve any grocery store-looking bunches this season, but I consistently got stalks from my plants, which was a vast improvement.  My broccoli was also infested with white flies for a time, and either they or some other pest did some minor damage to its leaves.  Something to watch next year.
• Potatoes.  The bags worked their magic and we had us some great yukon golds and fingerlings.  After a 3rd year of success with this growing method, I can’t recommend it enough.  Pretty much foolproof and suited to gardening just about anywhere you have a little bit of space.
• Yellow Gourd Squash.  A surprise bonus of around 10-15 of these at the end of the season from a volunteer vine at the side of the house.  Made me notice that area receives a good amount of sunlight throughout the day, so I’ll carve out some space next year and put in a 4th bed.

What Went Mostly Right, But Had Issues:

• Tomatoes.  As mentioned in a prior post, I didn’t harvest hardly any until late September, due mainly to overcrowding.  Way too many varieties were crammed in that bed.  I had some blossom end rot on my Japanese Black Trifeles, which I don’t much care for anyway, so they’ll be out of the rotation.  And I’ve got to look for tomato hornworms now and then.  But all in all, we ended up with a bumper crop of maters.  Next year, more spacing, culling the herd and planting fewer varieties (kind of like deciding which children to keep and which to leave at the orphanage if you ask me) and application of soil amendments (calcium, etc.).
• Corn.  I grew an heirloom variety, Dorinny, again this year since the seeds were free from Wood Prairie Farm.  It grew fine and it has a good flavor, but we just weren’t happy with only one ear per stalk and a short ear at that.  I bought a different variety for planting next year for comparison.
• Beans.  Pole beans did great.  Something better to climb on would have given me a better yield – I didn’t harvest as many as in years past, but still ate a respectable amount.  Bush beans did poorly.  I placed them in a bed between corn and tomatoes and they were completely overshadowed by the time they should have been producing like crazy.  Lesson learned.

What Didn’t So Well:

• Squash / Zucchini.  My summer squash hybrid had a complete infestation by the dreaded vine borer as recounted in an earlier post.  It eventually got to the zucchini as well, though I had a reasonable output for most of the season.  Hard to be vigilant and get the eggs off the plants before they get inside, so I’ll have to be ready for some combat next season.
• Peas.  No idea what the heck happened here.  I tried to grow them in spring and in fall in different areas and they just didn’t grow well at all.  Hard to take after great success in Maine with these.  I have a new support system and will try direct sowing some next season to see if they do better that way.
• Beets.  Still not able to get these to grow.  I had plenty of seedlings, but all died or were taken/eaten by critters. Other than placing part of a bed on lockdown somehow, I may have to give these up.
• Melons.  I was able to get one charentais out of a vine before the SVB got to that too.  Canteloupe seeds didn’t germinate.

Overall, I think I did pretty good with the space I had to work in.  I’m getting enough sun in the front lawn in pretty much the proper time of day.  The hindrance of having to clear land and build 3 beds from scratch will be gone next season, which means more time to concentrate on growing things, amending the soil and actually using the compost that’s been breaking down in our bin the past year.  Can’t wait.