While there were plans on paper, it sometimes turns out that the real situation does not work out as well as paper. So here stakes and flags are being used to test out the plan. The stakes at the bottom of the hill are the proposed fence line, small wood stakes at the top are additional raised bed locations and the flags represent trees or groups of trees.
For dinner tonight we had our first green beans from the garden. Instead of the classic Kentucky Wonder or Blue Lake snap beans, I planted a filet variety, Maxibel. I am not sure if the taste was as great as they said. However, since these beans are a lot thinner than the other kinds, I suspect that the timing given for steaming them was too much and they were overcooked as a result. If I had paid attention to all the details in the seed catalog description I should not have been surprised at how big the bean plants got — the description does say the plants are tall.
Maybe in just a few more days the corn will be ready to eat. The seed catalogs said these varieties should be ready to harvest in about seven weeks. However, perhaps because it has been pretty cool here this summer, it has taken several weeks longer than that. Also, the catalog entry for one of the varieties indicated that it would be about six feet tall and that the other six and a half feet. They got the first one correct, but half the other patch is more like eight feet tall. Not that I care as long as they fill out lots of sweet delicious ears.
Meanwhile we got several pounds of green beans from the initial two square feet planted and have much of it in the freezer for later. The bean plants are pretty much past their prime and I should probably pull them out next week. A later second planting did not do so well because the growth from the first batch and other veggies in neighboring squares encroached on their space. That is fine – we will still get enough from the second batch to have fresh picked green beans for a few meals.
The shelling peas got a bad case of powdery mildew on the lower parts because the vegetation was too thick and close together on the shadier side of the beds. It looks like they are a lot taller than expected and would have been better on a trellis or other support. While the top half now seems like it will be producing nicely, the powdery mildew has spread through the squash and pumpkin leaves and makes for a not so pretty garden. Hopefully, we will do better with how things are planted next year.
Van Gogh’s sunflower painting has always been a favorite of mine. My parents had a framed print of it. So of course, I had to try a few in the first garden I have had in a long time.
The sunflowers are starting to bloom. The plants are under 3 feet tall but flowers are large.
Another sunflower, only this one is different from the others. The flower looks as if some seeds of another variety slipped in with the others. Which is just fine.
There had been a two foot wide path between the raised beds. And four feet between the beds and the fence. However in the last week the paths have begun to disappear under the vegetation. Everything seems to be a lot taller than I was expecting it to grow — and I don’t mean the extra almost a foot that the raised beds provides. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t very optimistic about how well the garden would grow.
For a while, that seemed like the correct view. However, in the last couple weeks a critical mass situation must have arisen with the vegetation being sufficient so that the plants started blooming and putting out a lot more growth as well. The pumpkins are taking over one corner of the garden area. And the tomatoes have claimed the opposite corner. The stakes I used for the tomatoes were overwhelmed by the plants and disappeared in the foliage. A few days ago I noticed that the tomatoes were starting to lean over to one side — they were bending the stakes or pulling them out of the ground. I added more stakes by one set of problem plants and ran string around the whole thing to hold it in place. No sooner than that was done then I realized another group was tilting. By time I went out the next morning, two tomato plants were laying on the savory and basil while a third when across the path to rest on the cornstalks.
The seed catalogs list these varieties as “indeterminate” — thus no maximum height given. The slightly less than a foot depth of the raised beds was not enough to anchor the stakes for the now heavy plants. Even if there wasn’t the hardware cloth gopher barrier below, I suspect I still would have had problems with the staking. Now that I saw what happened, I have a sense of deja-vu. My first garden in Saratoga used stakes instead of cages for the tomatoes. I switched to wire cages and things were so much better in later years.
It is too late for wire cages this year. For now, 6 foot T-posts just outside the beds next to the groups of tomatoes will have to do. Between them there are four or five rows of jute string with the tomatoes captured in the middle. There were some crunching noises coming from the plants as I tried to get them upright. Time will tell if it the plants are completely broken or just badly battered. Next year I will have wire cages for the tomatoes and also as a trellis for the peas.