My late April garden is growing pretty good so far. All of my garden has been planted with the exception of the warm season plants, which include corn, celery, peppers, tomatoes, green beans, lima beans, and cucumbers. Those won’t be planted out into the garden until at least around May 7th. Harvest starts today on the fall planted topsetting onions (for green onions). The March planted lettuce seedlings are starting to get to harvesting size. Harvest will start on them within the next 4 or 5 days. The potatoes have started to push up green shoots through the soil and the peas have germinated. Earlier this year I retired my old Juwel cold frame and purchased a new one, the Juwel Biostar 1500. It is larger than my old one and so far it seems to work just as well.
March Planted Lettuce Almost Ready for First Harvest, Picture Taken 4-29-22Topsetting Onions (Top of Pic) Ready for Green Onion Harvesting, Picture Taken 4-29-22
Sorry for the delay in writing another garden update. The mid summer garden continues to grow and produce fairly well. The onions were harvested about 2 weeks ago and the harvest was decent. Two rows of the yellow Candy onion developed a leaf disease and most of those plants did not grow very big or rotted in the ground. The tight spacing and the very wet May probably was the cause. The other rows did not seem to be affected by this. The harvest on spring planted broccoli is just about finished. I have been harvesting many side shoots from these plants over the last month. Harvest started on the celery.
The Silver Queen white corn is growing really well and harvest should start within the week, YUM!! Harvest continues to ramp up on the hot banana peppers and the first harvest of cucumbers will be starting within the week. Harvested the 4 large fabric bags of Red Norland potatoes. Harvest was fair with about 8 to 10 pounds of potatoes harvested out of these 4 bags. Will be harvesting the potatoes out of the two 4ftx4ft raised beds in about another week.
I have planted 2 empty garden areas with green beans over the last 3 weeks. The roma tomato plants continue to have issues with a leaf disease, but will continue to water and fertilize them in hope on getting a decent harvest. Seeds of broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, cauliflower, and lettuce were started in cell packs on July 4th, for transplanting out into the garden in the first and second week of August (for a fall crop).
The weather has been pretty hot and dry, but received some much needed rain over the last 2 weeks, but more rain is needed. Will have to start watering the garden again if the dry conditions persist.
Sorry for the delay in posting a garden update. Wow, has time really flown by. The weather has been like a roller coaster ride. May was too cold and wet followed by a hot and dessert dry June. My garden did received some much needed rain over the last week. Despite the crazy weather, the garden continues to grow and produce.
The early summer garden is growing really well. I started harvesting broccoli on June 14th and now all of the main heads have been harvested. I just started harvesting broccoli side shoots within the last few days. The broccoli harvest has been decent, but not great this year. I have also started harvesting kohlrabi within the last week or so. Some of the kohlrabi have been really big. I have been harvesting peas over the last 2 weeks. The pea harvest has been really good this year (not sure why, I have not done anything different than in past years?). I will finish up my lettuce harvest really soon as it is getting pretty hot now. The onions tops have started to fall over, so I will be pulling those up soon and letting them dry out in the garden for a few days.
My pepper plants have really started to take off. I have even harvested a few hot banana peppers yesterday. The tomato plants have also started to look better after the wet and cold May. The cucumbers have just started to flower, so it won’t be long before cucumbers start forming. The potato vines are growing like crazy and have just started to yellow a little. Harvest should begin on these (Red Norland) in about 2 more weeks. The corn (Silver Queen) is growing really well and has just started to tassel.
I will be starting my fall seeds within the next few days. I will be starting broccoli, kohlrabi, cabbage, and lettuce in little cell six packs. I will have them growing outside on the covered back porch. The seedlings should be ready to transplant out into the garden by the first week of August.
Broccoli, Picture Taken 6-19-20Harvested Kohlrabi, Picture Taken 6-26-20Corn Getting Tall, Picture Taken 6-29-20
My spring garden is finally fully planted. Due to the rain and the cold, the planting of the warm season plants like tomatoes and peppers were delayed. I was able to finally get the tomato and pepper seedlings into the ground on May 23rd. That is about 10 days later than usual. About that same time I directly seeded cucumbers, bush lima beans, and bush green beans and transplanted my celery seedlings into the garden. The month of May is typically the wettest month of the year in Indianapolis. This May I have recorded 6.5 inches of rain in my garden rain gauge. That is about 2 inches above normal. The weather looks sunny and dry for at least the next 4 days, YES!!
Harvest continues on lettuce (which is growing like crazy right now), radish, and green onions. Started noticing a few cabbage worms on the broccoli, kohlrabi, and brussels sprouts and I have been hand picking them off. If the populations increase, I might have to spray them with Bt or Spinosaid. The March planted onions are finally starting to push on lush top growth and the peas are finally starting to grow up the pea fence. Because of the cold and rain, the potatoes are a little behind, but they have really started to grow over the past week.
Lettuce and Onions Growing Well, 5/26/20Kohlrabi and Broccoli, 5/26/20English Peas Starting to Vine, 5/26/20Hot Banana (Hungarian Wax) Peppers, 5/26/20
It has been very cold in the garden the last week or so. Indianapolis broke an all time low temperature record for the month of May of 27 degrees. My garden thermometer recorded a low of 23 degrees. Luckily I covered all of my kohlrabi, broccoli, and brussels sprout seedlings with plastic coffee cans and all of the seedlings survived the cold. I also covered my lettuce with the plastic covered hoop. The potatoes had just started to break through the soil and the vines were killed back a bit, but they should hopefully recover. The onions, peas, and radish were left uncovered and appear to have been undamaged by the cold.
Harvest started on the April planted lettuce seedlings yesterday! I have also been harvesting green onions like crazy. It does look like the weather will be warming up this coming week and I will be dismantling the cold frame and planting the warm season seedlings of peppers and tomatoes. I actually planted a few Ancho and Super Chili pepper plants over the last 2 days. I also planted out my celery seedlings 2 days ago. Within the upcoming week I will also start to directly seed bush lima beans, bush green beans, and cucumbers. The corn was directly seeded in the raised bed on May 1st, and it has just started to germinate, fortunately just after that one cold morning.
Green Onions Harvested, 5/4/20Spring Planted Lettuce Growing Well, 5/13/20
