Posted on by Grubbycup

Garden update for March

The radishes planted February 15th are starting to become ready for harvest. They took a couple weeks longer than the estimate on the packages, but the weather has been cool and rainy.

French Breakfast and Purple Plum radishes

It has been a joy to harvest a few each day, although so far none have made it to the refrigerator. I’ve just been pulling them out as they are ready, washing and cleaning them, and then eating them right away. I am planning on planting more of the Purple Plum radishes again. They are crisp and pretty with just a little bite. The French Breakfast radishes are nice too, and I may grow them again, but they would be my second choice to the Purple Plums if I had to pick one or the other.

So far I’ve been enjoying the root pouches that I’ve been using as raised beds. I don’t bend over as well as I used to, so they really save my back. In the above I have radishes, a couple tomato plants, a pepper, and some carrots in the middle. The plan is to put in a luffa at the top once it warms up a little.

Radishes, tomatoes, and carrots.
Squash Seedlings and Pepper in center

Having fresh summer squash was so nice last year I decided to grow more for this year. In this root pouch there are yellow, zucchini, and zephyr summer squashes, a butternut winter squash, and a lone pepper in the center.

Dixondale onions in a 65 gal. root pouch

The onions seem to be doing well. These I bought from Dixondale farms are bigger now than they were when I received them. They may be a little too close together, but I anticipate picking some of them early for immediate eating. These are Super Star, Red Candy Apple, and Candy onions.

Stockton Red Onion

This Stockton Red Onion is the largest in the garden. It will be interesting to see how it does over the next month or two.

Sunflower

These Mammoth Sunflowers are along my North side fence-line. I haven’t grown them in years and they are a little closer together than they should be, but hoping they give me a little more privacy on that side once they get taller.

Posted on by Grubbycup

State of the garden – January

Daffodil

The mini daffodils are blooming, with the full sized not long behind. In my area they really do well, and require little maintenance except for digging up to divide every few years. Mine need it again, but I’ll wait until after the tops have withered.

My brassicas have not done well this year at all. The bok choy & most of the broccoli bolted, and the poor cabbage has had a time of it. First by caterpillars, then aphids, and now some sort of leaf miner is cutting into them. This may be a “pick your battles” thing, and pretty sure instead of spraying and such I’m just going to skip them next year.

The onions are garlic planted last fall seem to be doing fine. Last October I ordered some starts from Dixondale farms which should be arriving soon. I was looking for Stockton Reds, but they didn’t have any so I got an assortment of three varieties suitable (intermediate day) for my latitude . Of course right after I put in the order, I found some Stockton Red starts at Green Acres Nursery so I bought and put them in. It will be interesting to see which does better come harvest time. I have some in Root Pouch fabric pots, and some in the ground, so will see which does better that way as well. I’m hoping the containers do well since swapping out potting mix would be easier to do proper crop rotation given my limited ground space.

Inside, I have started some pepper plants, and will start some tomatoes in the next couple of months. Pepper plants take a couple weeks to sprout, so I wanted to give them a head start.