W hat a weird and wild summer; and here it is, fall, with some fall like weather to-boot. (Well, almost fall like. Overcast, in any case. A little warmer than fall.) My last substantive post here was back in May, so we've a bit of catching up to do.
I am disappointed that I did not have the time to note the weather and the garden all summer. I have enjoyed looking back on the fall and spring entries, and this project did provide an interesting way to record those observations and doings.
In general, then, June came on cool and dry -- it was almost surreal, felt like fall back east almost. Then July hit the hot button, and hit it for a month with a vengeance. At one point in July we hit an all time record high temperature for Pasadena of 109 F. Most of the plants did not like the heat, and as I was teaching summer school, they did not get enough attention or water through the worst of it.
The lettuce was gone by June, and in July we replanted the horse trough with bell peppers. The heat demolished them, though, and the stunted, sunburned little peppers we got on the first round were bitter and inedible. (We did shade the plants at first with an 80% orchard cloth screen, but it just didn't save the crop.)
The pumpkins went completely nuts, and covered the back fence, and smothered the zucchini and yellow squash. We got a dozen mid-sized and small decorative pumpkins out of the patch, and will be carving home grown this year.
Interesting thing about pumpkins: They get left in the field to "harden" after they are fully ripe and cut off the vine. Some of ours were harvested too early and rather than "cure" they went mushy. The rest are just fine, and homegrown Jack-O-Lantern is on the menu.
The zucchini was a great surprise -- only three or four fruits from two or three plants all summer . . . but they are coming back now that the pumpkin vines have died off.
Same with the yellow squash. Almost now production, but not the plants are doing fine.
Unfortunately, all three crops had mildew problems. The organic treatment turns out to be the only treatment that is effective -- a spray of 50% cow's milk and 50% water. But I never mixed it up in a big enough batch to do the patch, so the mildew won out, I think. The few plants I sprayed with a hand spray bottle did better for awhile, but it was too much work for the entire patch, and I did not keep it up.
Had several volunteer sunflowers from a prior year's planting. Huge things, easily 7-8 feet tall before the weight of the flower head bowed it down. Harvested the best seeds for a deliberate crop next year. Tried to plant mixed miniature sunflowers and giants along a south wall out front, but first the snails et al. snacked on the sprouts, and when I got some to grow into maturity, watering was a problem. (Hard to get to, infrequently done.)
Planted green, yellow and purple beans at that end of the world. They did pretty well but, like last year's peas, should have been planted in larger numbers, to provide a bigger pot-full when beans were harvested.
I learned the lesson about peas last year, and so planted a pretty big patch in a large clay pot, intending to do its twin a few weeks later. Lost the seed-peas, so never did the second pot, and again only a couple of scraggly plants sprouted and braved the heat. Five or six pea pods and a dozen beans made for several yummy one-person lunch side dishes. But again never more than that.
The spring broccoli lasted well into June, but soon gave out. I pulled the plants and composted 'em, planted the area in a good nitrogen fixing manure crop (sweet peas and bush beans) There had been garlic for two seasons in one part, and then the broccoli next door, so I thought a little fix up would be good, and we would get peas and beans out of it. Must have been the heat -- but one measly been plant sprouted, and never did produce anything.
The apple crop was dismal too -- less than 1/3 of the crop we had last year. My biggest disappointment was watching particularly delicious looking fruit on on of the columnar trees, which always ripen late, and then having it vanish over night. I suspect a sidewalk passer-by; now I know why all those cartoons had grumpy old men shootin' rock salt at kids thieving apples (grin).
The figs, however, loved the heat, and produced a bumper crop. We gave some away, and tried to make fig wine. Unfortunately we got fig-wine vinegar right away. Was rather tasty too, but I didn't feel like trying to perfect it, so we wantonly dumped it for now.
Unfortunately, just about the time of the worst heat the mandarin orange was in bloom -- and the current crop, due to be ripe in December - February, is going to be smallish.
Potatoes are in the ground in a 4 x 8 foot patch of the front lawn. I had hoped to clean up twice that space, but did not, and with fall in full spring, planted white, yellow and purple small potatoes there.
Coming soon:
Need to check on companion crops for potatoes; plant a BIG broccoli patch; look for other winter/early spring crops to sow, and figure out where to put a new garlic patch. (Maybe another section of front lawn.)
