The Dawg Patch

[GoDawgs]

There are a couple of the micro tomatoes that have gotten out of hand. By the description I knew the Chibikko was supposed to get taller so that's my bad for not waiting until spring and front porch availability before growing that one. But I wasn't aware the chartreuse foliage Groovey Tunes would grow larger than I was ready for. Time for some haircuts.

In this pic, the GT is potted in the one gallon pot in the middle. It has flopped completely over to the right and then bent itself back towards the lights!

=

Because it was so bent I had to do some major surgery and now it looks like this:



The Chibikko, on the right, was all up in the lights and window blinds.



Now it looks like this; shorter but with a long hanging branch that is loaded with greenies.



Meanwhile, the sweet potato slips are coming up in a windowbox. They took a lot of time to come up last year so I started them earlier this year. Hmmm... maybe too early as they won't get planted until the first week of May! By then I should have plenty of slips. Variety is 'Jewel'.

[Amateurinawe]

You are definitely NOT cutting my hair

[GoDawgs]

The first of the Chinese broccoli was ready to cut today. This is my first time growing it so I had to rely on internet sites for the particulars of doing that and when to harvest. The variety is 'Yod Fah', a toy I got from Baker Creek. I started three sets of six and planted them several weeks apart just to see how it went. Just a test drive for the first time out. This is a shot of the first two groups (nearest the camera).



The group on the right was the first group planted and suffered frost damage that it never fully recovered from. Kind of puny plants!



The second group is much more robust:



Apparently you let the stalk produce flower buds but you cut the spear before the buds open. Once cut, the stalk is supposed to produce another, kind of like broccoli plants keep making side shoots. We'll see. I cut what was ready and we'll chop them up for a stir fry. Leaves, stalks and buds are all edible.



Things I learned:

- It's easy to grow and maybe because it was a very early planting, no bugs bothered it at all.
- I'll have to plant a lot more next time so enough can be cut at one time for two nice servings.
- Maybe just two staggered plantings so one set can be growing back after cutting while the other's almost ready.
- Better frost protection will be needed if there's to be another Feb 12th planting. Or wait until later to plant.

Yet to learn: how heat tolerant it is and what insects will mess with it later in spring. Also wondering about fall planting.

[GoDawgs]

Well, there has been cold damage done in the garden. I'll take the blame for not covering everything. I didn't do it because the spring stuff out there has always done ok in 30-33 without covering. Pickles said the burning might have been due to the warm temps (10 days of 70's-80's) that juiced the plants up just before the three days of cold, making them more vulnerable than usual. That very well could be. Last frost usually happens no later than 23-27 March. So let's take a stroll through toasty plants, shall we?

The two Golden Acre cabbage got burned as did three of the Stonehead cabbages. The Stonehead have never had a problem before. A close look shows that the centers are ok so I'm hopeful they'll pull out of it and all I'll have to do is cut off some dying oldest outer leaves. Jersey Wakefield was pretty OK.




I don't know if the cauliflower will make it. It's 'Rober', a new variety for me and one that supposedly makes regardless of spring temperature swings. In the foreground are four of them and they got hit pretty good. That's broccoli on the other side of the bed and it didn't get hit much at all. Their problem is that with those higher temps earlier, they're starting to produce 2" heads that are loosening up to bloom. If it's not one thing, it's another. Off with their heads! Now they can get busy making side shoots.



The peas got hit but I think they'll grow out of it.



And an update on the cabbage flower. It's so strange looking anyway I can't tell how badly it got burned and if it will continue to grow or not. We'll see.



The good news is that the collards, kale, kohlrabi, the few carrots that are left, onions and the garlic are all just fine.

Speaking of carrots, I had to push back carrot sowing because of that cold spell that dropped soil temps too low. With this coming week being mostly in the 80's I'll shoot for the 8th. By then soil temps will be nice again and the moon will be right.

Things burned, lesson learned. You'd think after 25-30 years of gardening I'd get it right. And most times I do but it just goes to show that you can't let your guard down for even one one minute because Mother Nature's just waiting to smack ya!

[GoDawgs]

Well, there has been cold damage done in the garden. I'll take the blame for not covering everything. I didn't do it because the spring stuff out there has always done ok in 30-33 without covering. Pickles said the burning might have been due to the warm temps (10 days of 70's-80's) that juiced the plants up just before the three days of cold, making them more vulnerable than usual. That very well could be. Last frost usually happens no later than 23-27 March. So let's take a stroll through toasty plants, shall we?

The two Golden Acre cabbage got burned as did three of the Stonehead cabbages. The Stonehead have never had a problem before. A close look shows that the centers are ok so I'm hopeful they'll pull out of it and all I'll have to do is cut off some dying oldest outer leaves. Jersey Wakefield was pretty OK.





I don't know if the cauliflower will make it. It's 'Rober', a new variety for me and one that supposedly makes regardless of spring temperature swings. In the foreground are four of them and they got hit pretty good. That's broccoli on the other side of the bed and it didn't get hit much at all. Their problem is that with those higher temps earlier, they're starting to produce 2" heads that are loosening up to bloom. If it's not one thing, it's another. Off with their heads! Now they can get busy making side shoots.



The peas got hit but I think they'll grow out of it.



And an update on the cabbage flower. It's so strange looking anyway I can't tell how badly it got burned and if it will continue to grow or not. We'll see.



The good news is that the collards, kale, kohlrabi, the few carrots that are left, onions and the garlic are all just fine.

Speaking of carrots, I had to push back carrot sowing because of that cold spell that dropped soil temps too low. With this coming week being mostly in the 80's I'll shoot for the 8th. By then soil temps will be nice again and the moon will be right.

Things burned, lesson learned. You'd think after 25-30 years of gardening I'd get it right. And most times I do but it just goes to show that you can't let your guard down for even one one minute because Mother Nature's just waiting to smack ya!

[karstopography]

That’s too bad. The weather doesn’t seem to give a flip or follow any rules about our beautiful planting calendars and expert derived expected last/first frosts. You can and maybe should follow the gardening rules, but the weather isn’t bound to anything like a written rule and can and will break them as it pleases. Weather tends to show how puny and pitiful we all really are. But, we pick up the pieces and carry on.

I’m now a month and a half removed from our big never-supposed-to-get-so-cold-here February freeze and you couldn’t tell there ever was a days long freeze, at least in the garden. Some of my Tomato plants now are 3’ high and growing, with little tomatoes on them. My pole beans are over my head. The Potatoes are flowering. The corn is up. Gardens can heal quickly.

[GoDawgs]

The good news is that the peas are quickly growing out of the burn as are the older cabbages and broccoli that were set out in the succession planting. The most recent transplants are struggling. Still no clue how the cauliflower will do.

Meanwhile, the potatoes are coming along. They were planted March 11 in 12' rows and have been hilled once. Then they got covered with a lot of leaves to prevent the cold damage. There are just two rows with Yukon Gold on the left and Red Pontiac on the right.



Yesterday I forked the bed for the Jerusalem artichokes. Last year was the first time planting them. They came up, got about 2" tall and disappeared! I don't know if something ate the shoots or if they got too dry or what. Certainly if something had munched them the tubers would have put out more. After the failure, thoughts turned to the rest of the garden and I never did cover that bed with leaf mulch, so this year there was a 3" thick mat of Bermuda grass to remove. The broadfork did a good job. Soil was amended with compost and some of last year's tomato bucket soil and yesterday afternoon I planted the six tubers that made up the pound that I ordered.



And the carrots were sown ahead of the rain that's moving in this afternoon. Those are Shimonita scallions going to seed at the end of the carrot row. I'll collect that. On the right are onions, half Australian Brown and half White Creole, one that's new to me. There are just four Texas 1015Y, the only ones that came up. I never have luck with the granex types. And now all four of those have bolted due to the temp swings. I think this will be my last year for onions. They don't hold well here post harvest anyway.



In a few weeks the middle of the bed will be planted with seven circles of Seneca Sunrise corn, a sweet yellow. I've been playing with growing corn in beds for the last four years and it works pretty well. That will help this year because I don't think the Silver Queen area will be planted due to too much stress on my knee with all that prep.

[bower]

I'm looking forward to see your corn planting. I've never grown any corn, but picked up a packet of Pink Popcorn on special. I'm not sure what to do with it, although I know it'll be MUCH later. Our last frost date is in June.

[GoDawgs]

[mention]Bower[/mention] , no need to wait! Here's the story. The first time I ever planted corn in a bed was in 2017. Someone had given me a packet of Boone County White as it came in a collection they bought and they didn't want the corn. Boone was supposed to be a big white corn for use early as eating corn and later as a dried corn. But it was free so what the heck; use it for the corn bed experiment.

The bed was 4x18' and I planted seven hills of corn in it. One was in the middle of the bed and the others were each 27" apart on center. I made a scribe and marked an 18" diameter circle for each hill to mark where to sow the seeds:



Before planting the seed I used a hand tool to draw a small trench about 3" outside the planting line and 3" deep for the fertilizer, sprinkled in some 5-10-15 and a bit of ammonium sulfate, covered the fertilzer and then planted seed around the scribed planting line. Was trying to mimic the pre-plant fertilizer applied in field grown corn. The reasoning behind the various spacing measurements is to end up with all seed 8" apart around the circle perimeters and the outside of each circle is 8" apart from its neighbor.



I usually thin row-sown corn to 8" apart so I planted the seeds 8" apart around the circle. Lesson learned: That has since been changed to 4" apart with later thinning because if you end up with gaps from failed germination and try to sow more to fill the gaps, that replanted corn will never catch up with the others. Better to overplant and thin later for a uniform stand and uniform pollination.



The second fertilizing was a little ammonium sulfate scratched in around the circles at the 4-5 leaf stage, about 10-12" tall. When the tassels started showing I fertilized for the last time using some 15-0-15 with a little superphosphate.

This was the final result. That's an 8' stick in the middle of the bed. The concept worked.



I switched to fast growing sweet corn like Spring Treat (67 days). Then a year later I added a second bed for a later corn and did Japanese Hulless Popcorn (100 days) last year. The idea was to get the Spring Treat in early, plant the Silver Queen (88 days) two weeks later and plant the popcorn one week after that to avoid any cross pollination and it all worked.

This year I am planting one bed of a new one called Seneca Sunrise (67 days) and Early Pink Popcorn (90 day) and I'll probably plant both beds the same day. Corn descriptions, scroll down for pics and descriptions: https://seedtreasures.com/seed-catalog/corn/

Also, this is the original article I read that got me doing this although I have since added a few tweaks of my own:
http://ourstoneyacres.com/growing-corn- ... ill-method

Hope this helps. Give it a try! Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[Amateurinawe]

i did corn one year in my raised beds and they did well, but boy the roots are monsters and took some pulling to get out, guess they need that to be so tall and upright. The following years i did the small micro corn cobs which are super in stir fries , equally nice and so abundant. it does take some space but if you have the space well worth it.

[bower]

Wow, this is the perfect method for a small trial, many thanks [mention]GoDawgs[/mention] ! That's a great article as well which mentioned a few other things (wind!) which are good to know for my planning.

[GoDawgs]

[mention]Bower[/mention] , I forgot about the wind! You have to protect against that. Yep, when that Boone was getting up there I pounded in some tall poles around the border of the bed and got out the baling twine. I had it going around the bed and diagonally through the bed every which way. LOL! But by golly, the stuff stood up in the wind!

[GoDawgs]

i did corn one year in my raised beds and they did well, but boy the roots are monsters and took some pulling to get out, guess they need that to be so tall and upright.

Right you are about big strong roots! I usually get out the spade and lever one stalk out of the ground, bang the roots on the shovel so that the soil falls off and then toss the stalk aside. "Rinse and repeat" down the rows. Works best when the soil's a bit on the dry side so the soil bangs out easily. Actually it can be a contemplative thing. You get in a rhythm and while the hands are busy the mind can go flitting off wherever it wants.

[goodloe]

Dang, Dawg! You just wear me out with all you do in your garden, it's all I can do to keep up with just my tomato and pepper plants. (Besides old and cranky, that's all I grow...) Granted, I do grow about 40 of each every year....;/

[GoDawgs]

Dang, Dawg! You just wear me out with all you do in your garden, it's all I can do to keep up with just my tomato and pepper plants. (Besides old and cranky, that's all I grow...) Granted, I do grow about 40 of each every year....;/

Well, when you're retired there's lots of time to do stuff. However.... there's also lots to do that doesn't get done in a timely manner when garden season is in. I won't talk about the Loropetalum that is now blocking the office windows or the "dwarf" yaupons that are now giant green beach balls about 5'x5'. As soon as the garden is totally in and on autopilot, shrub butchery begins.

AND... don't forget that you can eat the whole elephant... one bite at a time.

[MrBig46]

I have such a long bed of 1.0 x 8.0 m on which I wanted to put two rows of corn. I'll try your way of planting in circles. Your ideas are inspiring to me.
Vladimír

[GoDawgs]

I have such a long bed of 1.0 x 8.0 m on which I wanted to put two rows of corn. I'll try your way of planting in circles. Your ideas are inspiring to me.
Vladimír

The theory about planting in circles or "hills" has to do with better pollination than with just two straight rows. There are more stalks near each other that share pollen.

[karstopography]

Looks good. I have my chires corn (popcorn type) in a 3x7 block, about 9”-12” away from each other in every direction. Dang cutworm got several before I found it and killed the critter. I like those corn circles you have. I grew G-90 I think it was sweet corn last year. I always want to grow more corn, but end up filling the space with other things. Thinking about plowing up a section up front on a sunny section of my lot and doing a big stand of corn, but then that requires a tractor, soil up there is rock hard gumbo.

I put some jimmy red corn seeds in the gaps left by the cutworm as a trial. Jimmy red corn is supposed to be a connoisseur’s corn of choice for making grits and moonshine. Something about an extra large germ. Some high end Charleston, SC chef revived the variety from near extinction. I bought 10 pounds of milling grade jimmy red corn from a place in Pittsboro, NC and a corn grinder is on the way. Going to do a wood ash
Nixtamalization with it like the natives Americans perfected centuries ago.

Corn just looks pretty in a garden, too. Thanks for sharing your techniques.

[GoDawgs]

I grew G-90 I think it was sweet corn last year.

[mention]karstopography[/mention], How did you like the G-90? I see it at my local feed and seed but have never tried it.

I like to share information that might come in handy for someone. There are a lot of accomplished gardeners in here but also some who might be just starting and maybe something I can share will help. And I know that regardless of having gardened for ages, I'm still learning new tricks shared in here by others. Learning is a never ending process!

[karstopography]

I liked the flavor of G-90, but that’s the first corn I ever grew so I don’t have much to compare it to. I hand pollinated it since I only had a tiny patch. I believe G-90 is an ordinary sweet type, not one of the newer super sweet ones. It was plenty sweet for my tastes.