Growing Snap Peas

The snap peas are really hitting their stride. They've grown nearly 12" in the last 8 days. While the ones that I started inside 2 weeks earlier are not bigger than the peas that were seeded directly in the garden, they are starting to flower already.

Here they are - 7 weeks after direct sowing.

Carrots at 7 weeks

At 7 weeks after sowing, the nantes carrots are a dense forest. I thinned them this weekend. The carrots themselves are about the size of a toothpick. It will still be several more weeks before they're ready for eating!

How much does a vegetable garden cost?

Costs to date are $208 which includes all the soil amendments, seeds, fertilizer and the seedlings (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and a few perennial herbs). I won't need to spend as much next year on soil amendments.

• Costs for seeds, seedlings and fertilizer: $107 (recurring annually)
• Costs for soil amendments (compost and spaghum moss) and tools: $101

I hope to have more homemade compost for next year's garden, but will probably still spend about $50 on soil amendments.

Will we get $208 worth of produce out of our little patch (about 150SF)? Stay tuned...

Check it out, we got mentioned over at Public Radio Kitchen.

How much water do vegetables need?

Vegetables need a lot of water. I know this should go without saying, but I always think it just rained yesterday. You definitely need to water your Boston-area vegetable garden.

Vegetables need about 1-2" of water per week - more when it's hot and dry! Average monthly rainfall in Boston in the growing season is only about 3". You can provide the additional water in 2-3 watering per week, preferrably in the early morning and directly to the roots.

When the temps top 90, it's time for daily watering.

What's happening in the vegetable garden

After nearly 2 weeks, I resowed the corn last Thursday (May 21), and covered the whole section with clear plastic. I've been taking up the plastic every other day to water. If I leave the plastic up for 5 minutes, the birds get right into the bed.

The peas are doing well. The carrots are doing well. The second seeding is starting to emerge.

A little bit from the second sowing of mache, but not much.

The lettuces are coming in well now. Looking forward to a garden salad one night soon.

The cucumbers are suddenly ailing. The seed leaves have mostly fallen off, and the second leaves are emerging, but the stalks are weak. Several of the plants have fallen over. I think we may have lost about half, and those remaining do not look strong.

The beans are doing a little bit better, but they don't seem to really be thriving. The seedlings haven't grown much since being planted out. Some of the leaves are getting brown and papery. No sign yet of the beans directed sown.

I fed everything this weekend. Did I mention the $40 spent on fish gut fertilizer? It stinks, but I've had success with it in the past. Vegetables need a lot of nutrients, especially in a densly planted urban garden. The leeks, especially, should benefit from some additional nutrients.

Sunlight is looking good this time of year. The tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and basil get 10 hours of sunlight. The lettuces, leeks, carrots and peas get 8 hours. The strawberries and herbs get 8. The cucumbers get 6.

Grubs in the Chard part 2

Many grubs have died under the blade of my trowel. I've dug up the wilting chard and picked them off. Dug them out of the soil around the chard too. The chard seems to be recovering!

The outer leaves are wilted and dead, but there is new growth!

What's eating the mustard?

After further investigation and consultation, it seems very unlikely that ants would be devouring the roots of my mustard green. (Not sure what the ants would be doing swarming in and out of the roots.) But the root damage combined with the little holes in the leaves of the mustard point to flea beetles as the culprit.
These can be a big problem and may get into other plants (like the eggplant) once they're done with the mustard.
There are options for controlling them, including diatomaceous earth, which absorbs lipids from the exoskeleton causing the critters to dehydrate. (It's also useful for removing DNA). That link there is about all I know about diatomaceous earth.
Will see how this infestation progresses before taking chemical intervention.

Frost damage

So we had a minor frost here two nights ago. I thought I was OK as long as temperatures stayed above 32, but apparently anything in the 30s is too much for the heating-loving plants. The eggplants looked wilted, the basil was burned black. The good news is that both seem to be doing fine after temperatures rebounded.

Pictured: Frost damaged on basil

C brought home some beans from school, so I planted those into the mix on the bean teepee.

The peas that I started inside are no bigger than the peas I planted directly in the garden. It seems there is no advantage to starting peas indoors.

Still no sign of corn. (Damn turkeys!)

When I plant the lettuce again in the fall, I will plant much more thickly so I get a blanket of lettuce coming up. When it comes time to thin, I can just eat what I thin. It should give me a few nights of salads of baby greens and allow a few heads to develop to full size.

Growing leeks from seed

These leeks were started indoors in early March. Here they are about 10 weeks old in the garden. Not as fat as chives yet. These may need to spend the winter in the garden before they're ready to eat.

See how the leeks are growing.

Growing Persian Cucumbers

The packet of Persian Baby Cucumber seeds from Renee's Garden contained 12 seeds. I started these inside in newspaper pots. 12 sprouted, and they all seem vigorous. Here they are planted out.

Cilantro at 4 weeks

Cilantro started from seed in the garden April 15th in Boston at 4 weeks old. It took a full two weeks before I saw any sign of life from the seeds.

Strawberries

The strawberries are coming along nicely. There are 5-8 berries on each plant and flowers still forming. Greg put up the bird nettings today.

Ants in the Mesclun

After finding the grubs all over the chard, I assumed I would find them on the big mustard greens that were already dwarfing the rest of the mesclun greens. Instead on the mustard greens, I found ants. The dirt around them was teeming with little brown ants. They were boring in and out of the root. Not sure if I can do anything about them. In any case, the nearby lettuces do not seem to be affected.

Grubs in the Chard

With things finally growing comes the horrible pests that strike them down. After noticing many of the young swiss chard had suddenly gone limp and keeled over, I dug one up and discovered several fat grubs on the roots.

Beneficial nematodes, neem oil, and milky spores can be used to combat grubs in the soil. I dug out tons of them and smashed them, but I'm afraid of the ones I didn't find...

Bibb lettuce at 5 weeks

Bibb lettuce started from seed in garden April 5th are still wee at 5 weeks.

Strawberries in Bloom

Strawberries in bloom May 12th in Boston.

Vegetable garden in May

The garden at 9am in early May.

What is double digging a garden?

Double digging involves breaking your arms, wrists and back (at least in New England where the soil is at least 50% rocks) by digging your garden bed down 12 or more inches to loosen and improve the soil.
In our beds - which have been under lawn and hedges for the last hundred or so years - I dug through about 4-6 inches of very dusty and depleted top soil before hitting 6-10 inches of sand, clay and rock - mostly golf-ball-size gravel with 3-4 cantalope-sized rocks per 3 square feet.
I dug down about 18 inches, working in 3-4 foot sections and moving the soil I was digging out on top of the section I had just dug out and refilled. I then added back the soil I had dug out (after removing the bigger rocks) 2-3 inches at a time mixed in with 2-3 inches of soil amendments (spaghum, manure/humus and our compost), then tossed that together with a pitch fork before repeating the process of adding existing soil and soil amendments and tossing.
It takes years to build up good quality garden soil, and this is year 1. I plan to add compost and leaf mulch again in the fall and possibly even plant a cover crop for the winter.

Spring planting

Seedlings from Russells in 4 inch pots: $3.99
Planted 6 tomato seedlings. From east to west: Yellow Pear, Better Boy, Purple Krim, Celebrity, Golden Girl, Smarty (grape).
Planted 3 egglants: 2 Black Beauties and an Ichiban
Planted 3 peppers: jalapeno, cubanelle, red bell
Planted 3 basil from home depot.
Planted red onions from Gus.
Also added Tarragon, Thyme, Parsley and Rosemary to the herb bed. I'll see if I can cage or bottle the rosemary to keep it alive through the winter...
Altogether spent another $57 on seedlings.
I also planted sweet corn in the southeast corner and started kentucky blue beans and french beans on a bean teepee. I've planted them in mounds and covered each mound with a milk jug. We'll see if that keeps the critters out. It was a little too windy today to transplant the bean seedlings from the sun porch, but they are 6 or 8 inches tall and ready to in the garden.

Finishing the beds

Double dug and amended the outer beds with a mixture of manure/hummus our compost and spaghum. It still looks pretty rocky and sandy. I pulled dozens of enormous rocks out which we used to trim the beds. Then we added some more topsoil.
Spent another $22 on manure/hummus for 6 bags of manure/hummus and 1 bag spaghum for amending the beds when I dug them, plus another $14 on the 6 bags of topsoil and $5 on bone meal to add phosphorous.

Carrots at 5 weeks

The carrots are coming up nicely at 5 weeks. I thinned the seedlings and weeded yesterday, then sowed the eastern part of the carrot section.

Mache at 8 weeks

The mache started inside March 15th are still several weeks from being big enough to eat. The mache direct sowed 5 weeks ago are still tiny, and they came up very unevenly. I resowed the bare patches yesterday.

Snap peas at 5 weeks in Massachusetts

Spinach at 5 weeks