It's A Learning Experience

I had A LOT of garden fails this year. I recently posted about how my Mortgage Lifter tomatoes never grew, my corn stalks were either yanked out by garden pests as small shoots or gnawed down when they were almost ready to harvest, and I was only able to grow one sunflower.  We had so many issues with squash too. We ha a combination of cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and squash vine borers. Gross! This is another fail--watermelon. I love watermelon and would love to grow my own. We tried a couple of years ago, but with our crappy clay soil, the watermelon didn't grow well. So this year, with the raised bed, we thought with the deeper, better quality soil, the watermelon might do better. Nope. We harvested two tiny melons, and they tasted and smelled gross. Boo.

I also tried an experiment with two different varieties of bush beans in containers, Ferry Morse Bush Contender and Burpee Bush Lake. Sadly, they didn't do well either. When I first posted this in July, the Bush Contender plant had produced some beans already; the other one had not. I liked that plant better, too, because of the pretty light purple flowers. By the end of September the Bush Contender had caught up in terms of bean production, but the beans that both plants produced were small and hard. And total bean production was so small that I don't even think I recorded it. Another fail. I'm not sure if it was the small container, the weather, or other issues, but beans just didn't grow for us. Every time something goes wrong, one of my friends says "Chalk it up to experience!" She says it in an affected voice, and it's a bit of a running joke between us (not just about the garden, but general life stuff too, because that's what your parents always tell you when something goes wrong), but it's true. Now I know--don't grow bush beans in containers.

 Here's something positive. Our pepper plants seem invincible. We weren't able to grow corn, beans, melon, certain tomatoes, or squash, but we have plenty of garden-fresh peppers! Here's the most recent harvest of some Golden Bells. They're small--all 3 can fit in one hand, but we get a nice harvest every week and can add peppers to sauces and soups. I'm not even that big of a pepper fan, but I'll take what I can get at this point. Despite the cold temperatures, the pepper plants are still producing, and we're slicing up and freezing peppers to use throughout the winter.

How's your edible garden doing? What are you harvesting?

Bush Bean Comparison

We're growing two different kinds of bush beans this year: Burpee Bush Lake and Ferry Morse Bush Contender. We've grown both varieties before but couldn't remember if one produced more than the other, so we decided to do a test this year. Which variety will produce more beans?

Both types of beans were planted on the same day in the same type/size/shape of container with the same type of soil and amendments. They are side by side on the deck and get the same amount of sun. (Ferry Morse is pictured closest to the front).

So far the plants are the same size, but Ferry Morse has these beautiful lavender flowers, while Burpee has white ones. I like the purple blossoms better.

Ferry Morse has already produced a handful of beans. A couple of weeks ago I harvested about 1/2  ounce of beans. It's not much, but Burpee doesn't have any beans yet. It's still early in the season, though. Which one will produce more? Will they be the same size? Which will taste better? I'll be keeping track to see which one finishes strong.

Do you grow beans? Which varieties do you recommend?

Best and Worst of My Garden - June 2012

dead potatoes, originally uploaded by Bumble Lush.

This month began and ended with a couple of bad events. The first "Worst" of my garden is the death of my potato patch. It pains me so much to write this. For the first few weeks the potatoes seemed to be doing well and growing strong. One afternoon, as we were tending the garden before heading off to my father-in-laws for a couple of nights, we noticed a few brown leaves on some of the plants. When we came back two days later, the entire patch was brown and dead, decimated by some beetle. I was frustrated, angry, sad, and felt bad for my husband who put so much time and effort into building me the box to grow them in. That was not a good way to start the month.


Mortgage Lifter, smacked around and almost knocked out of the pot


Carnival mix bell pepper plant, ripped in half and gone too young


Marglobe tomato stem, cut open and traumatized by the vicious storm

The next "Worst" is courtesy of the violent storm that blew through my area last night. The storm came through hard and fast with heavy rain and wind. When I woke up this morning, a few tomato and pepper plants had been knocked off a table and others were ripped in half. My Mortgage Lifter (top) was blown over, but thankfully, not broken. The pepper and Marglobe tomatoes didn't do as well. The tops were ripped off the pepper plants-- along with a lot of pepper buds!-- and the stem of my Marglobe tomatoes is cracked.

This isn't devastating though. Some people in my neighborhood lost trees, and there are others without power in our county. Thankfully nothing like that happened to us. I'll give up a few vegetable plants if it means no trees fall on us and we keep our electricity on a day that's supposed to get beyond 100 degrees.



As for the "Best" of my garden, there isn't a whole lot going on. Everything seems to be growing slowly, and the squirrels and birds are taking fruit and plant stems. We've managed to harvest some squash--about 2 1/2 pounds so far.


There's also the promise of good things to come. The vegetable plants that survived the storms are flowering, like these bean plants, and I hope July brings a good harvest.

Garden Harvest Welcome Home

The garden did well while we were on vacation. It rained a lot here, so the plants didn't get thirsty. The peppers did really, really well while we were gone, despite the cool fall temperatures that have settled around the DC area. We have more purple peppers to look forward to.

And what a wonderful homecoming gift--we harvested a couple of bell peppers, choricero peppers, a pint of cherry peppers, and a handful of cayenne, jalapeno, and green  beans when we got home last week.

I should have mentioned in my anniversary post a Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband. He's definitely the muscle in the Bumble Lush garden. He does all the heavy lifting and is always on bug patrol. I wouldn't have this garden without him. Plus, he's super cute. Love you! xoxoxoxox

Looking Forward to Beans and Loofah

Happy Labor Day! I wish every week had a 3-day weekend. I find myself more productive at work and home when the schedule works out this way. I'm a wino, and one of the highlights of my weekend was a visit to the Narmada Winery, which I highly recommend to anyone in the Virginia area.

As I look forward to a possible tomato bumper crop and more pepper harvests, I also have two new crops that are maturing in September: green beans and loofah (as in an exfoliating loofah sponge!).

We planted bush beans in a container, and the five seedlings have just matured into producing plants. We harvested about a pint and a half late last week. We started these seeds in late June, but I wish we had started them earlier or planted more. Note to self: plant more beans next year. We love beans, too, I don't know why we didn't this year.

Loofah plants are something we tried growing on a whim last year, and the plants did so well that we had to grow them again this year. Loofahs are in the cucurbit family. The vines and flowers resemble cucumbers, and the fruit looks like a giant zucchini. I don't have any pictures of the actual fruit from last year, but here's a picture with more info. We have loofah planted in our small ground plant, and the vines grow wild. Last year they reached up to the deck, and it looks like they're on their way to reaching that far this year too.

Loofahs grow all summer, but really take off when the summer heat breaks. Last week the weather was absolutely gorgeous here (the one good thing about tropical storms is that they often leave nice weather in their wake). With temperatures in the 80s during the day and 60s overnight, the conditions were ideal for the plants to take off. The bumbles love the flowers, and the plants were covered in bees all weekend long. Yay! Keep pollinating!

We have two fruit already! You can see that they resemble zucchini. Although you can eat the fruit, we're going to let them grow and dry out. Then we'll peel them and process them to get the sponge that you see so often in the store.

Here's hoping for a good bean and loofah harvest!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

{100-degree heat yesterday. This is what the plants looked like when we got home.}

{Heart shaped tomato (sort of)}

{Bee on a Black Krim blossom}

{Cucumber plants bursting through fence}

{six bush bean seedlings instead of the five I originally thought}

{Zucchini and yellow squash on the vine}

Purple Pole Beans

A few shots of some of the purple pole beans on the vine

A trickle and then a flood...

On Saturday we picked squash, about 5 grape tomatoes, and the first few purple pole beans.  I'm anxiously waiting for the rest of the grape tomatoes to ripen. Last year we had a small handful and then suddenly they were all ready at the same time, and we often found ourselves with more tomaotes that we knew what to do with.  I'm always amazed at how quickly things grow--one day we'll see a little yellow crookneck squash just starting to grow, and by the end of the week it's ready to be picked and eaten. I love it!

left to right: purple pole beans, tomatoes, 2 crookneck yellow squash, butterstick zucchini; all harvested 6/19

Now for the main event---the big squash harvest! Somehow between Saturday and today (Monday) FIVE more squash were ready to be picked.  I ordered a variety pack of squash seeds from Burpee (found here).  We harvested one of each variety today!

left to right: zucchini, yellow crookneck, sweet gourmet hybrid zucchini, zucchini, butterstick (another zucchini variety)--all harvested today 6/21

Now for the fun part--cooking them up to see how they taste! According to Burpee's site, the Butterstick and Sweet Gourmet Hybrid should have a light nutty taste. We'll see about that.

Other pictures--the first is the Butterstick growing in our raised bed. The second is of the crookneck yellow squash we're growing in containers.

Butterfly Bush and Beans in Bloom

The hard rain last night pulverized a lot of our plants, but some of the butterfly bush blooms remained in tact.

In addition to regular bell peppers, we're growing a variety called Fajita Bell. Not sure what they'll taste like, maybe they'll have a little kick? These are the flowers on the plant. You can see a few of the peppers starting to form.

 

These are the flowers on the purple pole beans. I love that pink and purple! But I hope some actual beans start growing soon.