I’m back! Um, a lot has happened in the garden since I ran out of storage and couldn’t post. Let’s see…

Late frost

We had one doozy of a late frost / snow storm that prompted gardeners all over the Denver area to protect their plants. I basically brought in any containers that were small enough, covered things with whatever plastic bins or bed sheets I had, and for the most part they survived. My squash got a little crispy on some leaves, and the seedlings perished. I had just put my squash in the ground, but thankfully I was holding off on tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.

Indoor operations, and nasty soil

My indoor grow house setup is down to one shelf for plant rehab under the lights., and that’s it. I decided to cut off production about a month ago when everything started dying, and I suspected some kind of soil infection. Since then I’ve taken a break from starting new plants, and have been trying to wash and bleach all of my nursery pots etc. I’ve never had such widespread failure, so I’m pretty convinced it was a soil issue. Tough to know.

Mysteries

Learning (Failures)

I’ve definitely already learned some thing I want to do differently next year.

• Grow greens together so I can cover them. My chard, mustard greens, kale, and beets have had a miserable time contending with a constant barrage of aphids and leaf-borers. Consulting my garden neighbors, I learned that the tiny leaf miner eggs can be prevented by covering the plants with a floating shade cloth so the flies won’t land on the leaves and lay eggs. As I planted my vulnerable plants all over each plot, and can’t cover just those plants very easily, I decided to try neem oil. Spraying the whole surface of every leaf, at night (to avoid harming bees) is a pain. PLUS my spinach bolted pretty early. I think growing all of the greens in the same area under a low tunnel will help with multiple problems. I think beets and radishes might join that party.
• Start big things indoors at least 2 weeks later (peppers and tomatoes, mostly), and direct sow more squash and beans. Yes I got a huge head start on squash and cucumbers, but managing the inventory of larger and larger plants without being able to move them outside got out of control.
• Figure out my bean problem. None of my beans have made it, mostly transplanted. Maybe direct sowing is the answer. Maybe it’s the bad soil.
• Transplant things less deeply. I got a little carried away with plant things deeply for some reason, I think because that was the plan for the tomatoes, and they’re clearly suffering from basically growing in bowls.

Victories

Snow peas

Snow peas. All. Day. Every. Day.

• I direct sowed them EARLY (like April)
• None of the critters wanted to eat the seedlings or young plants
• They grew strong and fast
• I get about 20 peas per day, I have more peas than I know what to do with
• They take up basically no space since the grow vertically
• They’re currently taller than I am

Cherry tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes. Growing from seeds was a bit stressful as they started to get too big to be inside. I lost many baby tomato plants before they could get transplanted outside, but I have some STRONG tomato plants in my yard and the garden now. So far so good.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers have produced fruit already!

Squashfest

Butternut, Honeynut, and Zucchini squash are all growing both in my yard and my garden plots. despite some frost damage, the plot squash seem to be doing fairly well and producing some fruit! My zucchini in the plot is also massive and I harvested 3 fruits from on plant in one week.

I’m growing them all vertically (on trellis instead of rambling on the ground), and have constructed small squash hammocks out of tea towels to support the large fruit as it grows. I’ve also had to prune back off-shoot vines quite aggressively to keep the 4×8 trellis at capacity with only 2 squash plants. One butternut squash could easily cover the whole thing. I estimate that the main vine (seen here growing up left left across the top and down the right is about 12 feet long.

What’s next

I can feel the universe turning against me with super hot sunny days, Japanese beetles, aphids, and an upcoming 2 week vacation.