Cape Mayhem Gardens Update – Tomatoes nearing the End

Posted on August 21, 2012 by lars1273

So this is the most recent picture I have of Cape Mayhem Gardens. My camera was dropped on my birthday and broke so I am using Kelly’s. I would love for this to be the reason I have been slow to post, but I have just been too busy to make a post…sorry. As you can tell, the tomatoes are not looking so hot. I think they will be ‘done’ soon, but I am waiting to see if any more fruit will come. I am also debating putting in a few tomatoes that I had in pots to try to sneak in some late season tomatoes. The rest of the garden is still doing pretty well though and I have been taking a gardening class at the Solana Center in San Diego. I am getting excited to give my first full time effort to grow cool season crops like Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts, etc.

I am going to start by showing off the newer parts of the garden that are doing well. To the right are my cucumbers. I have been trying to train them to grow in different directions in order to help airflow and reduce the chance of powdery mildew. They are doing better than the last group of plants, but I still find myself removing a few leaves every time I’m at the garden that have mildew on them. We have had some heat here in San Diego the past few weeks and the cucs have been loving it. Tons of new growth at the ends of the vines and lots of flowers. The corn below is doing well too. I can see where the ears will be and I’m hoping that they are not empty.

To the left is one of my three hot pepper plants. These turn red and I like to try to get a variety of colors for my hot peppers. I have yellow, black and red. The yellow peppers are just coming along and the blacks are still flowering. I also grow these because I noticed that uber hot peppers sell for 50 cents a piece in grocery stores. These plants produce so many peppers that I give quite a few away.

And we’re back to evaluating the tomatoes… This happens every year and I wonder if I can stop it some how? The plants are bear for the most part. You can see tons of fruit and healthy growth on the top of the plants, but the bottom 75% are barren. I harvested quite a bit of fruit on Sat as you will see in the next photo even though the plants look like this. I think the issue is that I didn’t cage the plants in the beginning. You can see how many vines are running up from each plant. I let them get bushy, then trained them to grow tall, and now they can’t supply enough energy/nutrients to keep all the vines healthy.

You can see the green zebra’s, crnkovic yugoslavian’s, and black carbon’s. They are all delicious. I can’t tell you how much better these tomatoes taste than store bought. We make bruschetta, caprese, or another version of bruschetta with goat cheese pretty much everyday now that we have the tomatoes. I put two slices of a black carbon on my sandwich for work today and it was amazing.

Well, I will try to do a better job at posting more frequently. I have one more recipe for tomatoes with goat cheese and some worm updates for you. I will hopefully get a new camera soon too.

Powdery Mildew Attacks Zucchinis

Posted on August 13, 2012 by dowd0019

The Fall of an Empire

So many great empires hath come and gone. It is quite fitting that immediately after posting about the spread of my zucchinis, they have met their maker. At the zenith of their power, like Rome before them, a barbarian horde in the guise of a white, filthy powder has been their undoing. Powdery mildew has arrived in my garden.

The white ghost crept in during the night, and the natural defenses of my plot were not up to the task of repelling the inital attack. I’ll get a couple pictures of the devastated plants up in my next garden update. The powdery mildew hit the zucchinis first. But it has since spread over to and devastated my cucumbers as well. Apparently powdery mildew is the bane of any zucchini farmer’s efforts for a healthy crop in Southern California.

Powdery Mildew

Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that affects plants belonging to the Cucurbita pepo family; vegetables like zucchini/squashes, cucumbers, peas, melons, etc. A very good, detailed article on the topic may be found here. This wikipedia article on powdery mildew is also good but over the top. Powdery mildew is very prevelant in Southern California gardens. It occurs most frequently in late Summer, just in time to ruin your harvest, when things are getting really hot. That’s what happened here in the past couple weeks finally. Each day has been hotter than the one before, with temperatures hovering in the 90s. This heat wave has really allowed the mildew to spread quickly.

I first spotted the signature dried out white lines a couple weeks ago. I should have immediately pulled up my zucchinis, or at least cropped the leaves, to keep the powdery mildew from spreading. Alas, perhaps I waited too long and now the leaves of both my zucchinis and both my cucumbers have wilted, yellowed, curled, browned and now fallen off. I don’t know if it has affected the taste of the cucumbers, but I also harvested my first cucumber last week, and it was very bitter, almost tasted soapy.

Battling Powdery Mildew

All is not lost however. I have been trying to combat the powdery mildew with a home made solution. I mixed one table spoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon of dish soap, and one gallon of water. Then I put it in a conventional sprayer that I got on Amazon. A couple hand pumps, and I get the leaves with a quick coating of this mixture. It sounds pretty nasty, to be eating soap. But think about it, you wash your plates with dish soap. This is about the safest natural fungicide one is going to find. Other options include neem oil, chamomile tea, and skim milk. I have not tried these options but would love to see anyone’s thoughts in the comments.

The key is to not overspray the leaves because that will cause run off of the solution. If too much of the solution runs off the leaves and into the base of the plants and seeps into the soil, it will start killing off the beneficial bacteria in the soil, compounding problems. So take care to only lightly coat the leaves with the spray if you are faced with this same problem. Also, it is important to realize that the spray will not just wipe out the powdery mildew but also beneficial bacteria from the leaves themselves. Assuming you successfully combat the stuff, you should get some helpful bacteria and lightly dust the leaves. Paul’s worm castings or compost would be perfect for this purpose.

The Results

I am starting to see positive results already. I finally got rid of some of the deadest leaves, and have reclaimed some territory from the powdery mildew on the leaves that were not too far gone over to the white side. It is really good to see this working and to harbor hopes of getting a few more zucchinis and cucumbers this summer.

I will continue to update everyone on the great Powdery Mildew war of August 2012, and the zucchinis battle for garden supremcy. Wish me luck.

Cape Mayhem Gardens Update – July 10th

Posted on July 10, 2012 by lars1273

Sorry it has taken me so long to get another update on the blog. Happy late 4th of July from Cape Mayhem Gardens as well, hope everyone had a good day. We barbequed over at the garden and spent the day near the beach. We watched some good fireworks to end the night and then proceeded to take part in the Ocean Beach marshmallow fight afterward. Everyone brings bags of mallows to throw at each other after the works, very fun.

To the right is a picture of Jude and I posing in front of the garden on the 4th for a quick photo opportunity. Jude helps me take care of the garden and used to be my old roommate. We had overcast weather for the whole day but that didn’t stop us from having a great time.

There are a few new things that I did to the garden. I was unable to get rid of the powdery mildew on my cucumbers with the neem oil. In fact, I almost think it made it worse. I showed up to the garden on Sunday afternoon and they were entirely covered in it. I decided to take them out and put in some new plants that I bought from my local nursery. It’ll be interesting to see if I can keep the mildew away from these new plants. I bought a ‘lemon’ cucumber variety as a change up and I am excited to see how it turns out compared to other cucs that we have grown at the garden.

This picture is showing off the jalapenos and our serrano plant. The serrano plant is continuing to absolutely kill it. It comes up to my thigh and the flowers are everywhere. We have quite a few peppers on there now. The jalapenos are also doing well. I pulled about 15 of them and am going to make stuffed jalapenos with bacon. I will post those pics along with our recipe. Take a look in the picture and see if you can see an onion sprouting. It is in the bottom center of the photo and looks like a weed, it has 3 narrow shoots coming out of the ground. I planted a few onions in some of the open areas and we now have 4 that sprouted.

So this is Pete, and he lives in Vince’s guest house and built the tiki bar and the garden with me. He was grilling some zucchini, corn and chicken breasts on Sunday evening and let me eat with him. His girlfriend Stephanie also helps me a ton with watering the garden. She used to garden at her old place so it’s nice to be able to bounce some ideas off of.

Here is another picture of the garden with a nice action shot of Pete and I. You can see the tomatoes are getting huge. We are going to have to come up with some type of better staking of the plants. They are too tall for the cages I put them in and the tops are starting to topple over. We have been pulling out a lot of ‘dead/yellow’ leaves off the bottoms of the plant. It has really revealed all the fruit that is growing. Makes me so excited for harvest time!

The other updates for the garden are, I planted some more basil in between our tomatoes, and I planted 6 stalks of corn. I didn’t really get pictures of these changes, but I will for the next post, although I just noticed you can see the corn to the right of Pete and I in the picture above.

Cape Mayhem Gardens Update 6/18 – Garden Maintenance

Posted on June 18, 2012 by lars1273

So last week I noticed that there were white spots on the cucumber leafs. I did some googling and discovered that they have powdery mildew. The picture on the left shows a large patch of it on one leaf, but if you look at the other leaves, you’ll see a bunch of white dots on the leaves.

I was told that I could remove the infected leaves, but too many of them are infected that I don’t know what would happen to the plant if I removed them all. Here is a pic of the Neem Oil that I bought at Walter Andersen Nursery. We were all hanging out at the garden watching the US Open and I just happened to catch Jude biting his nails in this picture…

I removed a few of the very bad ones, and then sprayed the leafs down with Neem Oil. Jude had his friends Hall, an Agridude, and Christina in town from Raleigh, NC. They garden and told me how much of oil to put on the leafs. A light spray on each leaf should do the trick. I was coating them pretty thick so I had to scale back. We’ll see what happens in a week.

Hall and Christina shared a ton of good information and ideas with me. They showed me how to prune/remove suckers on tomatoes. Here is a link from my dad that shows you what to do. By doing this, it puts more of the plants energy into making the fruit versus adding new leaves to the plant.

They also told me that I should remove the lowest branches on the tomato plants, especially if they touch the ground. We also took out branches that had a lot of dead leaves on them since they are old and probably not doing much for the plant. Here is Hall doing the pruning on our Green Zebra tomato.

While I was up in Hell A visiting another Agridude, Grant, we went to his local garden supply store and found a bunch of onion bulbs. We planted 15 or so in LA in his garden, and within a week, they were shooting out of the ground. I bought a few white onions and planted them in my garden yesterday. You can see Kelly doing some pruning work for me too. I had done 3 plants and my knees and back were tired so I had her help me out. It is hard for a big man to get low to the ground for the pruning with so many other plants near by. The onions will only make that tougher…

I also took some of the leachate from my worm bin and diluted it with water in a watering can and applied it to the plants around the base of each plant. I did this to my patio plants and they all seemed to really perk up. I am curious to see how the plants in the garden respond to this feeding.

Here are some other pictures I took yesterday of the garden, enjoy!

Jalapenos hanging off the plant

Westside

Sliced, sprinkled salt on top

Agridudes Hall and Pete

Cape Mayhem Garden Status Update – We Have Fruit!

Posted on June 5, 2012 by lars1273

Well, it’s been a few days since I was over at the garden. I had my cousin Liz and her baby Chester in town for a week. I rode my bike over to the garden this morning to water the tomatoes since it had been a week since the last time. They might not have needed it, but it was going to be a warm day and figured that they could use it. Here is the left half of the garden.

Here is the right half. We have both slicing and pickling cucumbers on the trellis, 5 tomatoes lining the back of the fence, one giant jalapeño, 4 regular jalapeños, a serrano pepper, 3 uber hot peppers, mint, and strawberries (in the pots). All the tomatoes are heirloom varieties. We have Black Carbon’s, Omar’s Lebanese, Green Zebra’s, Tommy Toe’s (cherry) and Crnkovic Yugoslavian’s.

Today I noticed that we have a few green zebra’s starting to form, and a bunch of tommy toe’s starting to develop. I am excited to see that the tomatoes are growing, but I am thinking about why the plants aren’t nearly as tall as they have been in the past. There are probably many reasons, but I these are the ones that stick out to me so far: I planted later than normal. This means I bought my seedlings at the nursery later and maybe that extra time gave the plants less time to grow larger. I also did not stake the tomatoes when i planted. I put cages on them probably after 6 weeks. I normally do it when I plant, but they have grown so tall in past years that we were going to try to do a new custom cage, but never got around to it.

As mentioned earlier, we are growing pickling and slicing cucumbers. They are off to a terrific start this season. We have tons of flowers and the plants look very healthy. Here are two pictures of the cucumbers that we have already, the single cucumber is the pickling, and the group of 3 are for slicing.

I also noticed some small jalapeños growing:

That’s it for now. I’ll be posting some pictures of the harvested fruit when I pull them. I’ll also flush out the 3 uber hot peppers that we grow. I can’t remember the types right now…

A Quick Look at Jason’s MN Garden

Posted on June 1, 2012 by jreese79

This is some arugula that recently flowered. The leaves will be more bitter now, because the plant is putting its energy into producing flowers. The nutty flavor of this green is nice for spicing up a salad or bowl of pasta. When cooking arugula make sure to add it to the dish late in the cooking process. It is not quite as robust as spinach and can only handle a quick braise.

: Flowering Arugula

This Blue Dwarf Kale is just about ready for harvest. I used mulch around the plant to retain moisture and to reduce the competition from weeds. The mulch is nice to use on beds that you do not plan on turning that same year. If you don’t have mulch, try straw. It is a great alternative and breaks down much faster. I look forward to sauteing the kale in some toasted sesame oil or bacon grease.

: Blue Dwarf (Imp) Kale

The spring mix and spinach are dealing with some encroaching grass. I need to do a better job of containing the growth in between my beds. These crops have already been big producers for me this spring. It is one of the better raised beds that I dug. I hope to get another couple weeks of production out of these guys, before the soil gets too warm.

: Spring Mix

The butter leaf lettuce is doing pretty well. I am going to let them get real big before I harvest. The weather is going to stay cool, so there is little risk of them going to seed anytime soon. However, once they do start to produce seeds, the plant will be way too bitter for consumption.

: Butter Leaf Lettuce

Here is a cuke seedling. As you can see the cotyledons (original 2 leaves) have not dropped. Growth should start picking up in the next couple weeks. I transplanted my toms and peps over the last couple weeks as well. Minnesotans don’t have the benefit of a Mediterranean climate. We have to wait for the soil to warm up into the 70s, before the cucurbits (Cucumbers, Zucchinis, Watermelons) and nightshades (Tomatoes, Peppers) start to show any significant growth.

: Cucumber

Mint grows like a weed. I had to pull up half the mint in my garden today to make room for tomatoes and cucumbers. This perennial is great, even in northern climates, and helps make a mean mojito. Just grab some rum, sugar in the raw, limes, and club soda, and you will be ready to mash up a tasty summer refreshment.

: Mojito Farm

These peas were planted in late March, as soon as the soil thawed. Snow peas take 60 days to reach maturity, which means I have been harvesting away this week. You can plant peas multiple times throughout the season. So, stagger your plantings and make sure you start getting some in the ground again in late July, because peas are very cold tolerant and will survive into late October. Peas also serve another purpose in the garden besides providing us with a good source of protein. All legumes (Peas and Beans) put nitrogen back into the soil. For this reason, it is a good idea to rotate them around your garden from year to year.

: Peas

: Peas

Agridude

Agridude – A Gardening Resource

Tag Archives: Cucumber