patterns and spindles

Monday, June 30, 2014

End of the month

End of the month. summer.
Here is what is happening outside except of some strong winds and increasing heat.
Lettuces are bolting as usual this time of the year. It is too hot for them.
Bird got a little something :)
and we git a little something finally, enough feeding just them :). borrage companion is blooming


and chard is attracting the rest of the bugs. and getting large. this is after picking of large leaves.

This is липа. Linden tree.


The garden stuff. Nice algae is there too. All gets fed to the plants.  worm castings tea, manure tea, epson salt+phosphorus and iron.
green manure, yeah..  weed stew done:).
  Some garden updates broccoli, squash, cucumber survivors :)


 carrots and some tomatoes started
 tomatoes got some support structures, they are big enough to need it.

 some potatoes, hopping they go some stuff in the dirt, they are in full boom, one kind that was planted earlier, well after mid May :). others were end of May beginning of July, those are not blooming yet.
Only kind that is effective as foliage spray and ground additive in soul with free lime is this. One can put a bag of ironite under a tree with little to no effect at all.
 This is iron clorosis in different stages being treated.
It is late is season, and I did not know what trees did I have till I did see te issue pronounced like that.
 that's what I lost my beans to.  Not something I cane  across before ever. Cucumbers were affected by it rather badly as well. Another - pollution in the environment. Back home when we has environmental issues cucumber would be the first thing that would react on it.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Garden update 3

Raised  beds and mounds. Irrigation was finished. Need to berry all that under the mulch. Testing for now to see how much water is delivered and what needs to be adjusted.
Some plants are clearly having issues.
Phosphorus and nitrogen addition produced it's results, but not on every bed. It turns out I found me some piece of mystery... the and has June bug larvae in it. Where the bed was made over the covered by mulch area and where previous owners used herbicide (little I knew about it before I made my beds there...) June bug is found and it does eat my strawberry. they are fighting the best they can. I hope to make another bed and maybe just transplant them there... I do not know... I found over 100 of these larvae and many are 1-st and 2-n year judging by the size...

so there are successes and failures. There is a lot of fungus on beans and they were hit a lot worse than cucumber and squashes. Pepper heirloom my mother gave me as seeds did not make it... Very small plants, will see if these will do anything. The soil where she is and mine are very different, so that was an experiment after all, well... there will go autumn plant like radishes and lettuce  ...

strawberry. this bed seem to be relatively bug free. bug went after the chard as decoy plant and did numbers on it
 this is the bed where i suspect June bug activity deep in it. possible drainage problem is not counted out, urea was applied to help with wood chips composting. lavage shows some nitrogen deficiency still.
phosphorous and magnesium was applied as well (purple leaves may indicate this).


 potatoes. russet and local heirlooms. these were planted after May 16 closer to end of the month.
 Jerusalem artichokes and collards, brossaca's, carrots
 my good old bird.. ears my strawberry real good... comes every several times.
 sorrel, cucumber and squash, beans being hit by fungus.

 lettuce containers being harvested quite a lot.

 this what will replace them.
 heirloom plants
 Tomatoes that had some good deal of deficiencies came around better and greener. phosphorus and compost and worm castings tea was applied.


 Peppers experiment, these I think are not going to make it.

another nursed back to life evergreen

 Red sore being harvested quite a lot and borage. strawberry companions



Garden update 2

So flowers part of the garden. Some new roses planted from bear root. These were hit by may freeze very bad and nursed back in pots. They are planted and going through adjustment to dirt with free lime.


Ones that make it are the kinds I'm going to buy next year. What grown at neighbors yard is not necessary what will grow on mine, some properties here do not have free lime and some gardens are 20+ years so they have great soil compared to mine
here is some flowers.

This is my worm harvesting bed, it has lots of them and I periodically dig me a a bit of dirt and put them into one of my new garden beds. I leave the eggs so new ones hatch where they supposed to. I get the small worms a put them in new bed as well.
Whatever birds do not eat is safe and hopefully eating composting material and coffee grounds.
same 'harvest' bed in spring and now.

some flowers are coming in shadier area. and big grass I was cutting back with a saw is comming back too, it is warm weather lover.
 Where lilac was lost over the last year I put black and red currant. These are locally grown and doing good for being 2 week transplants. Clematis after being wind broken does not come back. Added urea to see if I have there nitrogen issue from mulch or something else. This plant is not adapted to the local soil so...
 Here is another pine that has suffered damage during winter, a lot. It has some come back.
 This is Carmine jewel cherry. As you can see it is hit very badly by leaf spot disease and maybe some bugs. Neem oil is applied. I was looking for copper based fungicide for organic growing...
 I see a lot of fungus on my beans, some completely gone, did not make it at all.
I'm testing what kinds can make it. so far 2 heirlooms are doing better then the rest.
Fungus did a number on beans in less than a week. came quickly and quite... you'll see.
I organic garden soil is the key. I'm only starting new garden this year, I only started my compost

 and basically growing on composting raised mounds. My expectations are now big for this year.
It would be very good if my transplants berry bushes made it through winter and adapted to soil with free lime (alkaline and can not be fixed with acid adding... lie humic acid etc).
I also found good deal of June bug larvae in compost near dirt, by the size of them these are year 2.... and they were in dirt. I found them in more than one place on the property.. these eat roots. and it does give me the answer why some of my strawberry is acting like something is eating these... birds do not get enough of them and these sit deep. difficult to get rid of organically. I did hear some nematodes attack these.

So far this is how the transplants are doing
some are coming back after being hit by frost, some I lost.