Weekly Gardening Outlook: Parched

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Small Nanking cherry bush showing signs of drought stress

Large Nanking cherry bush

I planted six Nanking cherry bushes as dormant, bare-root stock last spring.  After a month, four had leafed out and two had not.  I called the nursery and they immediately replaced the two, but by the time I put the two new ones in the ground they were six weeks behind and were going into the ground in the middle of summer.  The pictures above show the importance of planting during the correct time of year.  The smaller plants have a less developed root system and aren't coping with the heat and drought nearly as well as the larger bushes.  I doubt they will make it through the summer.

Roma tomatoes

Ripening Roma tomatoes

Almost there!

Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant

The Romas are just about there.  I've never seen this many fruit on the vines.  The Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato vine is producing 3-4 cherry tomatoes a day.  I may need to plant two of them next year.  No evidence of blossom end rot despite the extreme heat and dryness.

Flowering basil

Still plenty of pollinator activity around the basil.  Some seeds are starting to form.

Bell peppers

Jalapeno peppers

Plenty of bounty from the peppers.  A couple of instances of blossom end rot on the bell peppers.

Young eggplant

Five or six little eggplants forming and the plants are both still flowering like crazy.

Okra

The okra are bushing out and soaking up every available drop of sunlight.

Potted blueberry bush

The blueberry harvest is over.  The bushes have more than doubled in size already.

Evergreen bunching onions

I planted these evergreen bunching onions from seed in the spring of 2010.  Since then they've provided a constant availability of green onions, even in the middle of winter.

Butternut squash vines on a cattle panel trellis  

Young butternut squash

The butternut squash vines have crested the top of the cattle panel arbor.  They want to go in every direction and I have to train them up the arbor every few days.  In the middle of the arbor in the picture above, you can see a vine I just retrained.  Its leaves hadn't reoriented to the sun yet, but they did within a few hours.  No sign of squash vine borer yet *crossing fingers*.  I've seen two squash bugs this week and I hand picked them both off.

Same old chard.  Easy.

Turnips

Turnip, ready to harvest

The turnips are all ready to pull.  I've pulled and eaten some, but I don't have a ton of experience eating turnips.  Anyone have a good recipe?

Purple-podded pole bean vines growing up a cattle panel trellis

Purple-podded pole bean flowers

Flower buds are forming on the green bean vines.  Japanese beetles continue to try to eat the foliage, requiring a periodic treatment with NeemII.

Calendula 

I planted a few calendula (pot marigold) where I had open space.  The petals are a colorful addition to salads and are said to have numerous health benefits.

Sand plum

The heat and drought have resulted in smaller sand plums this year.  They aren't quite ripe yet, but in the next few weeks I will turn them into jelly.  Here's a previous post where I show how it's done.

Chicken and Egg Report:

Chickens at 6 weeks old

While I was out of town last weekend, we lost three more of the new laying chicks.  They just disappeared, leaving us with four remaining egg laying chicks.  I put those four in the enclosure with the meat birds and they are still there today.  It's got to be hawks.  I've searched the yard and can find no sign of them.  The dogs don't eat them after they kill them.  After these meat chicks go into the freezer this weekend, I'm going to get another batch of chicks to raise as hens.  With the heat, we are only getting 1-2 eggs per day.

Weather Outlook:

Dry fescue lawn

-Hot.  Mid to upper 90s all week with little chance of rain.

-Water early and often.

-Ten day forecast

What's Being Harvested:

A few peppers and turnips from the garden

-Herbs

-Serrano, jalapeno, and bell peppers

-Green, yellow, and purple onions

-Cherry and Roma tomatoes
-Turnips