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

Weekly Gardening Outlook: Insect Fighting and Makeshift Nest Boxes

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

Aphids on a bean vine

Aphids on a blueberry bush

I noticed an unusual number of ants on my bean vines, blueberry bushes, and squash vines.  I looked closer and found that aphids were beginning to infest my crops.  Aphids are small, soft bodied insects that suck the juices from plants.  In small numbers, they aren't a problem.  If not nipped in the bud early though, the population can explode and harm crops.  The reason the ants alerted me to their presence, was that ants are known to "farm" aphids.  The aphids secrete a sweet liquids from their anus' called honeydew, which ants feed upon.  In exchange, the ants protect the aphids from predators.  Quite the system.

A low tech, organic treatment is to spray the aphids off with a stream of water.  They are fairly immobile and if knocked off the plants, cannot return and will die in the soil.  I did that this morning.  If they continue to be a problem, a treatment of an organic pesticide called NeemII (Neem oil + pyrethrin) will take care of it.

Squash bug eggs on a butternut squash vine

While spraying the aphids off of my squash vines, I also found these squash bug eggs.  A stream of water and a scrape of the fingernail and they are gone too.

Squash bug on a butternut squash vine

The water causes any adult squash bugs present to climb to higher ground where I smashed them by hand.  This is a good way to flush them out.  If necessary, a treatment of the previously mentioned NeemII will knock them back.

Turnips

The turnips have finally poked up above the mulch.  They do quite well planted four per square foot, but we don't eat a ton of turnips so I planted only one per square foot.  As they get pulled, I will replace them by succession planting radishes.

Immature cherry tomatoes

Immature Roma tomatoes

Tomatoes are coming!  Can't wait.

Eggplant

The eggplants are doing fine.  Flea beetles have put a few holes in the leaves, but that won't hurt them.

Young okra

The okra gets a whole bed to itself.  These will grow into 6 foot tall plants with treelike stalks 2-3" thick at the base.

Serrano peppers

Jalapeno peppers

Onions

Yellow onions

Purple onion

The peppers and onions are ready.  I'm making salsa today with store bought tomatoes.  Can't wait for mine to start ripening.  Gotta have the salsa!

Ripening blueberries

While not nearly as numerous as the blueberries from the farm, these are a nice treat each morning in the garden.  An explosion of flavor as they're eaten straight from the bush.

Sweet basil

Thyme, oregano, and lemon thyme (left to right)

Coriander (cilantro seeds)

Herbs are just so easy.  Most originated in the Mediterranean area and will tolerate poor soils and somewhat dry conditions.  It's a lot of fun to bring in fresh herbs for cooking with.  There's no reason why a person shouldn't have them in the garden.  The oregano continues it's spread through the bed.  It will be time to harvest the coriander soon.

Swiss chard

Chard is another one of those plants every garden should have as a spinach replacement.  Young, tender leaves are good in salads.  Older leaves are good for cooking anywhere you would use spinach.  It grows through the hot summer and well into the fall.  It will grow through the entire winter if surrounded by a cold frame.

Pole bean vines

The pole beans haven't been too affected by the aphids.  They are usually a big target of the Japanese beetle when it emerges.  They will be treated with NeemII when I see the first beetles of the year.

Chicken and Egg Report:

5 gallon buckets serve as makeshift nesting boxes

The chicks were getting crowded in their space and began pecking at one another leaving small, bloody spots.  To give them more room, I took the divider out and gave them free run of the entire top of the chicken house. The only problem is that that cut off access to the nest boxes for the hens.  Clean 5 gallon buckets are serving as temporary nesting boxes for the hens during the next few weeks.  We had been getting 4-5 eggs per day.  It will be interesting to see how the hens adapt to this change.  Generally, environmental changes will temporarily diminish egg production.

Weather Outlook:

-Cooling down, with highs in the mid 80's through the week.  30-40% chance of rain every day, with a 60% chance early next week.

-Watch the amount of rain received and water accordingly.  A popup rain shower, usually doesn't water the garden much.

-Ten day forecast

What's Being Harvested:

-Herbs

-Serrano and jalapeno peppers

-Green, yellow, and purple onions

-Blueberries

Late Winter Garden Update

Two fullsized ice chests stacked on one another in 20" of snow.
-February 9, 2011

Wet January and February
-March 1, 2011

After a dry and mild November and December, we've had a wet and wild January and February, including a near record 20" snowfall and wide temperature swings from -18 degrees up into the low 70's.

A day after the snowfall, we experienced -18 degree temperatures.  Northwest Arkansas is in zone 7, but we got temperatures down into zone 5!  Fortunately, the 20" of snow was on the ground and provided some insulation.  We'll wait and see what damage was done to our perennials by the extreme cold snap.

Scotch kale growing in a cold frame

Swiss chard growing in a cold frame

Despite the extreme low temperatures, the Scotch kale and Swiss chard are flourishing in the straw bale cold frame.  I am very impressed.

Daughter strawberry plants in need of transplanting

The uncovered strawberry plants suffered some freeze damage, but again the heavy snow cover insulated them through the worst of it.  They are putting on new growth and are in need of transplanting into the blocks.

Evergreen bunching onions putting on new growth

With the recent warm weather, the green onions have exploded.  Onions being a biennial plant, they should put on seed in this second year.  We will wait and see how the seed production affects edibility.

Chickens newly feathered and laying eggs again

Eggs!

During the heavy snow, the chickens mostly stayed in their house, because they couldn't get around in it.  They didn't seem to be affected by the cold much as long as they had a draft free house to huddle in.  Since coming out of their molt, the hen's egg production continues to fluctuate between 0-6 eggs per day with an average of around 3 eggs a day.  Hopefully as the days grow longer, they will pick back up to 5-6 eggs a day.

Daffodils emerging

One of the traditional signs of early spring, the daffodils are starting to come up.  With almost two full months left before our average last frost date in late April, this is concerning.  The early warm spell will cause a lot of early flowering crops (peaches, strawberries, etc.) to get going early and their blooms are likely be nipped by frost.  Could make for some light early fruit harvests this year.