It's that time...

Here it is - ice cold and snow covered and all the garden catalogs are starting to come in. I'm ready to start planting - but I'll have to plan first.

Gooseberries

I just like the pictures...I think the variety is Pixwell.

Tomato progress

I haven't posted much about my tomatoes this year. They are doing great this year. We've had a ton of rain and that may have helped some. This year I planted several new and a few trusted varieties.

Here's what I went with this year:
Pineapple - had great success with them last year. Great flavor and BIG. Territorial Seed Co.
Beam's Yellow Pear - For my wife cause she loves them - Seed Savers Exchange
Brandywine (Sudduths's) - I haven't grown Brandywine's for a few years. I can't remember why cause they are great - SSE
Hillbilly Potato Loaf - New for me - Big - yellow red - right up my alley - SSE
Green Sausage - Green cylindrical shaped - Determinate - I haven't grown anything like them for a while - MTF - SSE
German Pink - Big, German, Pink - Describes me after I've been in the sun - SSE
Gold Medal - New for me - gold with red streaks - I sense a pattern - SSE
Federle - Big long paste tomatoes. New for me - SSE
Old German - Red and Gold streaked big meaty flesh - Territorial Seed Co.


Here is the first fruit of the year. It is the Green Sausage. Truthfully I pinched off a few fruits a couple of weeks ago or I may have had a couple of nearly ripe fruits in JUNE! This is one odd looking plant. It just sprawls all over the place. The leave are sparse and long with several clusters of fruit spread all over the plant. They seem to be resisting my efforts to stake them. I may let them win.

Here are all the tomatoes. They are in the north bed this year. I also made a better effort to put more space between them as I felt they were a little cramped last year. They are all 2 feet apart in all directions. So far so good.

This is the Hillbilly Potato Loaf. Nice healthy looking plant.

I believe this is a flower from the German Pink.

Hops Update

Well I did it...I killed some hops...I'm so ashamed...I think it was inconsistent watering...too little followed by too much...not to mention the rain mother nature blessed us with in the first half of June. So my Cascades and Magnum are gone. I'll be looking to replace them next spring.

Here is a hop cone, at least it will be. Right now it's a burr. This is a blooming flower from the hop plant. Plants used for cone production are all female. I don't know the technical parts of the flower but I'm pretty sure you can see almost all of them. This is a Kent Golding that came up along the east side of my deck. I thought I dug it all up but...

Here's the burr just starting to emerge. This is a Fuggles I transplanted.

Here is another burr from a Nuggett plant I moved this year.

Here is the Nuggett. the bottom of the eve is about 8 feet tall. I snipped the growing tip at that point. The bines on the left are up to about 10 feet. I snip the growing tips to encourage side shoots. These shoots are where the hop cones actually grow. This plant looks good this year.

The one on the left is the Fuggles. A windy thunderstorm did a number on it and snapped some of the bines at about 3 feet, I looks like the survivors are coming back and I expect them to do fine this year. The one in the middle is a transplanted Kent Golding. It's growing like crazy, about 14-15 feet tall. The one on the right is another Kent Golding. I planted it just to fill in a blank spot and it has taken off. I think next year it will be a winner. Look at the far left at the lattice under my deck...there are some 'volunteer' Fuggles. They really like that corner.

Tomatoes & Peppers planted

Just a quick entry - I planted my tomatoes and peppers this evening. They were started using the same method as last year. I'm giving them a little more space this year. That's probably more for harvesting than anything else. I'll get some pictures up next week.

I'm heading out with some friends for a weekend of camping and disc golf, so there will be no hops update until early next week. They are doing fine and I am seeing the Fuggles, Goldings and Nugget going strong. The new ones are slowly coming along. Scroll down and see some pictures from last week. They look just like that, only bigger!

Weekly Hop Update

Here it is a week later and there is a lot of growth to report. Overall, the plants I moved are all doing great, while the rhizomes I planted are all struggling. I'm not worried about them because I know they will pull through. You'll see what I mean later. The first picture shows the overall view of the hop yard. The Fuggles is at the bottom of the picture followed by Cascade, Goldings, Goldings, Cascade, Magnum, Nugget.

Here is the Fuggles. It's growing like crazy. I expect it will grow a good foot or so a week.

Next is the Goldings. I had to help the shoots get over to the trellis but once I did they took over from there.


The Return Of The Cascade! Last week the frost got the only growing shoot. I gently dug it up and found it was getting ready to push up another one, so I replanted it. Yesterday it popped through the soil. Now that it has a leaf out it will do just fine.Next is another Goldings. I had so many extra Rhizomes that I felt I should plant one more. This one sprouted in a week and is now doing fine.

Here is the Magnum. I really think the frost last week put a dent in this one. There was a third shoot that has died back. The small one on the left has stopped and the big one on the right has slowed to a crawl compared to the rest of the plants. A little warm weather should get this one going again.


Here is the Nuggett. It seems to be enjoying it's new home. I came home one evening and all the bines had started wrapping around the string. No help from me. It's already bigger around than it ever was in it's old spot. I've got another cascade that just seem to be taking it's own sweet time. I dug it up earlier in the week and there are shoots ready to pop up. We'll see if this is the week it decides to join the others.

Container Garden

This year I'm going to grow more vegetables in containers. I've got 4 large pots with potatoes, 3 with a lettuce mix, and a couple others I haven't yet decided upon. This first picture shows what I've got going as of this morning. We had a rain shower so everything is green and wet.
The next picture shows a mesclun mix. I probably planted a little too much here. I sprinkled the seeds along the top and set the pot out. It's a 12 inch self watering pot and I think it's working fine. The self watering part is a mesh piece that runs along the bottom of the pot. There is a large water reservoir built into the pot that the mesh runs into. The water reservoir holds at least a gallon and probably more. The mesh makes the water available to the pot without having it sit in water. As the water in the pot is used by the plants or evaporates, it is pulled through the mesh into the soil mixture. I noticed that the self watering pots had seedling up and growing well before the standard pot. In the picture above the standard pot is the square one. It was planted the same date as the two self watering pots just to the right of it.

Below are two of the four pots with potatoes. They were planted in late March and left outdoors. I've only watered once or twice as we have had a lot of rain this spring. The variety is La Ratte, an heirloom fingerling variety from Seed Savers Exchange. I'm also planting some in the garden just to compare