I thought you might enjoy this video I took of my veggie garden in early August 2023. When I see this video now, the garden looks pretty good. I just want to see some GREEN now instead all this white snow but I know we need as much snow as we can get due to our droughty area. Yes I said, ‘droughty’! Walk with me while I do this year’s summer tour of the veggie garden.
I decided I better pull out the second crop of carrots before the ground freezes sometime in December. We got 6-10 inches of snow the past few days and even more out in the open. If I had waited, I might not have gotten them out.
The first carrots I planted in late spring by direct seeding and harvested most in September. They kind of stalled out in July but came back in September when the temps were cooler. I did a succession planting of more carrots in August-Sept.
In the garden on Dec 1, the remaining carrots were covered with 12′ of snow. So I dug through the snow till I saw the row cover I had put over them when the nights got cold in November. I pulled back the row cover exposing the carrots. It brings such joy to see how well they did. I think they got so long because I had planted them in a 12′ deep raised bed that I made to grow potatoes one year. The carrots loved the extra depth.
And over in the greenhouse, I had transplanted lettuce starts in early September. I kept the greenhouse windows completely open to keep it cooler and a fan to help as well. Then when it got cold at night, I covered the lettuce with some row cover to protect them. I also buttoned up the greenhouse to keep the cold out but did open the door and some windows in the day when it was warmer. Yesterday I harvested the last of the lettuce. Some had bolted and gotten bitter. The chickens got them. But a lot was still good and hadn’t bolted so that is now in the refrigerator.
I always start lettuce seeds in January inside under lights and put them out in February in the unheated greenhouse. I just grow cold varieties in the winter and use row cover to keep them above freezing at night. So we have lettuce all the way through May. Then the greenhouse gets too hot so don’t grow anything in summer. I did a 2nd succession crop of lettuce in late August-Sept when the temps start to drop. Success! Nice to see some green (lettuce) and orange (carrots) so late when everything is covered with snow. Now the garden is truly done!
Here is a video I took on July 18, 2020 but basically looks the same as today.
I have heard from several sources that we might not get a monsoon pattern setting up here in August and that alarmed me. We have never NOT (I know, a double negative) had a monsoon season in the 27 years I’ve been here and now this. I decided to chance it and take off the row covers. I didn’t see any any leaf hoppers today but that doesn’t mean anything as they are so hard to see.
So I am hopeful that they are gone. Who knows, maybe they have a limited lifespan in summers.
I’m not telling you to take them off-that is your decision, but I will deal with whatever mother nature gives us…and it is soo good to see my beautiful tomato plants! Good luck!
Rouge de Paris dry bush bean from William Woys Weaver
The past 2 years, I’ve been growing out some rare veggie seed varieties from William Woys Weaver (I call him W3), who has collected many rare seeds over the years. Last year for him I grew rare cowpeas but this year I chose beans. This is in addition to my regular tomatoes, zukes, winter squash, cauliflower, chard, beets radishes, cukes and peppers and different varieties of berries/grapes .Good thing I have a BIG garden!
W3 wants his growers to grow out seeds that are getting older to keep the varieties viable. He sent some seeds, you can’t even find online. So this year I’m growing Landreth’s bush bean, Six Nations bush bean, Early Mohawk bush bean, Rouge de Paris bush bean, Wild Pigeon semi-pole bean. All of theses are dry beans. I am also growing one cowpea, Big Red Zipper, a pole cowpea (think black eye peas as we call them in the US) which has long pods with 8-10 large red cow peas that are so beautiful.
The only seeds that did not germinate well was the Landreth’s bean, where only 6 plants germinated out of 30. The seed I received for Landreth’s bean was 6 years old, so it is getting up there in age so I won’t get a lot but he will get whatever I get in the end. This is a good lesson to start saving your seeds! I am also allowed to keep some of each variety as well if I want.
In addition, I am growing out my friend, Lava Ewersmeyer’s, Garrofon Pintat pole butter bean which hails from Spain and Buschbonne Cannolino Rosso bush bean from Germany-both are beautiful white with red splashes. Lava lives in Berlin and here in Santa Fe, enjoying duel citizenship. Lava also gave me seeds for the Lava Red pepper ( a Corno de Horno variety) and Ruthje cherry tomato, both are outstanding which I grow each year as well. Thanks Lava!
Growing new varieties of seeds I’ve never tried before keeps me interested in gardening and I am saving seed that might otherwise go extinct which is important. Hopefully some will be fantastic! I really like bean seeds as so many of them are really beautiful.
Oh and I am growing one green bean for fresh-eating-Emerite pole bean which is a gourmet french filet bean that you can get in the US. I just have to keep up on picking them as if you let them get bigger than a pencil width, the skins get woody. So I pick often when they are ready (which they are not yet).
I grew too many greens this year. I planted more seeds than I needed because I thought the seeds might be too old so I planted more in case the germination rate was low. Guess what? They all germinated.
Lettuces have been transplanted outside in green house-Thursday Mar 23, Pak Choi, Bok Choi, arugula, spinach and a few more lettuces are going into cold frame up by house. I had to fix 2 areas from mice or bigger animal-one big hole where someone dug in from the under a side board in my cold frame and in the green house, mice were getting inside a completely covered bed that has been mice proofed for 3 years. I dug down in the cold frame, removed the soil where it was. I used hardware cloth to block the underside and the inside and outside of the wall to block out whatever got in there. Hopefully this will solve the problem. And on the inside of the green house, where I have 2 eight foot beds that are completely covered I put self sticking window gasket on the edge of the lid and a latch where there may have been a gap for a small mouse to get through to close up that possibility. The green house looks good with no one nibbling on the lettuces. Since I just planted more in the cold frame, the verdict is out if I’ve thwarted the rascal. A few days will tell if I succeeded.
When I put the lettuces in the green house last week I forgot to look at the weather for that night before I planted them and afterwards saw the projection! It was suppose to get down to 21 degrees that night here in Santa Fe. Stupid me! I’m always telling everyone to look at the forecast before planting in early spring. The greenhouse stays about 5-10 degrees warmer than the outside air. I freaked a bit so I put down 2 sheets of medium weight row cover on top and that night I put a 3rd sheet of row cover over it, hoping they would all survive. I use medium weight row cover which has about 3-4 degree protection from freezing weather. It worked-so all of them came through beautifully. Just goes to show you I should listen to my own advice! I lucked out!
Today is cold and windy-a nice day to be inside!
Every year for the past few years, I film my veggie garden usually in the fall when harvesting slows down. The garden won’t be at it’s prime but it’s when I’m not so headless. Next year I will try to film it in it’s prime. I like to see it in the winter to inspire me as to what might be for next season, to see a little green, dream about next year’s garden and refresh my brain as to how it looked. Of course every year is different which is actually exciting.
In the garden everything did well except the tomatoes. The flowers were especially wonderful and for the first time in many years, I got lots of carrots. I attribute that to the rain we had this summer.
This year after looking at the film again, I noticed how much Early Blight infected my tomato plants. Usually I start spraying the plants with Copper fungicide (use to spray with Serenade which is no longer available) early before I see it as a preventative but this year I got behind because I had Covid for 20 days and never really caught up. This is a good lesson for me especially if we have a rainy growing season like we did this year. Rain exacerbates Early Blight with it’s humidity and moisture. Early Blight can hit our tomato plants when water splashes up from the ground onto the lower leaves. Early Blight spores live in the ground and when they splash up on the lower leaves, they colonize and spread upwards. If you want to know more on Early blight on my website, go here: giantveggiegardener.
Happy planning for next year-Hope you enjoy this video!
For those of you who don’t listen to my radio show on KSFR 101.1 which airs the last day of each month at 10 am, I talk about what problems are in the garden, what we can do, how to deal with certain pests, what we can grow and review crops I grow, etc. Generally, lots of veggie growing tips. This Saturday, Nov 26, I am reviewing my top crops for 2022-all of them. So if you can’t listen this Saturday or want a copy to keep as reference, I am posting my favorite tomatoes for 2022. There are few new ones and some that are on my top 20 list of tomatoes year after year.
I grew 29 tomato plants this year and it was probably the worse year tomato wise (but other crops did well). I think because it was a cool rainy, cloudy season and once the tomatoes set their blossoms into fruit, they like warm, sunny days which we didn’t have many in 2022. However, my cherry tomatoes saved the day and were very prolific but the slicers didn’t grow fast or ripen very fast either. I had a lot of green ones at the end of the season, which I ripened inside. I believe that’s because of the cool weather. Some of my standard slicer that I grow year after year didn’t do so well but I still include them because they have been great till this year. I don’t necessarily stop growing one tomato because of one bad year especially if it has done well in the past. But it is interesting to note that my peppers did well and they like hot weather too, so go figure.
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2022 TOMATO REVIEW
SOME OF MY FAVORITE SLICER TOMATOES THAT DID WELL THIS YEAR:
Paul Robeson-named after the famous opera singer-has superb rich flavor. Get seeds online or at Agua Fria Nursery.
Cherokee Purple-Wonderful flavor. Get at Seed Savers Exchange.
Cherokee Carbon-a hybrid with all the great flavor of Purple Cherokee without the cracks. Get online or at Agua Fria Nursery.
Lucky Cross-A wonderful large bi-color tomato of yellow with a red blush inside- very sweet. Get at Victory Seeds.
Virginia Sweet-Another outstanding large yellow with red blush tomato-can get it online.
Goliath-A medium size red hybrid tomato with old fashion flavor. Almost perfect with few blemishes. Get online. Good eating or I make sauce.
Large Boar Boar-a mahogany color with green stripes-great flavor. Get at Wild Boar Farms.
Black Sea Man-looks and tastes like Black Krim tomatoes only more productive. Really like them. Get them at Seed Savers Exchange.
SOME OF MY FAVORITE CHERRY TOMATOES THAT DID WELL THIS YEAR:
Black Cherry-A fantastic purple cherry tomato. Get seeds online or plants at nurseries. Agua Fria Nursery.
Ruthje-Red cherry tomato-I grew this last year and it is a super sweet tomato. Get from Restoration Seeds online.
Moby-a dwarf cherry tomato-A large yellow cherry tomato on a small plant with great flavor You can get Moby at Victory Seeds. Only gets about 3-4 feet high so great for pots.
Sungold Cherry-a real favorite-super sweet. Get seeds or plants at nurseries like Agua Fria Nursery.
You notice I mention Agua Fria Nursery here as they have the biggest selection of Heirloom tomato plants in Santa Fe in the spring. Here is my pdf which includes all my crops AND live links for you: 11-2022 VEGETABLE REVIEW
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling the heat lately and try to get out early in the morning and sometimes a little in the evening in the veggie garden if it cools down. So my gardening time is limited to when it is cooler. Of course it’s not as hot as where I grew up in Phoenix, AZ (I escaped)! Above is the forecast thru July 28 for Santa Fe. Looks like it’s going to cool down a little.
With this heat wave it is time to water your garden a little extra. Water your garden either first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening in addition to your normal watering. Today is the last day of temps in the 90s-tomorrow is suppose to be 89-still hot for here and then the temps drop to mid 80s. To see if my plants need extra water, I stick my finger in the soil up to my second digit and if it is dry when I pull it out and the soil doesn’t stick, it’s time to water. If it comes out wet, and the soil sticks to it, it still has good moisture. Also a real sign your plants need water is if they start to wilt. I try not to let them wilt. Plants in pots can dry out very quickly so water them 2x/day when it is hot.
One good thing is the tomatoes are just starting to come on. I now have a bowl of them on the kitchen table. I know they won’t set fruit when temps reach 92 degrees but they will keep producing blossoms and will set fruit once the temps cool down. And once they set some fruit, they don’t mind some heat. Some of my early varieties set their fruit in June. That’s why I try to plant so early-this year June 2nd, to give them a chance to set some fruit before the heat really sets in and they get blossom drop. But of course, that means putting them in wall of waters so they can deal with freezing nights that early in the season, but I don’t mind if I can get some tomatoes a little earlier. After all, it’s been since last November since I’ve had some home grown tomatoes. The wait was worth it!
MONSOONS
Are the monsoons here early? Historically, in my 28 years here in Santa Fe, the monsoons have traditionally started after July 4th weekend thru the second week of July. But last year and this year the weather people are saying it comes in around June 15th. Did things change? If so, I’m a happy camper cause we really need the moisture.
ROW COVER ON TOMATO CAGES/LEAFHOPPERS
Plus I can take off the row covers off my tomato cages as the dreaded beet leafhopper should be leaving soon. But I don’t do that with the first rain which we got here yesterday. I wait a few days-like maybe after this weekend if the weather pattern holds up. We got .4″ of rain which is great.
So if the monsoon pattern doesn’t peter out, and we get a little rain for next week and the monsoon pattern holds, I will be taking the row covers off my tomato plants. I haven’t seen my tomatoes since late May. Row cover is put completely around and over the cages to keep the beet leafhopper from physically getting to the tomato plants and biting the plant-no insecticides work. They transmit a fatal virus-Curly Top Virus (CTV) to tomatoes. One extra step we have to go through to get tomatoes out here in the southwest. The bug either gets suppressed or leaves town when the rains come as it prefers dry, hot windy conditions which we’ve had. Who knows? Maybe they will move to Texas.
TOMATO BLOSSOM DROP
Also with the rain, the temperatures should come down and blossom drop will stop too. Tomato blossom drop occurs at 92°F + when it gets too hot for the plant to set fruit. So if you’ve seen blossoms dropping don’t worry-your tomatoes will continue to make blossoms the whole season. But after it sets fruit, higher temperatures are ok. It’s just during higher heat when they are self-pollinating that they drop their blossoms. They need below 92°F to set the fruit. Another bonus. Ah rain!
Black Krim Tomato_Courtesy of Wiki_By Johnh – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32303234
One of the best things about growing heirloom tomatoes is sometimes their history. I found the history of some tomatoes is fascinating and when I was at the Farmers Market, I was the first to include the description and history of the tomatoes I sold. People really enjoyed reading about what they were eating and where it was from.
One such tomato is the Black Krim, a favorite for many people. It has a very interesting history as it originated in Ukraine. Black Krim is the Ukrainian word for Crimea. I didn’t know any of this. I knew it was from Russia but not specifically from Ukraine and to be exact, Crimea, which Russia took back in 2014 after invading it before this year’s invasion of Ukraine. I found out this information from Terrior Seeds. To read more on the Black Krim from Terrior Seeds, go here. How relevant to today’s world.
I started lettuces from seeds inside under lights with NO heat which I then transplanted in the greenhouse on Feb 3rd. I also planted spinach, arugula and bok choy in the cold frame.
Everything in the greenhouse is doing great. Every nite I flip the winter weight row cover over them to protect them from the freezing nites and flip it off in the day so they get more sunlight. They are all under cages I built to keep mice out-works beautifully.
Unfortunately, in my cold frame, when I uncovered them, I don’t have any cages and mice munched 29 spinach plants (only 1 survived), 8 Bok Choys, and chomped 2 of the Arugula (I guess they didn’t like those much).
I hadn’t gone out in a few days after I planted the spinach/bok choy on Feb 3rd because the days/nites got really cold but that didn’t stop the mice! Only 1 spinach made it-the rest were eaten down to nothing. I still have 8 severely eaten bok choys and all the arugula that I re-dug up and they are back in pony packs inside again under lights to see how many will actually survive. To help with all the shock, I water with seaweed fertilizer and Vit B-1 (for plants). Meanwhile I need to tighten up the lid on the cold frame to hopefully keep them out (this coming week when weather is nicer). I will put out a few sacrificial survivors in about a week to see if the mice still get in and eat them.
Spinach is one of my favorite spring crops but must be eaten before it gets hot or it will bolt. So today I am planting more spinach seeds. Takes about 2 weeks from planting seeds to transplanting the seedlings into pony packs where they grow for another 2 weeks-so 4 weeks from planting seeds to planting outside (with protection). Let’s hope it won’t be a bad year for mice again like two years ago!
Scotch curly kale
Kale (and chard) are loving the cooler weather while the warm season crops are fading. I grew two kinds of kale this year. The first one is Scotch Curly Kale shown above which has done really well. No aphids or cabbage looper damage (from the cabbage moth). A super producer!
Cabbage looper damage on Lacinato kale
The other kale which is my favorite, is Lacinato kale. It is also known as Tuscan kale, Italian kale, dinosaur kale, black kale. It has struggled with attacks from cabbage moths which resulted in very ‘holey’ kale from the cabbage moth looper. I don’t know why they attacked the Lacinato but not the curly kale but I left them in as a trap crop to attract the cabbage looper to them. I could of sprayed Bt, an organic caterpillar insecticide but didn’t get to it. The crops were not close to each other.
Top leaves of Lacinato recovering from damage
Today I noticed that the new leaves on the Lacinto are perfect-no holes so I think the cabbage moth is gone. So I trimmed off all the holey leaves on the bottom and gave them to my chickens and will harvest the nice leaves soon. The chickens love it.
I will leave all the kales in the garden for now as they love the cooler weather and will cover them with row cover when the first freeze comes next week (WEATHER FREEZE FORECAST TUESDAY OCT 12!).
I have to confess I never have liked kale finding it too tough for me. But I do really like it in stews and soups where it softens up. To prepare it to use later, I trim off all the leaves from the stalks, rough chop it and steam the kale for 2 minutes. I super cool it quickly under water with ice to stop the cooking. I then drain and squeeze out all the liquid and put it in 2 cup increments in freezer ziplock baggies and freeze it. It’s the perfect amount to put into stews and soups in the winter.
I have lots to share so I will be writing a lot in the next few days. I was on vacation for 7 days and am now back and busy harvesting and weeding. The first day back, I saw one of my Black Cherry tomato plants was overwhelmed by tomato hornworms. As you can see in the pic above, they ate all the leaves on the top 1/3 of the plant. Interesting that they seem to like that variety but I only found 2 more on that tomato bed that has 9 tomato plants-all right next to each other. I can see why the hornworm would like the Black Cherry tomato as it is one of my favorites too! On all the other 29 tomato plants, I only found a couple of hornworms. We handpick the hornworms off wearing gloves because I’m squeamish about them.
So I think we got around 100 hornworms in all different sizes on that one plant. Never had so many hornworms on one plant. Found and picked most of them off that day.
Then went back at night with my UV flashight and found about 50 more. The hornworms glow under UV light making them easier to find-this helps find smaller ones too that I missed in the day. I got mine on Amazon. So keep a lookout for hornworms-they are around now!
With all that blessed rain comes new problems for veggie gardeners-mainly fungal diseases are on the rise.
WOW! This has been a great monsoon season this year. Last year we had 2 tiny monsoon storms and then they disappeared and we went into an extreme drought. This year, we have gotten more rain than I can remember in many years. Every week we get a significant amount of rain and 2 weeks ago we got 2.5 inches of rain in 1.5 hours. It was torrential. Those of us on the southeast side of Santa Fe have gotten most of the rain while those on the west side of town haven’t gotten much.
TOMATOES-EARLY BLIGHT: I already trimmed the tomato plants so no leaves touch the ground, put straw around each plant so no dirt is showing, but I still have started to see Early Blight (EB) on a few of the tomato plants. Early Blight fungal spores live in the ground and when rain splashes the dirt up on the lower leaves, the fungal spores start to colonize on the lower underside of the leaves. They become blotchy with the lower leaves getting big yellow splotchy areas. This is Early Blight. Without doing anything, it will spread upwards and go up through the plant and eventually kill it. But we can control it. I use to use Serenade, a biological fungicide that has other micro-organisms that colonize on those leaves and crowds out the EB spores. But now we can’t get Serenade anymore. I don’t know why but can’t find it anywhere. So I’ve turned to 2 other products. One is called Cease, which has the same ingredients as Serenade but is way more expensive and the other is Copper Fungicide which has copper in it which helps suppress the EB disease but you shouldn’t spray the soil as it can affect the earthworms-keep it on the foliage.
The way to control it is: trim off all lower branches that show signs of EB. Be sure to dip your cutters in a solution of 10% bleach to water. I just put a little in a small container of water and dip the shears and your hand into it BEFORE moving to the next plant. EB is contagious between plants so disinfecting your cutters between plants will make sure you don’t spread it.
SQUASH-POWDERY MILDEW: Another fungal disease on squash and pumpkin plants is Powdery Mildew. If your leaves start to die and get a powder on them, you should spray them on top and underside of leaves with a fungicide. Again copper fungicide, Neem, Baking soda/water mix, GreenCure. My favorite IS Green Cure as it works pretty fast. Spray any of the affected plants at 2-3 times with any o the above to get rid of it.
OTHER PROBLEMS
TOMATO-BLOSSOM END ROT: There are other problems arising from too much rain (is that possible out here in the southwest?!) Tomato blossom rot is from too much water, or uneven watering or not enough calcium in the soil (leached out because of too much rain). It is not a fungal disease but rather a deficiency of calcium in the tomato. It appears on the bottom of the tomato and is a sunken brown lesion. You can cut it out and eat the rest of the tomato if the whole fruit is not impacted.
Keeping the soil evenly moist helps. If we get a big rain, turn off your drip system for a day or two. You can also do a foliar spray on the plants with a kelp (seaweed) solution. But usually it will correct itself thru time. Adding calcium in the form of bone meal, oyster shell powder or gypsum — to the soil when you plant usually helps prevent this problem from developing.
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