Gardening Season is Here

[racfish]

I like red radishes the best. They produce in 25 days. If not picked when ready they get hot. I plant my first radishes in late February. I pick by mid March. Radishes grown in the summer heat turn hot. the red radishes I grow are mellow and damn good eaten as is. during summer months they get hot and Pithy. Pithy meaning slightly hollow inners.

[MotoBoat]

Why do the radishes become hot to eat if planted during hot summer weather? Yep, indeed our hot radishes were pitty. Thought they were little itty bitty worms.

Oh, went back and re-read your post. You said "pithy", not "pitty". Are they the same thing? Lots of small holes in the white part of the red radish?

[Bodofish]

Definition of PITHY
1: consisting of or abounding in pith(see 1pith)
2: having substance and point : tersely cogent

Synonymsaphoristic, apothegmatic, brief, capsule, compact, compendious, crisp, curt, elliptical (or elliptic), epigrammatic, laconic, monosyllabic, concise, sententious, succinct, summary, telegraphic, terse, thumbnailAntonymscircuitous, circumlocutory, diffuse, long-winded, prolix, rambling, verbose, windy, wordy

Related Wordsabrupt, blunt, brusque (also brusk), short, snippety, snippy; abbreviated, abridged, condensed, curtailed, shortened; meaty, substantial; meaningful, significant; well-turnedNear Antonymspleonastic, redundant, repetitious, tautological, tautologous; enlarged, expanded, supplemented; embellished, embroidered, exaggerated, inflated
more

Other Botany Terms
annual, burgeon, chloroplast, nomenclature, succulent, sylvan, xylem


In addition to all this, tough, fibrous, as cork...... Pithy, a wonderful word. But probably more germane to the topic:
Definition of PITH
1
a : a usually continuous central strand of spongy tissue in the stems of most vascular plants that probably functions chiefly in storage

b : any of various loose spongy plant tissues that resemble true pith

c : the soft or spongy interior of a part of the body

2
a : the essential part : core

b : substantial quality (as of meaning)

[Big D]

I got up this morning and Mother Nature said "Hold on, I don't want you planting just yet"

[Bodofish]

Yep, it was spitting snow and rain yesterday, nothing steady, just cells moving through.

[dicinu]

I bought a cheap green houst to start my seeds in ph set on the water with a boost of food. to get them growing set and forget out side with a bucket of water at the bottom to keep everything nice and moist. starting up the seeds for my aqua and hydro ponics systems the Agua will be out side during the summer hyrdo is outside now.

crops this year are going to be watermelon, potatoes, peas, a varity of beans, herbs still going strong from last year nothing like fresh herbs on some home cooked meals, greens collard & mustard, strawberrys I am looking to get a Blueberry plant or two also. Cukes also need more pickles for the winter....

I have to rent a rota-tiler so I can dig up some more of my back yard...

[racfish]

Im picking fresh lettuce leaves now. Yummers. Fresh redleaf,green leaf lettuce just melts in your mouth when plucked from the plants.

[MotoBoat]

Planted snow peas and another variety of peas, radishes, carrots, squash, beats, Romain lettuce, and corn.

As far a Perennials go, there is two blueberry plants and 40 strawberry plants. The strawberry plants are two years, are taller/thicker by far this year. Lots of flowering on them. Blueberry plants are 2 years old, with many flowers on one of the two plants. Discovered recently that blueberry plants like a more acidic soil than the veggies they are surrounded by. Which, would explain there stunted growth and anemic appearance last year. Sulfur pellets are recommended for lowering the ph of the soil. As an experiment, torn up orange peels were added to the surface soil around both blueberry plants. As well as added left over citrus based chicken brine's as well. Whether that is the right stuff to use for creating acidic soil or not. It seems to be working.

Peas are about a foot high. 6 days ago, planted a second round of pea seeds. Filling in spacing where the first round of seeds did not take. First batch of Radishes were harvested today, they were planted early April. Tasted one, they are beginning to get HOT!. Might have waited to long to pick them. I think 24 days of growing is recommended? They are not "pithy".

Corn did not make it, soil is supposed to reach 65 degrees before planting. But had to give them a early try. Plant some more in a month or so.

Lettuce is couple of inches tall. Seeded spaces between plants 6 days ago. Seeded with an Italian type Lettuce at that time. Also seeded second batch of snow peas, and replaced an entire row of another type of pea that did not sprout one plant! Bad seeds perhaps?

I had some store bought squash, get soft before they could be eaten. Threw them in the garden, and chewed them up with the tiller during the first garden prep. To date, there have been at least 80, random squash sprouts! Everyday there are new sprouts to pull! I wish everything grew from seed so easily!!!!! I did not intentionally plant them, go figure "those" are doing so well.

When weeding the garden last week. A couple weeds were not distinguishable. So, let them grow a bit. Looks like they are some sort of tomato plant! If so, there are at least a half dozen squirting out of the soil. They would be from last years tomato starts. Either Roma, cherry tom's, sweet 100 or a combination of each.

At what point can a young sprout be fertilized without fear of burning or killing it?

[racfish]

Im picking peas daily now.Lettuce is almost doe and now putting in my summer stuff. Cukes have flowers. Turnips are ready to go to. I just wish it will warm up soon. My one apple tree had loads of blooms but that cold spell wiped them out.I'll most likely see very lil fruit this year.
The Mantis killed me from thick shallow roots from an old tree. Tore up my back but oh well. Good luck to all.

[rseas]

Here are a few pictures of our garden after a frost induced restart. Currently we have tomatoes, bell peppers, various herbs, beets, chard, carrots, peas, beans, soy beans, corn and peas. In an area off picture we also have various melons, cucumbers and a couple different kinds of pumpkins in work. In addition to the vegetables we also have a 4 in 1 grafted apple tree, one 3 in 1 grafted Asian pear tree, one 3 in 1 grafted European Pear tree, a peach tree, an Italian plum tree, 6 or 7 blueberry plants, a bunch of strawberry plants and table grapes. We just set up the vegetable garden area and plan to fence it in this winter. The grapes were planted as a living screen a few years ago and this will be the first year we will be able to harvest grapes. With the late frost our fruit trees and blueberry bushes took a hard hit this spring but come harvest time we will still have a few apples and blueberries.

[racfish]

Skagit valley is so nice and fertile.Your soil has that dark rich look.Nice looking yard. I planted Champagne grapes on year and really got alot. The last few years I got no grapes. Besides my garden Im helping out my 10 yo nephew whos really into growing veggies. Hes a quick learner and fun to garden with. Im hoping that he will can with me too. I froze my first bag of Snow Peas last night.This past week my fruit trees took the same cold snap. We'll see on the fruit trees.

[MotoBoat]

Randy, what melons have you planted? Have you had luck growing melons in the past. I thought we had to short a "sunny" season to grow them! Therefore, even though I have seeds from purchased supermarket melons. That has been saved, dried, and ready for planting.

The various veggie and fruit plants I have researched for growing, included honeydew, and Cantelope. Melons like it hot, and they can cross pollinate amongst melons, and are recommended to be planted in a bachelor group type setting. How do you have yours located in the garden?

I thought bees did all the plant pollinating. But the wind does that job too!

[afk]

I picked my first Blueberry this A.M.! Wife said it was a little tart. I don't have the netting up yet and didn't want the birds to get the first one. I'm ambarassed I don't know the variety but, it is 2-4 weeks ahead of some of the other varieties. Grazing season is about to begin! Blueberries, Raspberries, & Cherries soon!

[racfish]

Ive tried melons in Seattle without much luck. I tried the mini watermelons. I got these softball sized melons with no juice at all. I just think we dont get the heat ,sun or growing days for melons.

[rseas]

Randy, what melons have you planted? Have you had luck growing melons in the past. I thought we had to short a "sunny" season to grow them! Therefore, even though I have seeds from purchased supermarket melons. That has been saved, dried, and ready for planting.

The various veggie and fruit plants I have researched for growing, included honeydew, and Cantelope. Melons like it hot, and they can cross pollinate amongst melons, and are recommended to be planted in a bachelor group type setting. How do you have yours located in the garden?

I thought bees did all the plant pollinating. But the wind does that job too!

Well then, come harvest time we are destined to have an interesting mix of melons. I don’t exactly remember which melons we planted but they are all planted in a common 8’ by 20’ or so plot. In all honesty I had heard that different varieties of melons will cross pollinate but didn’t pay much attention to the information. Historically our most successful PNW melon has been either the Burbee Evening Dew melon or Muskmelons. In addition to these we also planted cantaloupe and watermelon but with the late frost restart our overall melon crop may not have enough time to mature and form the starch/sugars needed to fully ripen.

Regarding pollination, there are many pollinators. Hummingbirds, flies, the wind, butterflies, other bugs, humans and bees can contribute to pollination. The flower ladder pictured above is located just outside my office window so I am often watching my little micro-biosphere of activity as I work. Everything from bees to birds will visit the flowers on their daily feeding flights. For plants or trees that seem to have a difficult time with natural pollination I will often take a fine tipped paint brush and assist the pollination process by swirling it around in a blossom then repeating the process with many of the remaining blossoms. Our corn is densely planted and laid out the way it is by design, I figure that when the time is right I will just gently shake or rustle the corn stalks to distribute the pollen to the waiting ears of corn (hmmm, in thinking about it we should have planted White Shoepeg corn…). I think that the crazy, cold, wet weather this spring was a major hindrance to our successful gardening efforts. Between the frost based die-off and the effect on the natural pollinators in doing their job with our earlier blossoming plants it will be interesting to how things turn out.

[afk]

Rseas, I love your ladder. Are your pots screwed or glued down to keep the flowers safe from the wind?

Andy

[rseas]

Rseas, I love your ladder. Are your pots screwed or glued down to keep the flowers safe from the wind?

Andy

Thank you, for quite some time I had been thinking about setting up a ladder flower garden. Then while we were running around doing errands we saw a similar project at local hardware store. Since we were just down the street from a Habitat for Humanity building supply store I decided to stop and see if they had a suitable ladder. Easier said than done, I love the store and it always takes me forever to browse my way through the store. Finally finding the pile of used ladders a sunbeam mysteriously appears and illuminates our ladder. That was all I needed so we hauled it to the front desk and 20 dollars ladder we were on our way. Once at its new home I intentionally left it outside to weather and gain some character. Character in place (I was tired of waiting), I let the ladder dry for a few days then hit it with a generous soaking of Thompson Waterseal. Currently the terracotta pots are just sitting on the steps and paint bucket rest. Although the pots are pretty stable as is, I do plan to make some pot rests out of rough sawn lumber and galvanized hardware cloth that will hook over the back of the steps, using the weight of the pot to lock them in place.

Although not very easy to see, the attached picture is of a wire form I whooped up to personalize the whole thing and hang the hanging pot from. The resulting “art” is part of my redneck driveway/patio plan. We have the hoity toity girl’s patio and I want a redneck driveway patio.

[afk]

Rseas, I do like your style!

[racfish]

I love my garden but I dont often take pictures of it. My garden looks like an old shanty town garden. I grab scrap wood from job sites that I'm on and old olive cans from Italy. I love the ladder idea. that would be great for climbing plants and even my olive cans. I will take some pics and post them. I happen to have some older wood ladders that will work nicely.