June 13, 2015

May kept to form the entire month with much cooler temperatures than normal and sustained breezes of 10-20mph just about every day, not the best conditions for growing summer vegetables, especially tomatoes and peppers. We even had measurable rain the past week, about .1-.2" on Wednesday. I guess I was rather spoiled from the past two summers when the tomato plants had already been well established and busting out of their cages by this point, photos below illustrating the comparison to this year. Back then we had calm winds with consistently warm daytime and nighttime temperatures, almost an entirely different climate. Such is the life of an urban farmer.

It looks like things are about to turn around though with temps into the 80s most of the coming week. Hopefully the plants can perk up from the warmth.

Box 1

The lettuce, mesclun, beets, and radish seeds I planted last month have germinated only sporadically and I think I've determined why. First it might be that the cats, Isis especially, in their zeal to get over to the garlic so that they sleep in them, may have trampled them as the pattern would suggest it. It may have also been due to birds and/or the fact that the ground wasn't moist enough, either during seeding or germination, to support growth. I added a bird net formatted like a cage on stakes to handle cats and birds, moistened the soil well, and have been keeping it moist but not too wet which seems to be yielding better results now. Hopefully by next post the photos will show a row of crops here.

The garlic is getting close to maturity. Once the tops have completely died back I'll harvest them, probably the first or second week of July. And no flower stalks have appeared either, which is testament to the regular watering, I think.

Box 2

I removed the remaining beets and we got a very nice yield, very tasty in salads now that we've roasted them all. The first planting of beans are coming up and one shoot has already appeared from the second planting, which was Tuesday June 9. The squash are doing ok, we've pulled three of the Romescos for dinner last week. I plan to keep on them so as to not let any get to the size of baseball bats and basically inedible. 

I'm curious to see how I can handle the large growth in one of these larger beds this year.

Box 3

above, tomato plants today in 2015

below, tomato plants on June 7, 2013

As the photos show, 2013 had superior growth by the beginning of June which held up to an amazing yield by time of harvest. This was also the case in 2014 which yielded even more fruit. Hopefully a change in the weather can save the guys this year as we go into summer. A visual demonstration of how a cold May (high 50's-low 60's daytime, high 40's-low 50's night) can stifle tomatoes. Peppers have been hurting as well.

Box 4

The herbs are doing ok. I've trimmed back the oregano, marjoram, and thyme flowers, drying them in bunches. The next seeding of cilantro and dill seem to be taking considerably longer to grow than the ones I planted in January had taken. I'll have plenty soon enough but it's looking like January had much better growing conditions this year than May had - strange, very strange.
Neither of the two parsley plants growing now have never really taken off, it may be that they've been too crowded. I'm going to remove the extra chives plant and see if that helps one of them. Maybe fertilize them a bit too.

Box 5

I pulled the celery. They'd done well but just grew too much and got too old to be of much use. We just don't use enough celery and it takes up too much space to make it feasible for growing. It was an interesting experiment, though. 

The peppers are hurting for the same reasons as the tomatoes are, just too damn cold this Spring. The beets have done very well, the carrots are growing, and it looks like the basil should do fine with a bit more warmth.

Containers

Still getting away with only one watering a week. I'll probably have to increase that if the average temperatures start to rise.

Persimmon tree

We've determined that the soil for the persimmon is fine - they like 6.5 to 7.5 pH and the soil it sits in is just a tad over 7.0. The lighter leaves at the top are not necessarily a bad sign as apparently that is rather common for new growth. As long as the fruit stays on, we should be good there. 

The tree has been taking a lot of buffeting from the persistent winds, though. It sounds like that will help strengthen the tree over the long term, we'll see. 

Lemon tree

The lemon tree is doing very well - a large amount of good-sized fruit. The lime tree by my office is quite weak though. I'll stay with it through next winter and see if it ever gets established. It's not in a premium location, though, so if I have to replace it, I may re-think where it should go.