August 25, 2016 - Rounding the corner on summer

In mid-late summer now and the tomatoes are just now ready for picking. The weather has remained surprisingly consistent with the cool days below 70°F and the nights just below 60°F with lots of overcast well into each afternoon. Cooler than average days all around the bay and just a tad warmer than average at night. No heat waves and none on the horizon at all, in fact mostly the opposite.
The beans are still going full blast as are the peppers and the herbs. The broccoli seeds have progressed, I'll probably try putting some out next weekend, Labor Day, adding rows of kale, chard, and greens.
I'm thinking about not planting either garlic or onions over the winter as I've been less than thrilled with the results this time. The garlic harvests well but they don't seem to keep more than a few months. The taste of them isn't any more than I get at the markets either, unlike tomatoes, beans, herbs, or greens that are so much better from the garden. This would also leave me an extra box to experiment with over the winter and spring. The onions are also indistinguishable from what I can buy in the store. I keep hoping to use the spring garlic or onions but never seem to get around to doing so all that much.

The tomato plants are dying back and the fruit is starting to come now.

The peppers are doing well. I'm looking forward to stretching them out to get some good red ones for frying and pickling.

The herbs are filling the box. The diligent pruning I've been doing on the oreganos and thymes have really improved the results. I'm so hesitant to discard the flowers and tops but there's nothing to do with so much and the plant will really halt production if I don't keep at it.

Definitely planted too many beans but I'd rather have too many than not enough.

Just started some beet seeds in Box 4 where the lettuce was. Also seeded some methi in its own pot to see if we like using the greens.

August 14, 2016 - tomatoes ripening

Summer weather has remained quite temperate, the beans are coming strong, the remaining squash plant has pooped out unexpectedly early, and the tomatoes are just now starting to ripen.

I started some broccoli seeds last week as there are still no plants for sale in the nurseries. They really germinated quickly within just a week so I may be able to thin out transplant by the end of the month into Box 1 for Autumn.

Box 1
The squash is done, not sure why it pooped so early. Other than rather severe mildew which I tried to control with pruning, the plant seemed ok. We got a good harvest but it only really lasted a bit more than a month. The box has been getting drip @60 minutes 3x's a week all summer. The squash had bubblers and the beans had the drip. Now I've turn off the bubblers and cut the time to 45 minutes per session.

The beans are full on now. Next year I should plant half as many as it's too hard to find the beans within the canopy and we can't eat them all anyway.

Box 2
The cherry gold tomatoes are coming now and quite tasty.

These are the first full tomatoes to ripen, the Carmellos. Early Girls are turning as well as one of the Better Boys. Full on harvest for all plants within two weeks it seems like. As I noted earlier, the plants will stay lush with regular watering just until the fruit is ready to ripen. At that point the greenery starts to die back regardless of how much water the plants are given. It actually seems like keeping the same watering schedule at this point would be too much for the plant and would hurt the harvest so I've cut back from two hand waterings and one drip @60 minutes per week to two drips @45 minutes per week while keeping an eye on them.

Box 4
The padróns are coming, plenty of flowers but fruit is taking its time to ripen. Drip has been 60 minutes x 3 times a week, now down to 45 minutes x 3.

Box 5
The herbs are shoulder-to-shoulder in the box, everything doing very well. Drip has been 60 minutes x 3 times a week, now down to 45 minutes x 3.

I decided to put dill and cilantro into their own pots since I was having such bad luck with them in the boxes. I'll be trying to stagger seedings as long as it works. I also have some methi (fenugreek) seeds coming in the mail and will try a pot of those as well in the same manner when I get them.

August 4, 2016 - mid-summer

Here we are in mid-summer and most everything is busting out pretty well. The weather this year, unlike the past couple of years, has been very consistent - very mild days in the low 70's and evenings bottoming out mid to high-50's. However the peppers and tomatoes have been doing very well although there still hasn't been a whole lot of either to pick yet. The beans are just starting to come consistently. And although we had quite a bit of the crookneck summer squash, it seems for some reason that it's already starting to stall. I expected it to last at through September so not sure what's up with it.

Box 1

The beans are really coming out now but it's pretty obvious to me that I planted way too many. I tried setting space for four separate plantings but could only get in two. I staggered two rows and kept the poles about a foot apart and put 8 seeds per planting. Next year I should go with four at most and add better support for the poles. As for the squash, although we're still getting fruit, they are not growing quite as quickly and the plant itself seems to succumbing to severe mildew and growth is slowing down considerably.

Box 2

The tomatoes have grown so much better this year but it's just now that the fruit is starting to ripen. Again I think that a healthier plant will take its time to set out fruit as long as it has the means to keep growing, that once the fruit is set the plant changes direction and halts the process. That would explain why we got fruit as early as the end of May last year. The fruit looks fantastic and should lead to a bumper crop within a couple of weeks and hopefully last well into October. I've kept up a thorough schedule of watering - hand watering on Monday and Thursday with drip irrigation at an hour on Saturday morning with two leads into each plant's reservoir. I also fed with the neutral fertilizer back at the end of June.

Box 3

I just removed the remaining onions to store inside and will be preparing the bed for cole crops this weekend - kale, chard, broccoli, etc.

Box 4

The peppers are starting to set fruit. We got one crop of padróns so far with plenty more to come. There is still a bit of lettuce to go, I added a new set of seeds yesterday to fill in the spaces along with some beet and radish seeds. There is a new crop of beets ready to pull and the basil has done very well.

Box 5

The herbs have done very well I think due to a more diligent pruning on my part especially of the oreganos and thymes. I've had some trouble getting a good bunch of parsley going but I've had enough to work with so far. Replanting a new herb box each year seems to be the way to go from now on.