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Hot Weather Means the End of the Cool Season Crops

5/11/2022

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Here in Memphis this week we are going to get into the 90s and that will do in all of our leafy greens. Late last week UT Assistant Professor of Residential and Consumer Horticulture Natalie Bumgarner came in from Knoxville to tape a few Family Plot shows and with her help we harvested the rest of the mustard and turnip greens (including the turnip roots), and lettuce.
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Natalie harvesting the greens
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Lettuce right before harvest

Cool Season Leafy Green Totals

Here are the total harvest we got from our cool season leafy greens
Vegetable
Total Harvest
Area in Garden (sqft)
Notes
Radish
3.5 lbs
2
32 Radishes
Spinach
.858 lb
2
There should be one more harvest of the spinach
Green Lettuce
1.12 lb
1
4 leaf lettuce plants
Red Lettuce
0
1
No seeds germinated
Mustard Greens
1.71
1
 
Turnip Greens
.7 lb
1
 
Turnip Roots
.58 lb
1
5 turnip roots
Peas
1.08 lb
4
They are still going strong. We should get much more here
We also have picked 1.08 lb of peas so far. That should keep going for awhile. We may need to push back the cucumber planting to keep the peas going.

Planting

While Natalie was in Memphis we taped a segment with her planting peppers. She planted three 'Big Bertha' pepper plants in the garden. One of them was grafted and she talked about the benefits of grafting and showed how to plant that one too. While she was here we also had her plant an eggplant, watermelon, and cantaloupe.

Also in the last few days we have planted summer squash and another round of bush beans. The summer garden is getting going. We have seen some flowers on the tomatoes so we should be getting the first of those in a few weeks.


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Natalie planting peppers. Watch for the segment on Family plot in a few weeks
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The three pepper plants in the ground. The middle one is grafted.
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Planting Eggplant
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Summer straight-neck squash seeds
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The next two squares of green beans.
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The spring rains have slowed down so I need to water ever couple of days. Because it is a raised bed with loose soil (mostly compost) it has very good drainage and dries out fast. I will be installing a drip irrigation system so the garden will water itself. We are looking for maximum production so having very dry soil for even a day or two could realy reduce the harvest on some plants.

We have plants growing in almost every square now. I am having trouble finding sweet potatoes so if I can't find some I will repurpose those squares to something else.
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More Leafy Greens to Eat & the First Bug Problem

4/26/2022

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We have more good leafy greens to eat. We have made the first harvest on the spinach, mustard greens, and turnip greens. They were all needing a hair cut. To pick these we cut off the largest leaves, leaving the smaller leaves to grow more for a future harvest. Here is the results of each plant:

Spinach 1/4 Pound

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Before
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After
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Turnip (1/4 lb) and Mustard (5/8 lb) Greens

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Before
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After
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Turnip Greens
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Mustard Greens

Something is Eating the Mustard Greens

While we were picking the mustard greens we noticed holes in the leaves. Something is getting to them before us. We looked thought the plants and did not see anything, except a snail, which we removed. I don't think one small snail can do all that damage so we will have to keep an eye out for the other culprit.
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Weeding

It is getting warm and weeds are growing great too. A great benefit of a small raised bed is that you can easily pull them without having to bend all the way over to the ground. Between hand pulling and a little work with a hoe these weeds are no more.
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The weeds are starting to grow thick, but they are small and easy to get rid of.
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After the hoe. Because there are no weed seeds involved, we will leave them to decompose.

A Garden Visitor

While we were pulling some lemon balm that was growing by the greens in the walkway around the bed we found a toad. Maybe he can take care of the mustard green problem... or maybe he already has.
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The First Harvest

4/20/2022

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We have the first harvest of the garden season! We pulled the radishes. We had 32 radishes that weighed 3.5 lbs. Out of all of them there was only one that was cracked. They crack because they get too much water, and this year there has been plenty of that from Mother Nature. Radishes are a great way to start the growing season because they only take about 6 weeks from seed to harvest. We pulled them because we were afraid they were going to bolt. Here is a good guide on when to pull them: When to Harvest Radishes.
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Also last week we passed the average last freeze here in Memphis so it is time to plant some more plants that are less cold tolerant. This year we are participating in the University of Tennessee Home Vegetable Trials. We will be growing bush beans and cucumbers as part of the trial. The bush beans are a comparison of the Antigua and Dulcina varieties. We planted the first round of bush beans yesterday.  It was 2 squares, one of each type. In two weeks we will plant another two squares (where the radishes were), and then two weeks after that we will plant another two squares (where the spinach is growing now. That's a slight change from the master plan. We'll be posting a video about planting the beans soon.
We also planted Basil at 4 plants in a square. Two of the plants are sweet basil and the other two are purple basil. We planned for them to be next to the tomatoes because the two plants help each other out. We got the basil at Home Depot and there were several plants in each pot so we pinched off the extra. Unfortunately, there were too close to separate.
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We also planted the other 2 tomatoes. One is 'Black Cherry', which is a variety Alainia Hagerty recommended. The other is 'Celebrity.' We planted the black cherry the normal way because the plant was small. The Celebrity plant we planted using the trench method, which Alainia showed us how to do. Here is the video of Alainia planting using the trench method.

The tomatoes we planted a month ago are still doing well. They have survived the few cold nights we have had.
In the last few weeks the garden has realy exploded. It has been cool and moist, perfect plant growing weather. The spinach and greens are ready to pick a few leaves, the peas are flowering, the lettuce, carrots, cauliflower,and onions are growing fast.
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Spinach
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Turnip and Mustard Greens with some volunteer lemon balm growing outside the bed
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Peas
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Cauliflower
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Lettuce and Carrots
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Onions
The Swiss chard is still being difficult. The one plant that came up from the first seeding 6 weeks ago is looking sick and the second seeding from two weeks ago is doing nothing. I am going to check the store for some transplants to use instead. Joellen Dimond said she has the same problem with Swiss chard in her garden so it might just be the climate or conditions in this area.
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    Square Foot Garden

    This year we are trying out square foot gardening. We will be growing a 4x8 garden and seeing what happens and finding out how much we can grow in such a small space.

    Categories

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    Garden Status
    Here is what is growing right now in the Garden:
    (click the picture to zoom)
    Master Plan
    We hope to follow this plan to be able to maximize our harvest. (click to zoom)
    Our Harvest So Far
    5.50 lb Radishes (32 plants)
    1.09 lb Spinach
    0.70 lb Turnip Greens
    0.58 lb Turnip Roots
    1.71 lb Mustard Greens
    3.71 lb Peas
    1.12 lb Green Lettuce
    0.83 lb Cauliflower (1 head)
    ​3.74 lb Basil
    3.96 lb Carrots (46)
    0.11 lb Green Beans (bust)
    24.17 lb Tomatoes (225)
    4.77 lb Onions (16)
    0.53 lb Summer Squash (2)
    8.69 lb Eggplant (25)
    9.40 lb Cantaloupe (4)
    9.90 lb Watermelon (3)
    21.19lb Cucumbers (34)
    3.17 lb Peppers (19)
    0.58 lb Oak Leaf Lettuce
    1.20 lb Romaine Lettuce
    8.45 lb Sweet Potato (6)
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