April | 2011 | willsfamilyacres

Archive for April, 2011

>Cucs and Tomatoes Variety Review – 1 month in

Posted in cucumbers, tomato on April 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Suyo Long

Not sure if you can tell from this picture, but this baby cucumber is really long. The tag says they get to be 15″! It’s amazing how much of a difference I can already see between this variety and the others.

Sweet Slice

I have two of these plants. (You can kind of see the other in the background). These have really done nothing. I’m hoping they take off at some point, but right now they are just wasting valuable real estate. The one has at least grabbed hold of the trellis, but barely. I’m interested to see if I get any production out of them.

Suyo Long

This one has taken off vertically and seems to be doing pretty well. It has produced a few baby cucs so far and is flowering well.

National Pickling

Seems to like horizontal more than vertical and ignores any efforts at training it to go in a specific direction. It does have a few baby cucs and is flowering though, so I can’t complain too much.

General Lee

This one is growing off very well and has taken to the trellis. You can see it also seems to prefer the horizontal direction. I have three plants all heading for the exact same corner, must be something about the morning sun.

Lemon

Doing well and seems to be a vertical climber, which I am very happy about.

Roma

All six of these have fruit.

La Roma

Neither of the two have fruit, but one has some pretty good flowers. I didn’t think there would be much of a difference between Roma and La Roma, but apparently there is.

Black Cherry

These and the Sun Golds have maturing fruit, good plant growth and lots of flowers.

Yellow Pear Cherry

I have two of these and one just got it’s first fruit today. I’ve had luck with these in the past, so I’m not too stressed about their late start.

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>Tomatillo Production

Posted in Vegetables on April 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

>Last year was my first year growing tomatillos. I love the flavor and couldn’t wait to make all kinds of salsas and sauces, but much to my disappointment the plants would not set fruit. They finally produced about 10 total near the tail end of the summer, but that was hardly a good crop.

I had read that you need at least two plants, since they will not self-pollinate and proceeded to plant the minimum number. This year I decided to double them and have a total of 4 in the same bed. Already I have at least 15 full size husks. I am excited to see how the summer plays out with this kind of production so early.

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>Garden Firsts

Posted in cucumbers, pepper, tomato on April 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

With the move and having to wait on the deer fence, my garden got in a few weeks later than I would have liked. It can be a little discouraging to see others’ plants doing so well, where mine seem to be stagnant, especially my heirloom tomatoes. At least I’ve had a few firsts this week though, including my first ripe cherry tomato (Sun Gold).

First Cucumber Siting, General Lee

First full size pepper, Hungarian Hot

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>Not All Gardening is Fun

Posted in pests on April 17, 2011| 3 Comments »

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Last night my friend and I were admiring the giant yucca stalk that will soon be covered in flowers, when we discovered my nemesis.

Mixed in with the 100 or so yuccas was poison ivy. Argh!

Do you know how much it sucks to pull out poison ivy while being stabbed by needles? Not only did it hurt like heck, but each little stab put a hole in my gloves, risking further poison ivy exposure.

I wasn’t able to dig out all of the ivy, since some of it was in the middle of the yucca bed, so I’ll just have to keep an eye on it and regularly trim it back. I think I’ll also look into trimming back that yucca. I’m not sure which will be harder to get rid of.

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