Watermelon!!!

The watermelon haven't stopped growing, and for the last three weeks we've been trying to eat them faster than they go bad. We're now losing, so I've had to throw four or five in the compost bin already (the honey bees love them). Luckily there are still several that developed later and provide more than enough watermelon each week. We managed to get two that were over 20lbs which seems a bit odd for the Sugar Baby variety, but they tasted great so no complaints.

The Jarrahdale pumpkins that we planted are now wilting and turning yellow from what appears to be bacterial wilt. We still have four or five pumpkins that look like they'll make it, but we will have to find a better variety next year since nothing seems to stop the squash bugs and cucumber beetles.

We started harvesting the second planting of Pink Eye Purple Hull peas yesterday along with a second harvest on the first plants. The second plantings of soybeans appear to be very close to being ready, and the Lima beans are getting close as well. The eggplants are still growing like crazy, and we probably have 30 or more on them right now.

Last weekend we started on some fall plantings by sowing some carrot seed in one of the raised beds. We'll continue with the fall plantings as soon as Carrie finishes deciding what we should plant.

Some color!

The sunflowers started blooming just as we made it to August (we did start them a bit late this year). Since they've done pretty well without much effort on our part and look very cool, we'll have to plant more next year assuming the birds don't steal all the seeds.

We picked our first crop of Edamame (Envy) yesterday which was roughly 3.5lbs (in the shell) for two rows of plants about 6' long. Next year I think we'll try giving them a bit more space and try using an inoculant to fix more nitrogen into the soil. Our second crop is now flowering, so we should be ready to harvest more around the first of September.

We've also harvested about 3lbs (shelled) of Pink-Eye Purple-Hull peas from one 6' row of plants. They are still producing, and we have another section in one of our raised beds that should start producing in a few weeks.

The Lima beans in both the front and the back are starting to flower finally, and they look very healthy so far. The two green beans that germinated in the raised bed are flowering as well, so maybe we will get a few green beans after all.

The peanuts in the back (that were planted a bit too late) started flowering a little over a week ago. I'm still not very hopeful that they will produce anything before it frosts, but they are at least getting bigger after the rain this week.

We did manage to get a small crop of strawberries that started a few weeks ago. These were from our everbearing strawberries that we planted this year in one raised bed and in the back. The raised bed was almost entirely filled in, so we decided to let them go. It then turned into a fight again slugs (won mostly by using Sluggo) and birds. Next year we'll be sure to use the row covers as much as possible to keep the birds off.

The pumpkins have turned into a breeding ground for squash bugs, and cucumber beetles are in love with them as well. One vine wilted the other day, so I'm guessing one of the squash-vine-borers I saw managed to hide an egg on it. So for now, we'll continue to squish squash bug eggs, fend off the beetles, and hope that maybe we'll get a pumpkin or two.

Finally some rain...

It's been over a month, but we finally got about 1/3rd of an inch of rain this week. The soybeans are still doing great though, and the pink-eye-purple-hull peas are finally starting to look like peas. The Lima beans in the back seem to have recovered from the heat, and both those and the ones in the raised bed seem to be doing well now. The green beans were pretty much a failure as I was unable to get them to sprout even on a moist paper towel. Hopefully next year we'll have better luck with seeds from a different company.

One of our zucchini plants completely wilted in just over a day from what appeared to be squash vine borers despite having row covers over it until just before it started blooming. Unfortunately I did not know what to check for before we removed the plant, but a few days later we saw one of the moths on the neighboring zucchini. I had to prune the surviving plant a bit to remove stems that appeared to have been recently bored into. So far the remaining plant is doing well and is producing plenty of zucchini. I also planted a few more seeds just to see if they'd produce a late crop. In the fall we will have to till the bed a bit and remove any caterpillars that managed to survive.

The melons all seem to be doing very well, and we should have over 20 watermelons if they all make it. Hopefully it will rain some more this week and help them along.

Happy (late) 4th of July

Another week and the tomatoes are all beginning to ripen along with several zucchini.  We still have had almost no rain -- nothing longer than 10minutes a couple of times.  Luckily the plants are still doing fine with some drip irrigation and a once-a-week watering for the plants and trees in the back.We did learn why not to use row covers in 90+ degree weather even for new seedlings.  The Lima beans got a bit crispy under it, although the peanuts, watermelon, and pumpkins did fine.  The green beans (Heavyweight II) that we planted in both the back and in a raised bed on the side of the yard are not doing so well.  So far only one or two have come up out of about 20.  Maybe they will live up to their name, and we'll have plenty.

We also seem to have had much better luck planting shelled peanuts instead of leaving them in the shells.  The directions suggested both methods depending on the climate, but so far none of the in-shell peanuts have come up.  All of the shelled ones have, so we're hoping that there will be enough time for them to grow as we planted them pretty late this year.
On the bright side, the watermelon are growing very quickly, and we seem to have several (11-12) from 3 mounds that are larger than a softball.  The cantaloupes are doing pretty well (3-4) and we have one that is now larger than a baseball.  Unfortunately, the watermelon seem to be doing a little too well and are taking over the entire area.  It will be interesting to see how big they get in another week.

Where's the rain?

It's been at least two weeks since we've gotten any rain and there is none in the forecast for the  rest of the week.  So far everything is doing pretty well with the help of the mulch and the drip irrigation in the raised beds. The grass could definitely use some rain as it's getting a bit crispy.
The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are still looking good and we're starting to get several ripe cherry tomatoes, Romas, and a few Better Boy. The two zucchini that we planted in a 10' long raised bed with some basil and two soybeans are now trying to take over the entire bed. The zucchini should start flowering this week.
The first 60' long row that we started around the end of May is doing very well. From east to west, we planted a few sets of Sugar Baby watermelon, Sierra Gold cantaloupe, and Poinsett 76 slicing cucumbers. We then planted a few feet of Envy soybeans in two closely spaced rows and then roughly 6' of Pink Eye Purple Hull Peas. We also planted about 12' of asparagus in early May on the east end of the row in a permanent location.
As a bit of an experiment, we planted another set of watermelons at the end of the row in a strip of black landscape fabric that had been there for the last two years. We did not till the area and rake it into a hill as we did with the rest of the row, but I thought I'd try as I had read about the benefits of using black plastic and thought the landscape fabric would work out.  This turned out to be a bit of a mistake as only 3 of the 5 seeds came up (we had close to 100% germination in the raised rows).  The ones in the fabric took twice as long to germinate and are now only 2.5' in diameter vs over 6' for the ones in the rows.  Next year we might try using some black plastic on the actual raised rows and will start a little earlier.  So far we have several small (less than 1") sized watermelons developing, though I have not seen any cantaloupe or cucumbers yet.It has been a week since we planted the 2nd row in the back and most of what we planted has germinated.  All of the Lima beans that we planted have germinated, several of the green beans, all of the watermelon, and almost all of the pumpkins have germinated.  The peanuts that we removed from the shell have germinated as well.  We will see how much longer the non-shelled peanuts take.

Carrie pulled up the remaining garlic and shallots from one and a quarter of our raised beds, and yesterday we planted another batch of Lima beans, green beans, and Pink Eye Purple Hull peas.  I made another batch of compost tea and sprayed most of the veggies and fruit trees.  Carrie harvested about 7oz of blueberries, and finally, we noticed that two of our hazelnut bushes have a few (12-15 total) nuts forming on them -- not bad I guess considering two of them finally made it into the ground this year.

New Plantings (Beans, Peanuts, and Pumpkins)

Yesterday (June 22) we spent a few hours preparing a 60' long strip behind our apple trees in the back.  We used the same process that worked very well for the last row that we did along the front of the fruit trees.  First we tilled the strip 4' wide with the tractor and roughly 8" deep.  Next I ran the 4" wide hoe down the sides while Carrie pulled the extra dirt onto the top.  The result was a raised mound about 3' wide at the base and around 1.5' at the top.  The final step was to move about 25 loads of wood chips and composted horse manure (yay for neighbors with horses) to fill in down the sides of the strip and between the apple trees.  This was done mostly to keep the weeds down, but it should also help build the soil up a bit more.

We then planted a small 4' section of green beans (Heavyweight II), a 12' section of lima beans (Fordhook 242), an 18' section of peanuts (Jumbo Virgina), another mound of watermelon (Sugar Baby), and two mounds of pumpkins (Jarrahdale and Small Sugar).  Finally we put row covers down and watered in a bit since the temperatures have been in the 90s.

It may be a bit too late to plant the peanuts, but we figured we'd give it a chance since the last stuff germinated quickly.  I'll post a few pictures once the plants start to come up.

Blueberries, Cucumbers, Eggplants, and Basil

I thought I'd try to use the blog to keep track of when our fruit and vegetables started to ripen. That way we will have a better idea of what we can expect next year, and we can also see how bed location affects production and growth rate. (We're both engineers, so there's no avoiding our nerdiness.)

Yesterday was the first day that I was able to pick enough blueberries for a decent picture. Most of these were from one of our five plants, and these were only about 1/4^th of the blueberries on that plant.  The other plants, which are different varieties, still have mostly green berries.  I would expect those to take at least a few more weeks before they start ripening.  I'll go over the varieties we have and how we planted them soon.

We planted three pickling cucumbers that Carrie got from the Apex farmer's market the first or second week of May (see I knew there was a reason to write this stuff down).  We put them in a raised bed with three eggplants and three tomatillos.  They started producing about the end of the first week in June and have been going non-stop ever since.  We were getting 4 to 5 cucumbers a day, though I picked 8 yesterday and 13 today.  In the last two weeks we've picked around 40 to 50.  The plants seem to be quite "happy" so far, which is understandable considering what they're growing in.  I now fear what the two squash plants are going to do as well as the other cucumbers in the back.

Carrie made 2 quarts of refrigerated sliced dill pickles the other day, so once we get a chance to try them I'll go over the recipe she used.  Hopefully they are edible because she's in the kitchen now making several more jars in an attempt to keep up with the plants' production.  I have a feeling we're going to need more jars...

In the same raised bed as the cucumbers, we planted three 3" seedling Ichiban eggplants in mid-May.  (The Ichiban variety are a bit more slender than the normal globe shaped kinds, though they taste the same.)  Earlier last week we harvested one 7-8" long eggplant from each plant.  Today there were three to four 2-3" eggplants on each plant with several flowers blooming, so it looks like we'll get quite a few this summer.

The bugs seem to love the foilage on these, and the Japanese Beetles do not want to leave them alone.  The plants seem to be plenty healthy, though if we had set these out much later, we would definitely have needed row covers.

Next year we might try some of the globe shaped kind since they are should have a better "meat" to seed ratio.

We needed to thin out some of our basil, so I'll include it since it tasted just fine in our pasta Friday night :).  Carrie direct seeded it in a 3' row in one of the raised beds in mid-May.  We've had a row-cover over it ever since, which is why I think it looks so good right now.  I think the plan is to start some more shortly to extend the growing season.

... 3 years later

So it has been a little less than three years since we finished building our house in Apex, NC on 2.5 acres. This photo was taken just after we finished in September, 2006. Since then we've made a few changes and done a "little" bit of yard work.

The back half of our yard was covered in kudzu and several privet (also covered in kudzu). We had some help getting it cleared and have managed to get it under control with frequent mowing and a little Roundup.  Unfortunately it won't grow on the buildings and delivery truck behind us.

Before Clearing	After Clearing

I suppose I should actually be thankful(?) that the kudzu was there as it is a legume, and it seems to have done an excellent job fertilizing the soil for what has now replaced it.  We still have small shoots pop up in various places, but it is easy to mow over and will hopefully get the idea that it is no longer welcome in the next couple of years.  However, I have no doubt that if we went on vacation for 2 years that it would look like the 'before' picture when we got back.

Today the back looks a little different.  The pine trees and Sweetgums have grow a bit and now fight for control of the property line.  We "fenced" in a 80' x 35' area where we planted a small orchard.  Currently we have 2 peach trees, 2 plum trees, 1 fig tree, 5 apple trees, and 3 pawpaw trees (to the right outside the fence).  Along the front row of trees we planted around 35 strawberries and in front of those we planted melons and beans.  Just behind the fence, we have 6 different muscadine vines on 2 trellises.  Behind and to the left of that we have 3 walnut trees and 2 chestnut trees.  We'll be planting a few pecan trees behind those next year and that should be it for fruit and nut trees.  (The fenced in areas that you see are around the nut trees and are an attempt to keep the deer from destroying them before they get a chance to grow.)

We have a vegetable garden that we started this year in 10 raised beds to the northeast of our house as well as 3 hazelnut shrubs from the Arbor Day Foundation.  To the south of the garden we have planted 5 blueberry bushes and will try to propagate 3 to 4 more this year.  We also managed to get a drip irrigation system installed before the temperature hit 95.

In addition to all of that, we seeded our yard with TifBlair Centipede. It looks great after just two years in the front yard, but it is taking a while to defeat the crabgrass in the back yard.  (I'll go into more detail on how not to seed your yard at some point).  We have also been working on a fairly large (2000+ ft²) bed in the front yard which is finally ready for a few more plants and trees.
Last summer we had a detached 2-car garage built, and just recently finished adding a patio and sidewalk to it this month.  The garage was required(?) after Carrie decided last spring that we should get a sub-compact utility tractor (Kubota BX2350) -- who was I to argue :)?  The tractor is amazing, and there is definitely no way we could have finished as much stuff as we have done on the yard and garden without it.  I'll do a little review of it and the attachments we have soon.

So that is where we are today (June 20^th, 2009).  Hopefully we're closer to being able to enjoy the yard, but I know we'll never be done with all the work in it.  We'll be adding to the blog to write about things we've done in the past few years in more detail as well as all the gardening related things we'll do in the future.  We'll also be using the blog to help us remember what we've planted in different beds so that we can do proper crop rotations the following year.  Hopefully we'll learn a little along the way and the plants won't turn against us :)...

Feel free to leave comments offering advice or letting us know how crazy we are!

One week later and the second floor and roof is almost done (the loft-bonus room remains).

Front of house. Tyvek is up and roof is getting there.

From inside of garage looking through to the back of the house.

From living room looking out the back of the house (great wall is visible).

From front door looking into foyer/living room.

Garage. The door(?) opening on the left should not be there. Concrete pad is done.

Kitchen island area. Should not be the same height on the left.

From kitchen/breakfast area looking into family room and master bedroom.

From front-right. Again the garage door is a mystery :).

One month later and we now have something that resembles the first floor of our house.

Front-right.

Rear. Living room windows/fireplace opening and master bedroom on the right.

From the front of the driveway.

Back-right. Kitchen / breakfast bay window.

Front-left. Garage: single-car stall seems to be 1-2feet higher(?), slight alignment issue at nearest corner with wood and brick