The Ornamental Vegetable Garden: May 2018

Hot. Hot. Hot. Yesterday the weatherman said we set a new record for high temperature on May 29 in this area: 94 degrees. The previous record was 91. He didn't say what the humidity was, but judging from othe plants in the mornings, it must be very high indeed. (One summer when I was attending a concert at my son's college, a visiting professor remarked that he'd never before been anywhere the temperature and the humidity were the same number. Only slightly joking.)

I managed to sow some more lettuce, celery and carrot seed early this morning as long as I had a long shirttail to keep wiping the sweat from my eyes.

The first carrots I planted before the April freeze ('Nantes Scarlet') came up fine, but the next planting on May 2 of 'Kyoto Red' and 'Cosmic Purple' didn't germinate well at all, leaving a big hole in my carrot plot. I reseeded today with 'Nantes Scarlet', so it will be impossible for me to know which variety I'm about to pull when they mature, but I didn't want to waste more time on the two varieties that didn't come up well.

'Kyoto Red' was a free pack along with one of my orders, and I won't be planting it again even if they send it to me free, because last year I did order it, and what few I harvested were hard as tree wood and inedible. I figured I'd go ahead and try them again to see if that might have been a fluke, because why on earth would anyone sell a carrot like that? Maybe that's why they gave them away this year.

The weather conditions we're having are obviously very suitable for whatever leaf spot it is that's attacking pretty much everything that has a broad leaf (zinnias, salvia, toothache plant, roses, cabbage, arugula, beets, tomatoes, melon, cucumber, hyacinth bean, and lettuce that I've noticed so far). I don't know what's going to become of this attack, as it's not killing anything - yet. I'm not going to put any treatment on anything but the roses and tomatoes, so we'll see. I had sprayed the roses with Bayer Advanced Insect, Disease & Mite Control (Tau-fluvalinate +Tebuconazole), and I didn't want to apply more so soon, so I switched back to last year's plan of a spray of 2 parts water to 1 part milk. That seemed to hold off black spot pretty well, and it can't hurt to ingest it, so I'm trying it out on the tomatoes as well. Time will tell. Other than that, there's just too much disease incidence to try to tackle every plant. If I lose other things, I won't be too upset, but the tomatoes and roses are a different story.

The following pictures are some of the plants showing infection.

Zinna

Salvia

'Savor' Charentais melon

'Marketmore' cucumber

Liriodendron tulipifera - Tulip tree

On some of these plants, there's a definite yellowing of the leaf margins as well. I don't know if that's a separate condition, but it seems pretty clear to me that it's all related to the steamy weather.

From a distance, things look lush, but if that leaf spot goes brown and kills the tissue, they're going to look very sad. Perhaps I should say "when" that leaf spot goes brown. I'm trying not to think about it.

'Sunset' runner bean and 'Marketmore' cucumber

Of course, disease isn't the only thing hitting the garden now. As expected, bugs are out. Cucumber beetles are in the roses, and they're going to get hit this evening with Sevin, so sorry. And somebody fairly large is leaving its evidence of feeding on the zinnias:

If it's grasshoppers, I'm stuck. It has to be somebody fairly large to be eating that much of the leaves and leaving droppings that size. I know it's prejudice, but I don't mind knocking off grasshoppers. However, I hate to kill caterpillars if I don't know which ones they are, because they may turn into something beautiful like this Silvery Checkerspot butterfly (a member of the Crescent butterfly family):

Alas, I hate having the caterpillars eat up my plants more, so I'll also sprinkle some Dipel on the zinnias this evening. I'm not seeing these guys during the day (although they may be there - it's too hot to stay out long and watch for them), and Dipel breaks down in strong sunlight. It's an organic formulation (which I also put on my cabbages) that kills only caterpillars, so it doesn't harm bees, and the zinnias are inside the vegetable garden plot where I don't want to put harsh insecticides like Sevin.

The okra isn't showing leaf spot - yet. 'Jing Orange', which is on the outside arc of the following photo, didn't make as good a stand as 'Red Burgundy' to the inside. I don't have any guesses as to why.

The first planting of arugula has bolted, and I'll let it produce seed for next year. It's got a pretty little flower.

Two more of the new roses have begun blooming. 'Winter Sun' and 'Dark Desire'.

'Winter Sun'

I don't know if it's the extreme heat, or if 'Dark Desire' blooms will always develop rapidly. I hope the former, because one day is not a good record for a rose bloom. I'm going to bring one inside to see if it lasts any longer.

'Dark Desire' in the morning

'Dark Desire' in the afternoon

I'm guessing the issue is the heat, because 'Pink Enchantment', which last year had beautiful blooms that lasted several days, did the same thing.

'Pink Enchantment' in the morning

'Pink Enchantment' in the afternoon

'Shazam!' is outstanding again this year; full of blooms that don't seem to be the least affected by the heat:

And so, as Bette Midler sang: From a distance, there is harmony.

And the snapdragons are sweet. (She didn't sing that.)

What was gearing up to be a long, hot draught has turned into a hot, steamy period. We take what we get.

And what we're getting is some good garden growth.

A few days ago, we got almost two inches of rain in less than an hour. Since it happened in the evening, I just crossed my fingers for the garden and focused on moving my seedlings and potted tomato onto the porch after they'd been gully-washed by rain coming over the house's gutter.

The next morning, I had to tend a flooded basement (plus a little snake that sailed in on the tide - and by "tend" I mean I killed it - 😞), and salvage the plants.

Battered but not destroyed

They'll take some extra time to be ready to plant out in the garden, I think, but I did go ahead and put out the butterfly milkweed seedlings in the cut flower bed.

I was afraid to go see what happened in the garden, but thankfully, all was well there.

The cucumbers and runner beans that I'm training up the garden arch are taking off and haven't yet gone wild. I watched a Johnny's Seeds video on growing cucumbers vertically. They said to remove side shoots. Good idea. Easier said than done.

Center left: zucchini in a cage; bottom left: French Charentais melon 'Savor';

bottom center: 'Sunset' runner beans; bottom right: 'Marketmore' cucumbers

The tomatoes are caged, and the onions are starting to put up flower stalks. I don't think that's a good thing....

....except for the Egyptian walking onions. I rarely use them for food, so I welcome the strange bulbs at the top when they flower and reproduce.

Green spicy bush basil, 'Purple Ruffles' and 'Red Rubin' purple basils,

zinnias, and garlic share this bed with Egyptian walking onions

Over in the shady end salad greens section of the garden, the arugula has bolted and is flowering, and the second planting is just now emerging.

The beets didn't germinate well, so I've reseeded the plot. This is the first time I've planted this particular variety: 'Bull's Blood'.

The cabbages are large and now starting to form heads.

I haven't seen any more signs of feeding since I applied the Dipel a few evenings back. But I also haven't seen but two cabbage white moths so far this year. (I saw a gorgeous tiger swallowtail butterfly this afternoon, but it didn't land on anything long enough for me to get a picture.)

The second planting of 'Rocky Top' lettuce mix is already big enough to harvest, and I'm at that point where the first planting is getting larger than I like to eat it. But it sure is pretty:

The tatsoi is getting beyond my taste, too. The second planting is just up out of the ground. I'm going to have to try cooking some of this older group to see what that's like. I've only ever eaten it small and raw in salads so far. It's delicious that way - tastes somewhat like broccoli to me.

So ends the ornamental vegetable portion of this post. I know this was supposed to be solely a blog about an ornamental vegetable garden, but then I branched into roses, and then into cut flowers, and I am compelled to take pictures and share.

Also, the hosta bed still looks good. I think the key was moving the bird feeders further away.

I'm loving this lupine in the cut flower garden that died back but made it through the winter:

The funny thing about it is it didn't bloom last year. The ones that bloomed were purple, and they didn't survive. Can't wait to see this area when all the new ones I planted this year bloom - if they do. I didn't realize how big this would be when it came back. If all the rest of them come back next year and come back this big, there'll have to be some thinning going on.

My grandmother had snapdragons along the edge of her vegetable garden, and I haven't seen any since I was a child. This year, I started some from seed, a mix of colors from Johnny's Seeds that they call 'Costa Mix' - here they are, in honor of my grandmother:

I hope they seed themselves and come up next spring.

And now.....

..... the new Palatine roses!

Meet 'Neptune'. I wasn't expecting to be as taken with this rose as I am. I can't stop gazing at it and taking pictures. The buds are a dark reddish violet, and then open to a soft pale lavender. The leaves are large, medium-dark green, and the blooms are quite large. It's fabulous.

Gorgeous.

One rose that I was excited to get isn't yet as marvelous as the pictures on line. But I'll give it a chance to live up to that. The color is an interesting rusty salmon. This is 'Acropolis':