Category: Problems

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Evening things in the Pacific rainforest that is Norman

Cowpeas coming up among corn, beets, and peppers. Coreopsis in background.
Black coat runner bean flowers.
Mini bell pepper flowering.
Rouge Vif d’Etampes squash has big leaves!
Inca pea bean leaves.
Golden jenny melon needs more sun I think. Its seedling seems stuck.
Madhu ras melon is in a better spot.
This beetle eats solanaceous plants. It is sitting on my Peruvian ground cherry. This beetle is now gone.
Presumed beetle eggs. They are gone now. A mysterious giant finger squished them.
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Trimming the claws

I trimmed off several branches from both blackberry plants that had leaves with this mystery curl. It looks a lot like online pictures of leaf curl virus damage. It was not a leaf rolling insect, those I leave alone and consider just part of the ecosystem. The raspberry leaf curl virus can kill a whole plant apparently so I wanted to be safe.
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Bean sprouts (and their friends)

Slippery silks pole bean are up in both beds 1 and 4
Marketmore 76 cucumber in bed 4.  None of others up yet.
Vaquero bean (a pole bean) in bed 1.
Bolas maycoba bean next to lettuce leaf in bed 6.
Greasy grits bean (a green pole bean) in bed 1
Mbombo beans (a bush type) in bed 5.
Blue lake green bush (another bush type) in bed 5.
Dutch corn salad greens beginning to make immature seeds.
“hilled” potatoes with more dirt added, so they will grow more roots and thus more potatoes.
Inca pea beans are the only ones not up yet.
Oregon sugar pod peas all fruiting now with more flowers.
The lettuce is thinking about bolting so I’m picking any that are growing taller.
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How can things grow this much in a week?  Front yard edition

Wow!!

Rouge Vif d’Etampes squash seedling.
The Brunswick cabbage apparently had enough and has gone straight to flowering.
Dutch corn salad greens have bolted too.
I got wild after seeing soil temperature is above 60°F and planted some beans and all the basil.
Sedums are blooming! Thanks for these, Judy!
I found surprise kale seedlings (two, the second is not pictured). I believe they are Russian red but I had thought they all got eaten so there’s no label anymore.
Perennial coreopsis are big and just starting to bloom!
Black coat runner bean making good progress at the base of a crepe myrtle.
Mealy blue sage about to bloom.
So many strawberries and there’s still more flowers!
Sugar peas are blooming.
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Suspense

Did the tender plants (tomatoes, peppers, ground cherries, potatoes, and runner beans) make it yesterday??? Tuesday night into Wednesday morning it got down to 29F in Norman, apparently a new record low (the previous being 30F in 1918. SEE WHO WEATHERED THE WEATHER!!

Tommy toe tomato did not make it. Note how the leaves are a darker, mushy/soft green and drooping. Goner.
Both of my new tomato varieties, supposed to be better for canning, died. One was the Amish paste (not pictured), which I have more of in pots. The other was Hungarian heart tomato (pictured). I have planted some more seeds and put them in the warm plant window to sprout. The culprit is pictured on the left… oatmeal container cardboard does not insulate enough. I thought it would be nicer since they’re tall and big, but apparently you need more, like the air trapped in corrugated cardboard. All the survivors were under towels, glass jars, plastic jars, plastic pots with newspapers, cardboard boxes, or even leaves-as-mulch (one Peruvian ground cherry in the backyard). A few branches got frosted but they can be trimmed off.
One branch of this potato died when the box top fell in (I had set another bag of potatoes on top). But the rest of the plants were fine. An example of corrugated cardboard doing its insulation job. I was surprised that an uncovered potato in a raised bed did not completely die of frost. Only a branch or two was dead.

Three casualties of a late frost, and all due to poor choices of insulation (which I now know to avoid), are really not bad. I’m pretty pleased.

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30s next few nights

I put towels, newspapers in pots, glass jars, and plastic jars over the tender plants (peppers, tomatillos, tomatos, ground cherries). The unplanted ones will go in the garage or house.
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Surprise friend

This excellent female Northern Flicker came by the herb bed and investigated all the nooks and crannies while I was eating breakfast this morning! I told her the front yard had a lot of earwigs if that interested her.