It's harvest season for gardeners, too

By David Coltrain

Walnut Creek Extension

My vegetable garden has been doing great, although the cool season crops would have done better if temperatures had been less hot. Most of the peas have been picked. Snow peas were planted later so they are just now starting to yield. One small planting of snap peas is similar to the snow peas. My wife thinks any peas planted are a waste of time, because regular peas take a lot of shelling and still don't amount to much. That is one big reason I like snap peas. Remove a little from each end and you can eat the pod along with the peas. When our grandkids visited in May, they ate all of the snap peas they could find.

Having peas and new potatoes are always a goal, but not always reached since potatoes normally are not ready to dig when peas are ripe. This year we did have potatoes to add to the peas. The red potatoes were about golf ball to tennis ball size. Red potatoes usually mature faster than white potatoes. Oh, potato beetles have been a problem. They are easily controlled with permethrin. I tried picking off all the beetles, but finally sprayed the potatoes. I sure didn't want the potato beetles getting on my tomatoes or peppers.

The first crop from my garden was salad greens. I like to try many different kinds of greens along with lettuces. The lettuces I like the best are buttercrunch, bibb types and a red romaine, mostly for color. Spinach, red kale and arugula are always favorites. I enjoy many oriental types including mizuna, pak choi and tatsoi. Most of these greens are in the brassica family like cabbage, broccoli, turnips and radish. I always try new greens and this year it was curly crisp and vegetable amaranth. Curly crisp really has a tangy flavor, but the amaranth only adds a bright red color and hardly any flavor, maybe less than regular ice burg lettuce.

Most of the greens mentioned above are cool season crops and many of them "bolt" or go to seed when the temperatures turn hot. This year they bolted really early. So the cool season types will be planted again this fall. For summer greens, chard is a good one. It can take the hot weather and if you pick the leaves before they get real huge, they make a good salad.

The only root crops I plant in the spring are turnips and kohl rabi. Both are nearly ready to pick. I imagine the turnips will be hot since most brassicas are affected by heat with a hotter flavor. Most people plant radishes and beets, and they are good garden standbys. I usually skip growing them. In the case of beets, I eat most of the garden vegetables raw and I don't like raw beets. Oh, I about forgot to mention onions. My Texas sweet onions are doing great. I pulled a few for green onions and some are already the size of baseballs.

The warm season vegetables are doing great. Green beans are starting to bloom. When they are ready, new potatoes will be great with them. I plant two varieties of sweet corn and stagger plant when the previous planting is about three inches high. Three plantings are up and three more will be planted this month. Okra is starting kind of slow, but is making headway now.

Tomatoes are pruned, staked and tied with the third string and peppers staked and tied with one string. Squash and cucumbers are close to flowering and cantaloupes and watermelons are starting to put on runners. Those four members of the cucurbit family are greatly enhanced when grown on black plastic mulch. Gourds and mini-pumpkins make up the remainder of my garden.

If you have any vegetable gardening or other horticulture questions or need any horticulture information, please e-mail David Coltrain at coltrain@ksu.edu or call me at our toll free number 1-800-460-9079.

Date: 6/20/06

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