Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Early Retirement Extreme Forums » ERE Journals

1. 

   George the original one
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 1,943

   It's been a wet, cool spring here in the Portland, Oregon area. That's good news if you're growing fruit trees, cabbages, beets, and lettuce. Not so good for growing hay (first decent cuttings probably occurred in the past couple days) or sweet corn.

   To ensure plenty of time to fully ripen sweet corn in the Willamette Valley, us garderners are often quoting the old saw "Knee-high by the 4th of July"(*). If your plants aren't knee-high, then the odds of a successful crop are low. I've often wondered if other regions have the same rule of thumb -- or is that a rule of knee?

   I'm happy to report that despite late plantings, the sweet corn is pretty close to knee-high. Certainly not much further behind that previous years.

   (*) Owing to modern faster-growing hybrid varieties of sweet corn, we can now plant later and still have plenty of time to get a crop. The drawback to the fast growing varieties is either size or taste... so I lose size in favor of maintaining decent taste.

   Posted 1 year ago #
2. 

   paxprobellum
   

   Apprentice
   Joined: May '11
   Posts: 77

   I think the "knee high" adage is pretty well established in the corn community. I heard it a lot in NE Ohio.

   Posted 1 year ago #
3. 

   Chad
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 1,006

   Same in Pennsylvania where I grew up.

   Posted 1 year ago #
4. 

   HSpencer
   

   Master
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 770

   @George Original

   How about doing one more post? I am not superstitious but your post count was "666" at this writing! LOL.

   Here in NW Arkansas, we went from tornado season to floods, (20 inches of rain in one 18 hour period), to more tornado to more floods to scalding heat and drought. This is the worst season for gardening here I can remember. Sounds good at your end though!
   I will be lucky to have some garden tomatoes, a few peppers, and hopefully some cabbages. That's about it for this year unless I can pull off a fall garden. My garden is as poor as old Job's turkey.

   Posted 1 year ago #
5. 

   hickchick
   

   Journeyman
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 142

   I have two lousy peppers as of this morning, but my chard and cabbage are still alive, so that's something. I really want tomatoes this year, so I'm pulling for more hot and dry weather.

   Dad tells me he got a decent first cutting, but he was also very impressed with the efficiency of the young farmer that swathed and baled it.

   Posted 1 year ago #
6. 

   crazn
   

   Novice
   Joined: May '11
   Posts: 22

   You live in a beautiful area. My sister and her husband teach in Corvallis. Last time I visited we picked blueberries and visited wineries. How is Oregon treating you in retirement?

   Posted 1 year ago #
7. 

   George the original one
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 1,943

   Sadly I'm not retired (sigh).

   Corvallis is one of my favorite college towns. Coincidentally, I was just in Philomath (and Corvallis) for a day of kayaking & fishing. The fishing was fine, kayaking okay, but we fished too much and were very late (too late) getting to our take-out spot...

   Thus, at the rendevous place, we were greeted with red & blue flashing lights and a mildly concerned spouse at 10pm <ahem>. County sheriff was quite polite about the whole thing, but I do wonder if we'll be getting a bill.

   Posted 1 year ago #
8. 

   George the original one
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 1,943

   Corn is chest high... no tassles yet. Second planting is maybe, just maybe, waist-high.

   Ate one round of baby beets last week. Will have a second round of not-so-baby beets this week.

   Posted 1 year ago #
9. 

   jacob
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 3,301

   Did someone say Corvallis?

   Posted 1 year ago #
10. 

    HSpencer
    

    Master
    Joined: Jul '10
    Posts: 770

    @George Original

    Arkansas Update: 01Aug2011

    In two words, "ain't happening" ----- June, one(1) inch of rain, July, one(1) inch of rain. Average temperature here 100F and 80F after dark. Records broken back to the 1800's. Thinking of getting the Model T and tying my mattress on and heading out west on Rt 66. Tomorrow's high 106 in NW Arkansas, and 112 in the River Valley.
    June water bill: $191.00 and yield is about 12 scraggly tomatoes. Yet, they tasted good. It is just too hot at night for them to vine ripen, so we are bringing them in green and putting them in the window. They ripen that way in 24 hours. They are about the size of a plum when you eat one. My bacon/tomato sandwich addiction has taken a real hit and I am trying to suffer through it. We have written the year off.
    I am pleased yours is doing well!!

    Posted 1 year ago #
11. 

    sshawnn
    

    Journeyman
    Joined: Mar '11
    Posts: 263

    Here in Hoosierland we have become inundated with our cucumbers and squash in the last week. Tomatoes aren't doing well. Onions are hard to goof up an we had a bunch of those too. It seems much of traditional planting time lore is becoming obsolete. My seeds went out later because of the late spring monsoons and are doing better than most. I plan to plant more non traditional fall crops and see how they do. (more cucumbers, squash, beans, along side the normal fall fare of kale, lettuce,turnips, radish.) may even experiment with late corn!

    Posted 1 year ago #
12. 

    George the original one
    

    Expert
    Joined: Jul '10
    Posts: 1,943

    The sweet corn is finally ripe! (This week has been Oregon's hottest so far this year)

    We're at the stage where we'll have 5 ears every night for the next couple of weeks.

    The tomatoes are finally ripening, too! First ripe tomatoes just have that fantastic taste we've been waiting for all summer.

    2 or 3 per day for the next couple of weeks (think we have 5 varieties ripening at different times) and pick the green ones when the frost comes to have for the next couple of months. They went into BLTs tonight. Sure wish we had a bacon tree...

    Beets continue to be a treat every few days. Didn't plant enough this year, but they should stretch to the end of September.

    Pears are getting close to ripe, apples are a bit further off. Blueberries have done well since mid-August -- last batch went into waffles. Haven't been too motivated to pick the accursed Himalayan blackberries except for some treats after checking over the garden.

    Then, before you know it, it'll be time to plant the garlic again. Plans for expanding the garden include planting some red flame seedless grape vines and a few sweet cherry trees this winter and more strawberry plants.

    I was absolutely shocked that cherries were $2-$3 per pound this year. Doesn't take long for a $25 tree to pay for itself at that price.

    Posted 1 year ago #
13. 

    jennypenny
    

    Expert
    Joined: Jul '11
    Posts: 1,344

    @Spencer--I can't believe that water bill. That's more than my whole summer. You guys are really suffering this year. OTOH we have had 30"+ of rain in the last 6 weeks. The river crested for the second time yesterday within inches of the major flooding level. Half the town is under water again. Growing season officially over :(

    @George--Does the heat usually come this late in Oregon? When do you expect your first frost?

    You should try a couple of cherry tomato plants for an early taste of tomatoes. Most of the tomatoes are too small to slice, but you can still get your BLT fix by using biscuits or wraps instead of bread. Sometimes we use cream cheese instead of mayo to help hold the tomatoes in place.

    Posted 1 year ago #
14. 

    George the original one
    

    Expert
    Joined: Jul '10
    Posts: 1,943

    @jennypenny - this has been an unusual year for Oregon. Late July through August are the hot times normally, but this year we had a lot of rain & overcast.

    In the Willamette Valley, first frost is in October. In my little frost pocket by Oregon City (level area at bottom of a hill, no evening sun), the first frost is usually a couple weeks sooner than in surrounding communities. I usually expect to be close to the first of October.

    Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes are too proliferous for us to keep up with. They'll even naturalize and seed down here. All-in-all, we decided they were too much trouble for us, but agree that cherry tomatoes are a good way to get tomato flavor earlier.

    Posted 1 year ago #
15. 

    jennypenny
    

    Expert
    Joined: Jul '11
    Posts: 1,344

    Thanks for the information. Oregon is on our short list of places to retire and the gardening aspect is important. I guess everyone had unusual summer weather this year.

    The idea that my tomato plants would be too proliferous moves Oregon higher on the list of contenders for retirement :)

    Posted 1 year ago #
16. 

    George the original one
    

    Expert
    Joined: Jul '10
    Posts: 1,943

    Green tomatoes still on the vine, plants starting to fall over. Time to pick'em or bring the pots indoors.

    Sweet corn has turned starchy. That tells me I can have a very late planting, if I'm inclined to have a longer fresh corn.

    Down to the last few beets. We'll have eaten them all by the end of this week, just as I planned. Something cruised by and nipped off some of their leaves... I'm inclined to think it was a deer, but it's been so wet that I haven't wanted to linger and look for tracks.

    There's a one potato hill that is still growing. I'll plunder it this weekend since we don't them to rot in the rain and we're getting close to frost days.

    Summer has been over for a couple weeks now. Sigh. Time to collect the apples and make one last sowing of spinach seeds.

    Garlic planting in November will be the start of my next season. I'm ordering grape vines and more strawberry plants now, expecting them to arrive in November/December.

    Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.