Expendable

I followed through on yesterday's post and planted one of the green coleus on the north side of the house. We have small rocks surrounding the house, so I cleared a spot and punched through the landscape fabric to dig the hole. The soil under the fabric is greasy clay. With some of the other plants I have put in, I amended the soil with coco coir to make it looser, but did not do that this time. It is planted in clay under the rocks.

I decided to cage it to give it a chance to get established before I throw it to the wolves, uh, deer. I really want to see if the deer will eat an established coleus, so will take the cage off in a few weeks. With average first frost around Sept. 12, this plant is doomed in perhaps seven weeks, so I want to see how big it gets planted in the ground...if it survives. This will help me decide what to do next year.

Meanwhile, at the greenhouse, the tomato plants on the west side are getting huge and I removed one of the marigolds that was getting shaded out. I potted it and put it outside. I might even have to move one of the pepper plants to a pot or a new location in the bed. There are three basil plants mixed in with the tomatoes that also will benefit from being moved eventually.

Behind the tomatoes, there are four broccoli plants. Two of them have finally produced heads 140 days after I started them from seed. That is almost two months longer than it should take, and the heads are very loose. I now believe that the location I have used for broccoli both last fall and this spring just does not get enough light. It is in the northwest corner, so it gets little morning light, and now the plants are being shaded by the tomatoes. I should just harvest what little there is and plant some cilantro back there.

If I was trying to grow nasturtiums and borage as primary crops, the east side of the greenhouse would be a roaring success. But I have to remind myself that I am trying to raise strawberries and sunflowers, not borage and nasturtiums. There are still a couple of nasturtiums in the southeast bed with the sunflowers and in the outside window boxes with the flowers, but I took the last one out of the east strawberry bed today. I have decided I will take some good pictures of the borage plants in the east bed tomorrow, then remove them, except maybe one. When I started removing nasturtiums, the alyssum got thick along the edge. I will keep some of it, but not all. The alyssum outside in the barrel has not grown quickly but it is alive. I might try to transplant some from inside, but it might not work according to the interweb.