What's In Your Garden?

[Arete]

This year the family gardens (meaning patches in several backyards) :lol: have knocked it out of the park with tomatoes. Got 10 quarts just me canned, 7 gallon size Ziplocs frozen. Long "Chinese" runner beans did incredibly well, several bags of those in the freezer. Been frying zukes all summer and now into fall.

Cucumbers were a complete failure for everyone. If they survived they were bitter and inedible. Some early succumbed to fungus. My aunt lost the rest of the self sowing amaranth leaves, she will reseed in spring. Okra was a bust across all gardens as well. Melons lost to squirrels. Basil has been plentiful, the sage looks beautiful. One garden had a successful eggplant crop. Lots of that around this summer. Some eggplant "marmalade" being put up now to have a spread going I to winter. Peppers did well, we have been bagging and freezing for winter.

[doggie]

https://goo.gl/photos/rikUzpbJBKSqnNYb7

These seedems when they bloom really attract the insects usually for only a few days even though they have been blooming for a week

[Lynn18]

I don't play in the dirt but my headship does. His Headship container gardens and planted yellow (lightbulb) pear tomatoes, various varieties of sweet peppers, lima beans, brussels sprouts, rosemary, thyme and basil. It was slow going for the tomatoes and peppers at the beginning of summer (lots of wet, cool weather) but we've got peppers and tomatoes coming out our ears now! Yum! We ate all the lima beans in a delicious butter, garlic succotash. We've used the herbs continuously and we're still waiting on the sprouts.

We cut up, freeze and bag our peppers as well. I probably use them twice, maybe 3 times a week in dinners.

[Geechee Girl]

GG, your rescue vine is most likely not going to begin giving you fruit till May 2016 the earliest. If you transplanted and care for it right now it should start getting its strength back. Just water and whatever food you feed the rest of the garden.

Sigh, my great aunt will tell you organic gardening is like guerrilla warfare. Your enemies are always changing their strategies. Are the hoppers eating new growth?

Aw man, I totally forgot about this thread!

AreteJo, the grasshoppers & white cabbage moths moved on once I tented all my containers with window screening. The heat wave has been brutal to the garden. My lettuce and herbs bolted. Cukes were a bust. All the plants either succumbed to disease, or didn't produce at all. I finally figured out how to spot powdery mildew on my squash, they haven't borne any fruit either. :( Of my 4 okra plants, only 1 looks like it may give me a pod. Beans and peas were hit or miss. Grape tomatoes were the clear winner this year.

The experiment with cuttings from my neighbor's citrus tree failed to take root.

I have started vermicomposting, and hope to get some good tea and/or castings. :dance: The secret prepper in me is proud, plus I throwing away less waste.

[Arete]

GG,

I have a lot of experience growing herbs in the New Jersey Jungle summer and the absolute key is you must pinch the tops off regularly, about every ten days in the growth phase. You may think it is slightly wasteful, but for healthy herbs that will not bolt you must PINCH, PINCH, PINCH! If you don't they will indeed bolt.

As for lettuces, I am in the northeast and can only grow lettuces from April to June. If my memory serves, you are in the southeast. Lettuce can simply not withstand our high summer temps and will bolt. I would sow a crop in the spring, harvest, remove. In your areA you could probably sow a second crop on 9/1 and harvest again till November.

You are the woman with composting. Pile whatever veggie or fruit peels on, I also throw on coffee machine filters and tea bags. Just cover with leaves before the frost. If you don't get snow, use a shovel or similar to turn over the compost pile twice in the winter so oxygen reaches all material.

[Arete]

GG, my 80 something great aunt was practically in tears when she realized all the okra had failed. It is very hard to get good, fresh, SMALL okra in the northeast and okra is a big staple of Greek home cooking when in season.

[SpoonfulOSugar]

We had a hard frost the last two nights. Not unexpected, but it makes me so sad that the season is coming to an end.

I covered just a few tomatoes (the cherries still producing) and we'll have another week with them, since the temperatures have now improved.

[47of74]

We live on a mid sized dairy farm.  We have a fairly good sized yard so we're able to go the whole nine yards as it were in putting in a garden.  (Our house is an older one, from circa 1880.  I learned that the outdoor plumbing used to be located about where the garden is now, that was over 50 years ago since that was there.  Yeah don't think about that too much).  I think the garden measures at least 20x30.  (And we still have enough space in the yard for a whole fundie compound).  We typically grow lettuce, tomatoes, onions, radishes, peppers, potatoes, carrots, green beans, and broccoli in the garden.  In addition to the regular garden patch we'd also have 1/2 dozen rows of sweet corn - which is more than enough not only for plenty of corn on the cob but also to cut off the cobs and have enough to last a good part of the winter.  We have quite a few tomato products that are homemade - salsa, spaghetti sauce, chili sauce, and plain tomato sauce, usually enough to last a good part of the year.

[RosyDaisy]

Next year, I'm going to give strawberries one more try. I sure do miss my pecan tree that was blown down by a tornado in 2014.

[Terrie]

I close on a new house next week. One thing I love is that a portion of the yard is fenced off for a garden. (I have dogs). Probably going to mainly do herbs this first year. I love fresh dill. 

[SpoonfulOSugar]

We've moved our garden indoors - 3 totes of green onions (we snip the tops again and again); lemon balm, thyme, celery (sprouted from the core of old stalks), and our Meyer lemon.  I'm thinking about starting some dill (to use the fronds), and we have fennel in the breezeway (it had aphids and I'm using the cold as a deterrent.)

I'm seriously thinking about doing some hay/straw plots next summer.  I need to read more about how those work.

[Geechee Girl]

My garden barely survived the late heat waves. I have one tomato, 4 eggplants, kale and Brussels sprouts hanging on. I've got sugar snaps and snow peas climbing again. I've also planted leeks and spring onions. Something has got into the butter lettuce & spinach.

I have learned being in zone 9, I must start my spring plantings early before the heat of July & August fry my plants.

[Pixiedust1960]

Can't wait until I can start my garden in the spring. We will be starting our tomatoes inside in a couple of months. Last year we had 50 plants. We have enough tomato sauce and salsa for the winter. We had 90 lbs of potatoes and about 60 lbs of onions. Also dehydrated basil, oregano, several kinds of hot pepper and rosemary. This year I'm trying more herbs. 

[Geechee Girl]

I purchased some bare root ultra-dwarf fruit trees, boysenberry & blueberry canes, and seedless grapes. I plan to grow these from containers. My cool weather crops include kale, Brussels sprouts, peas, leeks and onions.

[AlysonRR]

This is the first year in the last seven that we'll be home for the summer, so I'm looking forward to planting some things.

I have three 1x3' cement planters, two 3' round cement planters, and four 4x6' raised beds. Our yard is a complete wreck - lots of volunteer scotch broom, douglas fir, blackberries. I want to clear the planters/beds and prep them for planting, and then maybe we can start pulling the volunteers out of the rest of the yard.

Here's hoping for a good year.

[Arete]

This year, because my great aunt will be in Europe till late spring, I have been put in charge of starting plants for her large garden and my little balcony container garden.  I have already rigged some precious counter space and the kitchen table with grow lights.  My aunt left my envelopes with 3 different kinds of tomato, haricot verts, beets, 2 lettuces, spinach, amaranth, eggplant, cantaloupe (because hope springs eternal) zucchini, scallion, and butternut squash seeds.  I also put in Genovese , Greek, and Thai Holy Basil, as well as dill, mint for me, and Italian parsley.  I start plants every year, but never this many, so I am excited and anxious.   Middle of next month is my goal to have everything sowed.

I usually start seeds in cleaned eggshells.  The cool hardy plants like lettuces will go directly in the ground from the eggshell, the rest usually are transferred into bigger cardboard holders while still under lights, then go outdoors in late May.

[Geechee Girl]

I have very little experience growing from seed. I'm sure it must be user error, so I stay with transplanting seedlings. I set up a new composter in the yard. It's a nice tumble drum with two chambers. My worm bins are going strong. I suspect I'll have to make a third bin by summer. Red wrigglers are voracious eaters.

[batuityma]

On January 10, 2016 at 10:08 PM, Geechee Girl said:

I have very little experience growing from seed. I'm sure it must be user error, so I stay with transplanting seedlings. I set up a new composter in the yard. It's a nice tumble drum with two chambers. My worm bins are going strong. I suspect I'll have to make a third bin by summer. Red wrigglers are voracious eaters.

Yay! A fellow worm composter! Worm poop is GOLD!!! The best fertilizer ever for peppers and tomatoes (except for raw goat milk.) Red wigglers are amazing little creatures! 

What kind of bins do you use? I've been using a Can o' Worms for about 10 years. Before that I just used a plastic rubbermaid container, but I hated sorting out the worms to harvest the compost. The tiered bin concept has proved so much more convenient in my experience. Love my worms!!!

[religiouslyconfused]

I have grown some fruits like cantaloupe, peppers, Cucumbers and tried to grow pineapple. 

[Geechee Girl]

@batuityma I'm using a 3 tier Rubbermaid set up. How do you separate your castings? Scooping and picking out the worms is tedious. I flush my bins to gather tea in the lowest bin. For traditional compost, I use a Yimbly tumbler thingy from Amazon. 

[OnceUponATime]

oooh worm people. @Geechee Girl do you have a photo of your setup? I'm trying to figure out a way of secretly getting some but I need a way to hide/disguise them because I've been told no

 

Today I did my first sow for the year: some sort of giant garden bean, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, chili peppers, peas - normal and the pods you eat, mini orange paprikas and mini aubergines. They are all in pots. It is a little earlier than last year I think so I'm going to do another sow in 2-3 weeks. I'm so excited

And yes i do grow peas in pots because 1) the garden is never prepped on time (if i sow late the beasties eat all my peas) and 2) the birds don't like them when they are a bit larger. I only started doing this last year because I went to a garden market thing and they were selling peas in pots. I'm not sure I should have my beans in pots but I can still plant them out later I guess.

 

[Terrie]

First year owning a house and it came with a garden. Still to early to starting prepping, but decided I'm going to start small. For one, I know there are some perennial herbs and such, but the previous owner didn't do a great job of marking where they are, so need to steer well clear of those areas until I can mark their locations.Going to do some lettuce, radishes, green beans, and some dill and basil. Not much, but better to start small, since I've never gardened before. 

Sadly, I will have to remove the fruit trees, because they were planted WAY too close to the house. Like, within ten feet. Why, I have no clue.

[church_of_dog]

3 hours ago, Terrie said:

First year owning a house and it came with a garden. Still to early to starting prepping, but decided I'm going to start small. For one, I know there are some perennial herbs and such, but the previous owner didn't do a great job of marking where they are, so need to steer well clear of those areas until I can mark their locations.Going to do some lettuce, radishes, green beans, and some dill and basil. Not much, but better to start small, since I've never gardened before. 

Sadly, I will have to remove the fruit trees, because they were planted WAY too close to the house. Like, within ten feet. Why, I have no clue.

Ouch, so hard to have to pull up an established perennial like a fruit tree!  Any chance of having someone with a mini tractor dig you some new holes you could plant those trees into?

Alternatively, can you consider espaliering the trees?  In other words, pruning it severely to only be in the plane parallel to the house?  Like this:

[Terrie]

One, maybe. Three are in a tight clump (I swear they were planted in the same hole), and you can tell that they're doing poorly as a result. The one tree I really want to keep is, thankfully, the only one planted in a convenient spot away from the house and garage. Since I have dogs, I would prefer to have a more open yard. I may let some of them be for the year, see how they're doing and then decide. 

Previous owners also planted mint and didn't do anything to contain it. Going to have to take a weedwacker to that stuff, I swear. They clearly loved gardening, but didn't do a huge amount of planning for the long term.

[SpoonfulOSugar]

I have started some tomato seeds . . . probably too early, but I WANT summer to come.

We are going all out on container gardening this year.  We have a new GardenTower2 (anyone seen this lovely?), a four-tier cedar planter, and a whole bunch of individual containers.

Now I am trying to figure out space allocations and timing.  With a short (SHORT!) growing season, I want to do everything I can to extend things.