Are you Gardening?

Today we put in about 25 peppers (sweet and chili, different kinds), 25 tomatoes (also different varieties), 2 rows of beans, a row of squash, 2 rows of herbs, a row each of celery, nasturtiums, and marigolds. I'm tired after all that! However, in a few weeks, we'll be getting some great produce in. :)

Here are some of my garden pics: Four of our five plots, roughly 4x25, except for the one at the bottom of the slope which is more square. We're going for the more biointensive/square foot gardening approach with the thinner plots. Plant everything close to crowd out weeds and maximize yield, but in a way that you can still reach everything. We have a 3x3-ish compost pile at the corner. http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/JaeOnasi/4of5plots.jpg Here are my baby tomato, pepper, and herb plants. There are 19 tomato plants (different varieties) and 24-ish pepper plants (also different varieties). http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/JaeOnasi/Tomatoesandpeppers.jpg We have strawberries, onions, and buttercrunch lettuce in this plot. http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/JaeOnasi/Strawberriesandonions.jpg Here are our peas. I have 2 different varieties. Growing them vertically up a little pea trellis helps maximize the number of plants per row. I've added another pea trellis for the other 2 rows of peas since then. There are also some carrots next to the peas, but they were pretty tiny a week back. It takes them FOREVER to germinate, too. http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/JaeOnasi/Peas.jpg Here's the other side of this plot, where I have more carrots, onions, and some parsnips. http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/JaeOnasi/Onionscarrots.jpg Here's the plot with beets and broccoli. It also has some Simpson lettuce, wax beans, and pole beans. http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/JaeOnasi/Beetsbroccoli.jpg It's going to be yummy! :D

» Edited on: 2013-05-28 19:29:54

My boyfriend and I just reclaimed his old house that his ex wife abandoned three years ago. Needless today... three years of disuse and no weeding has left the garden beds in a bit of a state. I spent four hours breaking the grass and weed growth in the veggie bed into 6x6 inch blocks and moving them to the bald spots in the lawn. My back is in a bad state, so I still have TREES (yes, trees, and yes, plural) growing in the flower beds... but the hostas and lily of the valley don't seem to be minding. There's a rose bush under our bedroom window in desperate need of my help, and I think it's the only one that's survived. The last summer here was harsh and very hot and with no one to care for them, I think most of them kicked it. =( The backyard is sloped, and the retaining walls are crumbling. My boyfriend has been taking a chainsaw to the rotten logs (yes, plural again, and they're about two to three feet thick). With the other repairs we've needed in the house, we haven't been able to afford to rent something to break down the massive pile of branches out there into mulch yet. So... lots of work. I'm planning to open up the flower beds if my back ever stops acting up. At this rate, it may be another year before it all gets done though. We're planning to not only rebuild the retaining walls out back but put in a waterfall and pond, too. It's gorgeous, with many of the trees surviving, we just want to bring a little planned chaos to it rather than everything growing completely wild. The veggie garden is going strong though, I've planted heirloom beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers, white and green onions, and cumin. In between everything, I've planted basil. There's been some REALLY awesome research coming out that suggests that basil is a natural growth booster for other plants. So far, so good! Plus we'll use a lot of it, anyway. I've also got a container herb garden going with orange mint (tasty in mojitos!), lemon thyme (used it on lamb steaks last weekend and it was amazing), German thyme, oregano, cilantro, sage, lavender, and summer savory. The savory isn't doing so great, I can't tell if it's getting too much sun or what. Last but not least, I splurged on a dark purple/hot pink fuchsia that I have about to bloom again. There's a lot of work left to do, but once I'm able to get out there and get working on it, it will be a lot of fun too!

My veggie garden is planted. Tomatoes - Vintage Wine, Caro Rich, Ferris Wheel, Brandywine Dinosaur Kale Red Winter Kale Spinach Swiss Chard - green and rainbow Lettuce - spicy mesclun mix, all season romaine mix Green beans

» Edited on: 2013-05-31 05:47:01

I garden! https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLn0re6CYAEBu5x.jpg:large I'm mostly raising Passiflora Y daisies from seeds this year. Of course my most successful crop is Johnson Grass. :)

» Edited on: 2013-05-31 14:29:11

» Edited on: 2013-05-31 14:31:27

ROFL CRaythur!! @Lillan--If you don't mind using Roundup, and you're careful spraying it on just the trees, it'll kill off the trees. If it drips on any other plants, it will damage them, and possibly kill them. However, it works really well. I'm going to pull out a bruschetta recipe. We're growing a lot of basil, too.

Lillian...I came into a simmilar situation with rose bushes. I stemmed them back to the base, cutting all the dead back to just a stem 6-8 inches above ground and watered it every third day. It came back to life in about 4 weeks. Its producing beautiful red roses for the last month now. So glad I didn't dig it up and start over. That sucker is tuff, and I thought it was dead for sure. Went two summers in southern AZ without being watered. Rose bushes can be very resilant. They just need the dead cut off them and some water. The roots tend to be hard to kill. Hope this message doesn't come to late.

JaeOnasi...I am impressed by your size and variety of your garden. Looks like its going to be good eating for a while. Good job. :)

Tomatoes, Lettuce, Potatoes, Cucumbers, Cabbage and Strawberries have exploded in my garden in the past two weeks. I swear their growth reminds me of Little Shop of Horrors. The cucumbers went from little sprouts to almost 2 feet with 10 buds on each plant and the tomatoes have 6-10 tomatoes on each one. When we build our next house we are adding a much bigger garden.

Cliff--thanks! Virole--mine exploded in the last week, too. I think it was the hot weather we had that really warmed up the soil nicely. We just harvested our first bunch of lettuce this week, and the plants were just tiny things a week back! My tomatoes went from smallish seedlings to decent sized plants with flowers on them. My peas grew like crazy and now have flowers all over the place, so I'm looking forward to some fresh peas in a few more weeks. Edit: It probably helped that I fertilized them all with Tomato-tone. :D Our tomatoes--Brandywine, Celebrity, Maskotka (a cherry type), Sweet Baby Girl, and Agro. I picked up Blue Lake pole beans this year instead of the bush type so that we can do more vertical gardening. I'm also trying out a cool purple pole bean called Trionfo. It turns green when cooked, but it looked like it would be attractive while growing, and just plain fun.

» Edited on: 2013-06-03 19:56:13

Hey Cliff, I have worked on plumbing and irrigation systems such as those above ground systems you are talking about before and I have worked as a manager at Home Depot for years over plumbing because of my experience with plumbing in general. I have also worked before that for a landscape company so I am more than happy to answer questions or help out in any way I can if you or anyone in the family need help with your gardens. That's pretty much what I do for a living every day at work so its the least I could do for family :). Hit me up with a pm or just post em here and I can answer them and if I can't I know some people I have worked with that I can always find out more info from. Sounds like you have a great start and gardening is very fruitful endeavor (no pun intended..... okay maybe a little hehe). You are correct about the above ground systems though, over last couple years they have gotten way better in not only managing water usage but putting them in the right places and for different types of plants as well using the correct heads. They can be kind of confusing and a pain to put together but I highly recommend using them for household gardens as they make life easier once they are set up, and can be put in by a homeowner unlike most underground sprinkler systems. I too enjoy, gardening.... but my passion comes with helping others. Especially with plumbing type stuff such as irrigation as people can get lost sometimes during the summer. So feel free to ask away. Mathew Filer A.K.A Wooky :)

A few years ago I put a large garbage can under one of my garage downspouts to catch rainwater. I then plumbed two more together with it using pvc so that they overflow into each other. Watering from these I don't have to use the hose much at all.

Not so much here in mid summer either. That's why more cans, so that when I does it fills them all, rather than just running off over the dry ground into the storm sewer.

Cerulean, can you use just drip hoses in your garden beds? Or perhaps a combo of something with water reclamation, some specialty plumbing, and hoses or sprinklers that direct the water to just the spots you need? With Square foot or Biointensive gardening methods, the crops are spaced very close together so you need much less water. You may be able to do some patio plants, too. That'll also let you bring them in when you get a frost so that you can extend the growing season a week or two longer.

I also keep a bucket in the kitchen for rinse water from my sprouts and swing-top bottles. Basically just clean water so why send it down the drain. As the bucket gets full I just carry it outside and distribute the salvaged water.

I grew my peas vertically this year. One of the varieties (sugar snap type) is, I kid you not, now over 4 feet tall. I had to put in some tall tomato stakes and add another line of twine near the top of the stakes because the peas were taller than the pea trellis I'd put up. There are some pods already on the vines, so we'll probably have some fresh peas by the end of the week. :D

Garden update: the lettuce bolted in the high heat 10 days back, and the peas died off after a nice little harvest. It is done for now until I get out to plant some more seed for a later season crop. We harvested the beets, onions and carrots. I have a crisper full of carrots waiting on me to decide what to do with them. I canned up 6 pints of both pickled and regular beets, and 3 quarts of beans. The Trionfo beans really are purple! I love it because it makes them so easy to see on the plants. :D When you cook them, however, they turn green. I'm going to plant some bush beans in the spots where we pulled out the beets and carrots. We're going to plant some more peas and onions in a few weeks for a fall harvest.

Our tomatoes and zucchini have started to come in, and I've made zucchini bread, zucchini cake, zucchini fritters, sauteed zucchini....and I still have about 10 more zucchini in the fridge. :D I've made some bruschetta and spaghetti sauce from the tomatoes and herbs so far, and eaten a bunch of the cherry tomatoes. Man, they are nice and sweet. :) We've had some different peppers ripen up, but I don't think they'll really go nuts until mid August or so. Then I'll have peppers coming out of my ears. I made jalapeno jelly with some of them last year, and that was a big hit with the family for Christmas. I'll probably make some salsa and jalapeno jelly again this year.

I have some kind of small yellow caterpillar that loves skeletonizing my bean plants--I did get them under control with some Bt, but they are persistent little buggers. Oddly, they like my Blue Lake pole beans, but leave my Trionfo pole beans alone for the most part.

I've been able to keep the organic pest control usage way down with the companion planting I did this year. Either that, or it's just a good year for the veggies and not the bugs.

Hope your gardens are growing well!

Harvesting update:

We got enough carrots to can 7 quarts. I think I have a few stray ones still in the garden--I thought we got them all and had planted some bush beans on top. When I checked the seedlings last week, I saw a few more carrot plants, too. :)

Our squash got hit hard with mildew. The kids are not in the least devastated by the loss of zucchini, although I miss not having it. One of the winter squash plants survived, and I have a cute little butternut now growing.

We've had the Trionfo beans producing for the last 4 weeks or so, but they really took off last week. I just canned up 6 quarts of them today and cooked up another quart for dinner. The blue lake pole beans are starting to produce, and I expect to be swamped with beans in a few weeks.

We're not getting a huge harvest of tomatoes. I think it's because it's been been relatively cool for August. I may just have too many of them in one spot, too.

I had a ton of serrano, jalapeno, and mole peppers, so I made about 10 jars of a very spicy pepper mustard. It's tangy-spicy sweet, and I think it'll be great on grilled chicken or in a glaze for a ham. I may try it in egg salad and see how that tastes.  I also canned up 6 half pints of bruschetta yesterday.

It's been too hot to plant more lettuce, so I may wait til fall. The beets are done and have been a fun experiment for something new to try. The broccoli is still producing some smaller heads now and then--enough to put into a salad for some nice crunch. My onion sets are harvested, and the onion seeds I planted in early spring are now producing some nice green onions (yummy for tacos!), and they'll be good for a fall harvest.

For some reason, my blueberries never flowered this year, so we got no fruit. They're young bushes, so that might be part of it. The grapevines I planted are growing decently. The raspberry canes I planted have been chewed to the ground multiple times by some critter, even with the chicken wire around the garden. We don't have deer around, so I'm not sure what's eating it besides rabbits.

All in all, we're getting quite a bit of nice produce this year. :)

Hope your gardens are growing well!

I ordered a green house kit for my garden this morning.  Anyone else put up one of these before?  Hints, warnings or comments appreciated.  :)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HR1VFA/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_asp_dHm9G.1D6A3FG

My green house kit arrived Friday, earlier than expected.  I have the foundation and paver floor done and the steel base squared, leveled and attached.  If all goes to plan I should have it completely assembled today.

I picked up some free raspberry plants from a friend yesterday afternoon and got those planted too.  I hope they like my yard.

Assembly complete!

Awesome!

I've heard good things about them--you can hang a light in there to keep things a bit warmer on really cold nights, apparently. I started my plants indoors on shelves and hung a shoplight with a mix of spectrum bulbs right above the flats. That worked so well for me this last spring that I'm going to do the same thing again next spring--albeit with a lot fewer ancho chili plants and more green peppers. :D

I've found myself spending more and more hours at community gardening charities in my area this year.  Volunteering time and attending workshops is so much fun and helps me learn more to apply in my own garden while helping the community.  Does anyone else enjoying doing this where you live?  What kind of activities do you participate in or wish they offered at your local gardens?

In the past month I've planted garlic with my Mom and learned to build hoop-houses at Growing Hope, which provides education, tools and materials to those who want to learn to grow their own food.  They raise money for this mission by providing local farmers markets and businesses with produce. Yesterday was a long work day at Eating Gardens preparing their site for an edible forest garden using permaculture techniques. We put down layers of manure, cardboard, straw, leaves and compost using wood chips along the paths.  The planting areas and paths are laid out as natural spirals like water flowing past a rock or swirls of smoke, which looks pretty cool already. I can't wait to see it in it's glory. Over the winter months these layers will be converted to soil for us to work next year.This garden will be managed as a  "savanna" and contain perennial vegetables, fruits and berries.

Except for the kale and some other greens my own garden is pretty much ready for the winter.  I put a mini hoop house over the kale that's in the ground and have some flats of kales and lettuces started in the greenhouse to put out under cold-frames sometime soon.  Garlic (Wolfmoon hardneck) is planted and I moved the rooted cuttings from my basil indoors this week with some parsley, rosemary and thyme plants. Layers of leaves and grass clippings cover the ground and the compost bins are full of material to start breaking down over the winter.  I just ordered a whole mess of organic heirloom seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  So my winter project will be to figure out what to plant where and when to start the seeds.  With my new little greenhouse that I built this fall I should be able to start many things early to transplant.  Any "seed-savers" that have some advice to offer on that topic?

Maybe the winter planning and early greenhouse work will help winter pass a little quicker for me this year. ;)