Official 2011 Garden Thread

I know we got some guys growing Vegetables and stuff. How is it going this year? So far for me (In Mass) Everything is on schedule. I got close to losing my cucumbers to bugs, But I managed to save them and they are growing. I see I have a few cherry sized tomatoes already and a couple of small peppers. This year we did 10-12 Tomato plants, 2 cukes, 4-5 different peppers, 2 Zucchini, and a bunch of spices. I am sure I forgot one or two things, but I will get the pictures up of the progress so far.

How are you guys doing?

My yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, and jalapenos are all doing well. The okra did not make it, for some reason it never took off.

I only have tomato plants at the moment and have a bumper crop. Need to build better cages next year instead of the ones I bought from the store though.

Had my in-ground pool removed back in early May and have reallocated a 20' x 32' section of that space for a raised bed veggie garden. I'll post a pick when I'm finished, but have three 4'x10' and two 4'x4' raised beds almost ready to go. There's a long enough growing season in Atlanta that in August I can plant beans, squash, beets and carrots for a Fall harvest. I love fresh green beans!!!

We've been in our house six years and I've wanted a garden where the pool was since we moved in. Took a while but I'm finally getting my garden!

It's been a funny year here in eastern MN. We had a kind of cool and wet spring. It was so wet that we were about 3 weeks late getting the veggies planted. The tomatoes and basil took off but the stuff planted from seeds didn't. We just re-planted some beans last weekend where the seeds didn't germinate. The perennials on the other hand have been doing really well. Our climbing roses and clematis have been spectacular and the early things like tulips and iris held their blooms much longer due to the cool weather. Every year things are different so some years we look like we don't know what we're doing and other years we look like we're horticultural geniuses.

This fall and next spring I need to pay more attention to amending the soil. We're in a community garden for our veggie garden (aka the farm) and when we took over the plot 3 years ago the soil was more like dust than dirt. There was practically no organic material in the soil and after tilling the entire 15'x30' plot I only found one earthworm - not a good sign. I've already tilled 6 or 8 bales of straw into the soil as well as manuring it but it's still pretty crappy. I've been saving the good compost for the home gardens but maybe it's time to send some to the farm.

Our garden is in the Dowling Community Garden. If I'm correct I believe it is the second-longest continuously running victory garden in the U.S. after another in Boston. It's fun and really interesting to see all the contraptions people make to support their plants but of course there are a certain number of know-it-all types that can make it a bit of a drag sometimes (we have a particularly crabby neighbor who blames every weed she has on us). Overall it's a really good deal and the sense of community also makes up for those uppity gardeners. Anyone interested in community gardens can get an idea of what they're all about from our garden's web site at: https://www.dowlingcommunitygarden.org/

You guys ever check out https://www.organicgardening.com/ ? I've been getting the magazine for years and find lots of good information in both the mag and website. I don't go crazy with the 'organic' part of it, but anywhere I can avoid chemicals and pesticides and it works, I'm all for it.

Our tomatoes didn't work this year. First time ever. Had withering disease or something. Everything else is doing okay. Just for fun, the wife planted pumpkins on the side of the deck in her flower bed and they just aren't getting enough sun, so I'm not expecting much from them.

poolie said:

You guys ever check out https://www.organicgardening.com/ ? I've been getting the magazine for years and find lots of good information in both the mag and website. I don't go crazy with the 'organic' part of it, but anywhere I can avoid chemicals and pesticides and it works, I'm all for it.

Click to expand...

Awesome! This year for the first time I sprung for one "organic tomato" I figured the 50 Cents was worth it. We try to stay away from miracle grow stuff, but I love using Chicken and cow manure. It makes the basil leaves the size of dollar bills. A little goes along way though or things get burnt.

My wife is the gardener in our house. Our gardens are mainly flowers, but we have a couple of pots of tomatoes and an herb garden. All seem to be doing well.

Buddy of mine have a garden we piddle with.
Fun thing to do when fish are not biting.
We sell fresh tomato to restaurants, pumpkins, squash, & cantaloupe to dept.& grocery stores.

This yr we have around 600 tomato, 3000 pumpkin, & 2000 squash & cantaloupe plants.
Here's tomato:


Here's one pumpkin field:


We sprout everything in green house, then plant them mid june. Helps alot with weed control
We use no sprays. Have tractor with tiller to take care if weeds.

Here's friend & I on planter behind tractor. This way we can drop a plant about every 2 seconds.

Here's what it looks like just planted. You can see behind pickup the small apple orchard.

Wallijig wins. =D> =D>

Now that's more than I could ever handle and if I had that much land, I'd have a lake stocked with everything instead of a garden....but that's me.

Very nice!

fender66 said:

Wallijig wins. =D> =D>

Now that's more than I could ever handle and if I had that much land, I'd have a lake stocked with everything instead of a garden....but that's me.

Very nice!

Click to expand...

We also have around 25 acres of sweet corn. People come buy it by pickup load to use for canning. Let them pick it themselves.

As for fish. Buddy has 3 private ponds stocked too. with walleye, perch, & few large mouth.
Have 4 other ponds we use just as feeder ponds. We trap minnows & bring them in 200 gallon bait tank to fish ponds to feed them. Buddy raises fish also to sell wholesale to dealers, who sell them to people who wish to stock their fish ponds.

Wallijig said:

fender66 said:

Wallijig wins. =D> =D>

Now that's more than I could ever handle and if I had that much land, I'd have a lake stocked with everything instead of a garden....but that's me.

Very nice!

Click to expand...

We also have around 25 acres of sweet corn. People come buy it by pickup load to use for canning. Let them pick it themselves.

As for fish. Buddy has 3 private ponds stocked too. with walleye, perch, & few large mouth.
Have 4 other ponds we use just as feeder ponds. We trap minnows & bring them in 200 gallon bait tank to fish ponds to feed them. Buddy raises fish also to sell wholesale to dealers, who sell them to people who wish to stock their fish ponds.

Click to expand...

Care to adopt a 45 year old man with a wife and 2 daughters? [-o<

my garden is nowhere near as impressive as wallijig, but we've got around 15 tomato plants - already harvested around 20 tomatoes. The hot weather around here has brought stuff along like crazy. We've got lots of Lemon Boys coming in the next week or so and the cherry tomatoes are starting to go nuts. We have 2 tobasco pepper plants (the bugs got at em pretty good), a dozen jalapeno plants, a few cayenne plants, anaheims, bell peppers. So far we've pulled only a few peppers, but it's early and everything is just starting to yield.

I love my raised bed gardens... I have 95 tomato plants, 18 cabbage plants ( 5 have already been cut and put into crock for ferminting into sourkraut) 12 pepper plants, 20 sweet potatoe plants 6 each of zuchinni and yellow squash and cucumbers. We had 4 rows, 24'long of peas, 3 rows 40' long of green beans, 50 +- onions sets, a dozen hills of Yukon gold potatoes, plus 3 rows 20' and 1 row 40' of popcorn plus about a 35' row of peanuts. I also have some pumpkin and goards grownin along the edge of the garden space. We had all the early veggies, lots of lettuce, spinach and radishes.
Its a lot of work but the veggies taste oh so good...I am so envoius of the large piece of groud that you show in your pictures... great looking garden.
peace
ron

What is the best thing is Deer love pumpkins. Great for archery hunting. I have videos of 20+ deer in field at time.
Here's video of some checking out my decoy in harvested pumpkin field. (click on picture if wish to play video)

I live on 1/8 acre in town, the garden is 4'x10' and we only planted three big boy tomatoes and two green peppers in it. I planned on some pumpkins but I ended up with three volunteers down by the alley, I guess from Halloween. I also tilled a 4x10' patch next to the neighbors garage and planted zuccini and green beans and they have taken off.

My real pride and joy is my water lilly pond. It was a 7x7x3' and now it's 11x18x3' and has been going for around seven years. The retailers stopped stocking pond plants this year so I hope to figure out the plant colors and market them next year via craigslist. There are 11 lilly plant pots in it now, should make around 40-60 plants by next spring when I repot to sell. This pond has only been running for about a month and hasn't quite naturalized yet so it's still green.



Jamie

That is just awesome!

Bang, Bang, Bang.......Honey.....get the stove fired up!

Been alittle cooler then normal this year,have had a few feeds of beet greens and radishes.
My peas/beans are starting to blossom and everything else is up and looking good.

We planted hot peppers, big jim peppers, and bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, beans, peas, potatoes, corn and cucumbers. We've also got water melon taking over where we dug up the potatoes. So far everything is really doing pretty good. This is the first year my corn has not blow flat to the ground before it has a chance to ear out, so I'm hoping the corn plants won't be waisting their energy trying to stand back up straight and put that energy into making good corn.

Does anyone else use the fabric weed barrier between your rows? We have put it down the last two years, and it really does a good job for us. It makes the whole experience much easier when you don't have to pull weeds all of the time. It costs about $30 for enough to cover the garden, but once it's down, it's really handy.