2021 Garden Thread

[SidecarFlip]

We had a 1 ft heavy snow about May 21. I had the cole crops planted out. May 25 pics show the snow melting, they look like they will make it. I will take follow-up pics later to let you know. First pic is Brussels Sprouts, second is Broccoli.

Brussels sprouts like cold/ I pick them all winter. O cover them with straw and pick them all winter. In fact, they are better when they are subject to cold.

 

[Montanalocal]

Yes I know, I have been growing Brussels Sprouts for many years, it is one of my faves. My concern was not the cold temps, but that the very heavy wet snow would break off the growing point, as they had started to elongate. It looks like they are bent over, but that the stalk is still intact and will keep growing. We shall see.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Well, I am (orientated to be a gardener sort of. More like a farmer with a 1 acre patch 'garden', I just see no reason in fooling with tomatoes when all I need to do is go down the road and get all I want. Like I said, I'm allergic to the vines and leaves and tomatoes do bad things to me internally anyway. You see, Tomatoes and Nightshade are related and I'm also allergic to Nightshade even though it's the best deterrent to poison Ivy there is. (Crushed Nightshade berries spread on poison ivy kills it instantly).

All I want applies to cabbage too. This year is Kraut year. Probably ferment 30 gallons.

Nothing beats home made kraut with Italian sausage in the winter.

Need to put the furrow-holler attachment on the tiller and hill the potatoes, maybe tomorrow after everything gets watered this evening.

Potatoes are Solanaceae, nightshade family also.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I haven't read that one. Our library system has it listed, but no copies. Without water, survival is impossible. This sometimes can be reversed if one works with nature instead of against it, even in Texas.

Meet the Visionary Who Restored 5,500 Acres of Wrecked Texas Land to Paradise

Fifty years ago, the wildly inspiring David Bamberger bought the worst land he could find with the aim of bringing it back to thriving life.

www.treehugger.com

We "may" get some rain this week, right when we are having some painting done. Go figure. The rain is more important, painting can wait if need be.

Your plants look great. We have flowers on our sweet millions and sungolds but we are a few weeks behind you. especially for the heat these plants love.

I read about David Bamberger when I first moved here. It’s exciting what he has done.

My plants are surprising me this year. I think I put them too close together because I wasn’t expecting such vigorous growth.

Sweet Million has been a good cherry for me in this climate, and we harvested our first today. (My five year old and I each got half since we spend the most time in the garden.) I’m trying a new type of cherry this year called Maglia Rosa. It is supposed to take less space but still produce prolifically. I’m glad I was warned that it was a scraggly looking plant because it sure is. I started it over a month later than the Sweet Million, and it has just this week put on its first fruit, and I’m excited about that. I also saw my first purple eggplant today.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Its a celebrity hybrid tomato and I put some gravel and p rock in the bottom and filled it up with miracle grow soil for outside and gave it some shells on top in case it needs calcium and to let it think its in Michigan. Plus I put a cage like thing to keep animals out and a bamboon type of box on top to give it some shade--its just a baby--also I took off the bottom leaves and planted it deep..Here is a picture of it now since it is in where it will be...c

I’m proud of you, Mrs. Clancey. It’s great that you’re trying new things. The bamboo box might be a little too much shade, but it’s definitely good to protect it while it’s recovering from the car accident and the transplanting. Dry air makes sunlight more intense on plants, and Colorado has plenty of dry air and sun. You can see how things go and adjust accordingly.

I’m so sorry to hear that you (and your tomato) were in an accident, but I’m sure glad that you weren’t the one to go flying. Tomatoes are surprisingly hardy, and it looks like you’ve gotten it off to a good start.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Potatoes are Solanaceae, nightshade family also.

I dislike big words.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Sorry. Family names were important in school. Lots of useless plant info is stuck in my head.

 

[clancey]

Yea I wanted to find something that would protect it from the heavy rays but give it some sun as well and that's the only thing that I could find in my house working like a screen to let some sun in and I brought my baby plant in last night it got chilly and I thought rain and now it is overcast and they said rain this afternoon so its in the house in front of my window still looking okay..Thanks,,c

 

[SidecarFlip]

I knew it would rain if I watered the garden last night and true to form, it did and is. Good deal, we need the precipitation.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I had to fill the ollas in my garden this morning, but it was really a joy to be in amidst the plants. Right now they’re all healthy and growing, and some are setting fruit. The honeybees have found my cucumber flowers, and a few fruits are swelling. My five year old and I dug a bunch of new potatoes for our lunch, and it was like finding buried treasure for him and for me.

Our family is having a long weekend off from work and school that starts tomorrow. I may harvest some of the onions and see what I can rig up for curing them. (There were lots of fire ants in that bed this morning. I put out a couple of garden-safe bait stations, but I’m nervous about what they’ll be eating as they do actually consume some forms of produce.)

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Your garden looks great!

 

[clancey]

It sure does wonderful looking garden and well cared for..c

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I was weak.

One of my employees wanted to go flower shopping on a break. While she looked at the flowers I checked out the veggies. They had 6 packs of San Marzanos easily 3x the size of mine for $3.79. I bought a 6 pack. I'll plant them Tuesday after the long weekend.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I haven't had any time to post.. been way to busy at work. My son and I finished moving the garden and got it planted about 3 weeks ago. I was able to get all the plants out of the greenhouse. The tomatoes took a real beating because it was hot in there and the post were small for the size of the plant. We planter over a hundred plants the we started from seed. The new garden is taking off. I made a compost pile last year from leaves and vegetation from here at home and work, taking the machine and turning the pile. All of it was added to the new garden , probably 6 yards and tilled it in with the dingo and tiller. We doubled the size of the garden from the previous year and it has a 3ft fence around it consisting of a wood frame and 2x3 wire to keep the unwanted out. I should have the irrigation finished this weekend. Had to do ALOT of watering by hand.. man it's been hot and dry here. We just went 15 days with no rain and temps in the upper 80s to mid 90s..

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I had to fill the ollas in my garden this morning, but it was really a joy to be in amidst the plants. Right now they’re all healthy and growing, and some are setting fruit. The honeybees have found my cucumber flowers, and a few fruits are swelling. My five year old and I dug a bunch of new potatoes for our lunch, and it was like finding buried treasure for him and for me.

Our family is having a long weekend off from work and school that starts tomorrow. I may harvest some of the onions and see what I can rig up for curing them. (There were lots of fire ants in that bed this morning. I put out a couple of garden-safe bait stations, but I’m nervous about what they’ll be eating as they do actually consume some forms of produce.)
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Thank you for the tomato seeds. I planted 1 in my garden. Started from seed as soon as you sent. The variety looks to be a vigorous grower and has taken well to my climate. Although is was smaller then the others, it seemed to perform better in the heat of the greenhouse than some of the other varieties like the better boy and the Wisconsin..

 

[SidecarFlip]

Heat and dry isn't conducive to growing perennial's, especially fruiting plants. Why I like potatoes, Once they get established, they are pretty much unimpacted by odd weather plus they keep well over the winter in the root cellar. Same with onions. Having a bad time with my sweet corn. Had less than 50% germination. Considering replanting the rows. I quit growing anything we cannot put up other than cantaloupes. No zucchini this year at all. I don't like eating it and I was only growing it for my buddy's market, said before, his wife bakes bread from it so I'd let them get huge and then pick them. They take up too much room, not that I don't have the room with a 1.5 acre garden but still a PITA so I didn't plant any. No cukes either and no green beans. Still have plenty of frozen beans and sprouts in the deep freeze. Have a lot of sweet corn too but we like sweet corn on the cob. We canned sweet and sour pickles last year and about 20 jars of Kraut and I ran at least 30 gallon of cider and we froze 10 gallon and gave away the rest, all from the apple trees on the property.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Thank you for the tomato seeds. I planted 1 in my garden. Started from seed as soon as you sent. The variety looks to be a vigorous grower and has taken well to my climate. Although is was smaller then the others, it seemed to perform better in the heat of the greenhouse than some of the other varieties like the better boy and the Wisconsin..

You’re welcome. I’m glad it’s doing okay for you. If it will handle heat, that will be great news for me in Texas. Our May has been cloudy and often wet, very unusual for my years down here, but my garden is thriving. Thankfully the garden survived a very strong storm last night that brought down tree debris (no whole trees, just natural pruning) all over our property. My mother in Virginia has been hotter and drier than we have been for the past couple of weeks. I think that will be changing soon, though.

Here’s a shot of the trellis where we are growing three tomatoes. The outer two are a different Artisan cherry called Madera. The inner plant is the Agi Red for which I sent out seeds. I’ve been having to prune a number of lateral branches as they are growing more vigorously than I expected. The second shot is a close-up shot of the fruit set at the bottom of my Agi Red. I think my plants are a couple of weeks older than yours, and I was able to transplant them at least a month earlier.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Those honeybees on the cucumbers have been working hard. We had just enough of a harvest yesterday to make tabbouleh for today’s lunch. This evening I wanted to do the first real picking of the pole beans, and I ended up grabbing ingredients for cucumber pickles, too. We have nice slicers developing on the vine as well.



The beans I put in the fridge to await a larger harvest. The rest of the ingredients went into the jar with some garlic cloves and a saltwater brine for fermenting.

We had new neighbors move in down the street recently. My five year old and I walked over one day last week to introduce ourselves and to offer them some garden plants since I knew that the previous owners had left behind some large raised beds. It turns out that they aren’t gardeners and had other plans for that space, so our garden space is going to be expanded with free raised beds. (We also recently got 98 feet of good fencing for free and we got some thinner wire fence with the beds as well.).Tomorrow I’ll begin the process of my mini-hugelkultur for the beds. It will take a while to build the soil, but I’m very excited to have more space to rotate crops in the future and not have to worry so much about fitting everything in that I want to grow.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Never understood the need for raised beds. I plant everything in the ground just like I do when I farm.

Tried the straw bale thing for taters last year but I'm bac to the ground this year.

 

[begreen]

Never understood the need for raised beds. I plant everything in the ground just like I do when I farm.

Limited space, no power tools so manual labor, no weeds, warms up quicker. And sometimes the native soil sucks due to heavy clay, gravel bed or rocks.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Never understood the need for raised beds. I plant everything in the ground just like I do when I farm.

Tried the straw bale thing for taters last year but I'm bac to the ground this year.

You’re blessed with what you have. I’m very familiar with in-ground gardening as it’s how my mother fed us all my growing up years. She has a beautiful garden that she has maintained in Virginia for nearly fifty years at this point. I, however, live on top of a limestone cliff on the Edwards plateau of Texas Hill Country. Whatever topsoil there may have been eroded away because of severe overgrazing before we bought the land. My neighbor was amazed that we actually succeeded in driving the t-posts in around our current garden (though their exact spacing is a bit wonky because we had a lot of places where we couldn’t sink them, but limestone is soft rock at least). We’ve been letting the land recover for the past four years, so there is more soil and greenery than there was when we bought it. With rock at the surface and an pH of 8.3, though, my garden will be in raised beds and containers. I’m just glad that works for our circumstances, and I’m very thankful to be having a rainy May.

Here are a couple of old pictures I found to give you an idea of the stone on our property.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

My father burnt coal for a few years in the 80s. I'm not sure where he decided to dump the ash. This is an easy way to not have to worry about it.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Limited space, now power tools, so manual labor, no weeds, warms up quicker.

Roundup handles the weed chores for me, in the garden and in the fields. I get a few anyway. But I like getting in there and pulling them anyway. In the fields, I don't. Just overspray. Don't own a spray rig other than a 3 point so I have the co-op spray for me.

 

[begreen]

You’re blessed with what you have. I’m very familiar with in-ground gardening as it’s how my mother fed us all my growing up years. She has a beautiful garden that she has maintained in Virginia for nearly fifty years at this point. I, however, live on top of a limestone cliff on the Edwards plateau of Texas Hill Country. Whatever topsoil there may have been eroded away because of severe overgrazing before we bought the land. My neighbor was amazed that we actually succeeded in driving the t-posts in around our current garden (though their exact spacing is a bit wonky because we had a lot of places where we couldn’t sink them, but limestone is soft rock at least). We’ve been letting the land recover for the past four years, so there is more soil and greenery than there was when we bought it. With rock at the surface and an pH of 8.3, though, my garden will be in raised beds and containers. I’m just glad that works for our circumstances, and I’m very thankful to be having a rainy May.

Here are a couple of old pictures I found to give you an idea of the stone on our property.

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Sounds like good conditions for a vineyard.

 

[begreen]

It's beginning to be strawberry time.