How's your garden doing thread.

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smokinj

Minister of Fire
Aug 11, 2008
15,980
Anderson, Indiana
Major drought here this year, but been watering the crap out of mine. Tomatos as big as softballs. mellon are monster to. Beans I am on my 3 picking and sweet corn almost ready. Pickles and zucci by the 5 gallon buckets. How's your garden doing?
 
Pretty good until I forgot to turn on the electric fence to keep the deer out. The deer feasted on the green and yellow beans, greatly preferring the yellow beans, flowers, and the rest of the plants. Pretty close to adequate moisture here, but still need to water about every other day.
 
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Hello

The tomatoes are very slow

All the lettuce and flowers are doing great!
 

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Not a good year here. Too dry is an understatement. Peppers are struggling to produce...and the peppers that form are getting blossom end rot. OVerall I'd say what I do have is producing about 50% less than last year even with watering.

Getting lots of tomatoes, eggplant, and okra right now. First planting of cucs is done...next on its way. Same for beans and Zucs. Second planting of sweet corn should be ready next week. Melons are coming along...may pick a watermelon this weekend to see how its going. I'll pick the last of the carrots this weekend.

I canned a bunch of salsa and tomato juice. Got a lot of Broc this spring but not nearly as much in the freezer as last year...but that's because the kids are slaying the veggies right out of the garden.

Fall crop is underway. Broc, Cauli, and cabbage started in trays. I'll start more leafy stuff, radishes, peas, etc. toward the end of Aug.
 
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Not great here. All peppers (bell, banana, jalapeno) are a fail so far except for banana peppers which are so-so. Cucumbers are doing OK, but nothing like the last couple of years in terms of volume. Beans are doing better than past years, though nothing to brag about. I'm holding out hope for the tomatoes (big boy and cherry); they look like they're hitting their stride....finally... but they are late. Need some serious sun next couple of weeks to close out the season for the tomotoes.

I've thought about why this year is so much different than past years, and I don't think it's the dry weather (we're a bit dry here, nothing like what's going on in the midwest, and I've been watering). Challenge in my yard, I think, is the trees and keeping the garden sunny enough. Even with thinning and removing lower branches, I think the trees are still winning. :)
 
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I've picked almost 100 zucs and summer squash. Kinda glad only half the zucchini sprouted. They are slowing down now, not planting more. No powdery mildew this year.

Have picked string beans 5 or 6 times - about 14 pounds. In the past I've gotten a big crop and then small amounts - kinda steady output this year although the recent rains have accelerated that a bit. Got a second row in - should start when these quit. Usually have those little yellow fuzzy bean beetles and haven't seen one yet.

Only grew pickling cucumbers this year and have picked about 90 or so so far. Maybe more, I lost count. My sister makes pickles and relish.
Got a short row of carrots and beets in in March and haven't gotten any more seeds to sprout since.

Peas all dried up one day when it was 100. Picture perfect green one day, brown and dead the next. I just couldn't get out there to pick them when I should have. Got more started.

Best year ever for lettuce. Never had lettuce this long and certainly not in heat like this. Started more. Worth a shot.

Failed at spinach again. Well I had a couple and picked a few leaves but they bolted early and looked like crap.

I companion planted romas and peppers. The peppers aside the romas are pathetic, yellow and spindly. the ones aside regular tomatoes are huge, green and not doing too bad for peppers. All the same bell peppers except one sweet heat. Romas need picking , regular tomatoes are all turn red at once in a couple more days. I've been eating cherry tomatoes for a while.

Usually don't have much luck with melons here as it is rarely hot enough nor hot enough long enough to get a melon or watermelon much bigger than a baseball, but 5 plants made it with black cloth and I have found 1 honeydew about twice the size of a softball.

I haven't counted the winter squash but a couple are huge, with one or two with brownish tough looking skins already and I planted half as many as last year so probably about 50 as long as the deer don't find them. They'll keep blooming growing and setting more fruit, too for another month.

Lost plums, apples and all but the asian pears to weird spring weather and my peaches which were looking really good are rotting. Not a good fruit tree year at all.
 
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All the squash and Zulus were eaten except one plant each- which means we have more than we can eat.

Lots of tomatoes, none ripe.

Bells, cherry peppers and habaneros are doing well, but not ripe. This will be a memorable year for habaneros.

Garlic did well

Not sure how to get basil etc to not go to seed- I try to keep it picked down. It's all bitter now

Damn autocorrect- zukes,not Zulus
 
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Our garden is doing great. We've canned 25 quart of beans, about 3rd picking, pickled many quarts of pickles, have half a onion sac full of garlic and getting ready to can hot peppers for the second time. Some of our bell peppers are close to the size of a quart jar, and we are now getting ready to pick sweet corn. I just about can't stand to look at cantaloupe for I've picked almost a dozen and there's many more out there. Tonight we planted 3 more row of beans and soon I'll be planting more broccoli. There's been a few times I though I was going to dry up the well when watering but it's been okay. Been extremely dry, but we have kept up for the most part. I'll be planting a cover crop late fall along with the garlic for next year. Currently there's around 10 purple Martin gourds in the garden but having a problem with the pumpkins. Large, dark orange pumpkins about ready to pick. There has been quite a few people around here with the same problem, not sure?
 
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Not sure about your zone, but here it's radishes, broccoli, cabbage, beets, and other cold weather crops. I've also seen lettuce planted. All of your tender crops won't withstand a frost or do well in cooler soils. Where I've pulled the onions and potatoes from the spring planting is where I plant others. I'm hoping there's enough time for a few picking of beans from the new planting. I'm sure I'll be fine.
 
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Gardens doing good, But COVERED n weeds and volunteer cherry tomatoes. It was Too hot for weeding. ( but not wood processing? hmm...)
Have my Central air condensate irrigating, and a very productive well, so the drought wasn't a problem. Our farmers here are really hurting, though. Chicken and beef guys are gonna be dealing with some high feed prices. Heres a pic from last year
gard1.jpg
 
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Hey- what's good to plant now for the end of the season?
any of the cool weather traditional Spring crops are supposed to do fairly well in Fall. There's still 60 or so days even though days are getting shorter as long as you don't try something that needs 90 days you should get something.
I've been trying to get more carrots, spinach and beets started but I guess it has just been too hot.

I've had carrots green and growing past Thanksgiving and some fairly hard frosts by piling leaves pretty deep beside them with just the green tops sticking out. When they are finally done in by the cold I'll pile even more leaves on them and dig them up all Winter as needed.
 
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Last year I picked Broccoli up until January. It was a mild winter, but they took hard freezes like a champ.
 
We've done ok for cooler weather crops, but the warm ones are late this year due to the cool summer. It's sunny outside right now and only 66F, got down to 54F last night. It's dry and very comfortable but the tomatoes and eggplant would like a bit more heat. We've got some cherry tomatoes and a few 3" eggplants. Cukes are doing well and the zukes have started kicking in seriously now. Lettuce is on its 3d planting, carrots on their second and I have autumn crops going in now.
 
Mines doing surprisingly well. Im giving away more tomatoes than I can process. Beans got eaten by rabbits so none there. Peppers are going crazy and cukes are too. Brocolli did ok but it was my first time growing it.
 
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My tomatoes are huge and my watermelons and cantaloupe and not far behind. My cucumbers have gotten a bit scorched and my carrots are not up to par either. I don't do anything with the garden since this drought. I have hundreds of hydrangeas and they are a high maintenance plant so they have been taking up all my garden time
 
Just a few tomato plants and cukes in an "Alaskan garden" (well old tires filled with dirt) . . . I got a later than normal start so the cherry tomatoes are just starting to be ready and the cukes should be ready for eating this week or next. So far I'm really pleased with the tire containers. I have noticed that I have to keep my eye on the plants a bit more though as the soil seems to dry out a bit faster. So far though, not a single weed.
 
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Update we are now over 100 qts of tomatoes, 21 qts of dehyrated zuccini. Peppers are almost ready to smoke! Beans took a crap only 7qts and letting it go to seed and doing the same with the corn. Next years seed in the bag. Now the tomatoes are just off 2 rowes and 4 more rowes are just now starting to turn red. Tomatoes anyone?
 
About 50 jars of salsa and 20 jars of juice canned so far
 
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About 50 jars of salsa and 20 jars of juice canned so far

Awesome, we be doing a lot of salsa to. Romas are almost ready for the sause and paste. Beat I can back off tomatoes next year...Even gave 10 gals away and Mother will be over to can on Tuesday.
 
I'll be planting the fall garden this weekend if all goes according to plan.
 
I'll be planting the fall garden this weekend if all goes according to plan.


I got about 30qts of greens this spring. Thinking I should do at-least one row for fresh ThanksGiving. Maybe a couple rowes of green beans. We got 4 inchs of rain this month so the time is right.
Forgot Mellons are full swing.
 
I'll be planting the fall garden this weekend if all goes according to plan.

What do you consider fall garden plants? Just looking for variations on what I do.
 
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