2019 Garden Thread

[begreen]

All beds are now fully planted. Green beans are coming up. Peas have flowers and will soon be bearing. We have a couple small tomatoes on the early girl outdoors and several bigger ones on the greenhouse plant. It's already almost 5' tall, while the outdoor one is about 30". I did succession plantings of corn this year. The tallest is about 10" tall now and the shortest is 2" tall. Just started our 4th lettuce seeds and 3d carrot planting. The greenhouse got a serious case of aphids on the peppers so I move them all outdoors and brought in some ladybugs.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

All beds are now fully planted. Green beans are coming up. Peas have flowers and will soon be bearing. We have a couple small tomatoes on the early girl outdoors and several bigger ones on the greenhouse plant. It's already almost 5' tall, while the outdoor one is about 30". I did succession plantings of corn this year. The tallest is about 10" tall now and the shortest is 2" tall. Just started our 4th lettuce seeds and 3d carrot planting. The greenhouse got a serious case of aphids on the peppers so I move them all outdoors and brought in some ladybugs.

I did a couple rounds of corn and okra this year in our back yard (the deer don’t usually come in unless we leave a gate open). My second round has outpaced my first already in both crops. The corn was knee-high by Memorial Day (lacks the traditional ring) but has a ways to go. It responded well to some supportive mulching that I had to do after forty mph wind gusts one day.

We’ve been south of much of the violent weather our state has been suffering. I’ve been using our rain tanks and air conditioning condensation to water the garden every few days (it hasn’t been brutally hot yet either), but there was a brief shower this afternoon. I always like checking on the garden after a gentle rain.


The tomatoes and cucumbers are making their way up the arched trellis. A couple of the cucumbers are as tall as I am now. The turned up mulch in the path is what I haven’t cleaned up after an armadillo (I assume) did some digging in my garden. There were also six big holes among my cucumbers and herbs, but thankfully the plants all seem to have suffered no harm. I fixed that bed up today and applied mulch around some young basil where we hadn’t done so previously. It’s supposed to get hot later this week, so I may even put up my shade cloth again.


My theme for the garden this year was “tabbouleh,” so it was a victory when we had a friend over for Memorial Day and harvested enough parsley, cucumbers, and tomatoes to make our dinner. (I had green onions, too, but forgot them.) We also harvested two red peppers that day.


Last Saturday was also our first blueberry harvest. It was only a quarter cup because I wouldn’t let the kids take anything that didn’t fall into their hands with just a tickle. Some of the berries remaining on the bushes are quite large (the size of a penny). The more heavily laden bushes have smaller berries, but I wonder if they will plump more as they ripen. Rabbiteye blueberries are new for us.


The heat is about to hit down here, so we’ll see whether the plants keep growing. (Last summer my garden didn’t produce because I started too late, and the heat hit early.)

 

[begreen]

You're polevaulting ahead of us. Can you mitigate some of the stress of heat with shade cloth?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

You're polevaulting ahead of us. Can you mitigate some of the stress of heat with shade cloth?

That’s the plan. We tested the shade cloth set-up a couple of weeks ago, and it definitely kept things cooler.



We put this up to offer some protection when hail was forecast (thankfully we never had to find out how much help it would have been). The horizontal stakes through the trellis are to help extend it, but I need to secure them better. We did keep it up for a week, and it held up to wind, but it’s been down recently since the hot spell passed. It seems that the cool spell is over for us, sadly. It hit ninety today, and it’s supposed to go up every day through Sunday. I’ll probably try to get the cloth up again on Friday or Saturday when the sun is forecast to be more intense.

This photograph is taken from the west facing east by the way, and there are two big live oak trees behind me that help provide some afternoon shade. That’s the primary reason we relocated the garden. We originally had it in a different spot getting actual full sun till late in the evening, and it was brutal. I’ve definitely had to learn a whole new set of gardening tactics down here.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I went out yesterday to check on the garden after an overnight storm and found that an invader had stolen my large red tomato, taken it to a nearby location, and eaten two thirds of it. I picked the ripening grape and cherry tomatoes and brought them in. Thankfully there didn’t seem to be further damage today, but I’ll be seeing if we can possibly install some hardware cloth before it gets too hot tomorrow. (Probably not because we have to make a trip to the farm store to get it, and it will be too hot by nine in the morning in my opinion.) I did get the shade cloth up over the long beds this morning. The difference was immediately noticeable.

 

[mass_burner]

should i plant bulbs now rather than risk them dying before fall? i've had for 8 months now, in a cool dark place.

Sent from my V11 using Tapatalk

 

[begreen]

should i plant bulbs now rather than risk them dying before fall? i've had for 8 months now, in a cool dark place.

What type of bulbs?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Where are all the reports from my fellow gardeners? I’m missing all your pictures of your harvests.

Our garden has remained alive this year, and we’re pretty pleased about that. It’s been a cooler and rainier June than normal, and I’m sure that has helped. The heat is picking up now, so we’ll see how long things continue. It’s this month that people often pull out their summer produce and plant some things for fall, but I’m not quite ready to take that step. The cucumbers are producing steadily, and the tomatoes are ripening. (I’m particularly pleased with our Southern Delight hybrid cucumber). I’m not sure if the peppers will continue to set new fruit, but they are still flowering. I figure we’ll keep going with what’s in the ground and see how it fares. (Our bunny-proofing seems to have worked at halting tomato theft for the moment).

I am interested in starting a few things for fall. Some I’ll start inside (Brussels sprouts, perhaps cabbage), but I’ll probably need to start some butternut squash in the ground in a couple of weeks. We’ll see if I can make a space.

 

[Highbeam]

All beds are now fully planted. Green beans are coming up. Peas have flowers and will soon be bearing. We have a couple small tomatoes on the early girl outdoors and several bigger ones on the greenhouse plant. It's already almost 5' tall, while the outdoor one is about 30". I did succession plantings of corn this year. The tallest is about 10" tall now and the shortest is 2" tall. Just started our 4th lettuce seeds and 3d carrot planting. The greenhouse got a serious case of aphids on the peppers so I move them all outdoors and brought in some ladybugs.

Serious aphid issues for us this year too. First time for us. Plum tree was a mess, then pumpkins and hops severely infested. I’m testing the soap and malathion methods separately to see which works best. I will not be adding ladybugs though I appreciate their help too.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

My garden really didnt happen this year. Business, weather, family, it all took its hit.

I have kale, cokes, zucchini, and tomatoes. Everything else is just weeds and perennials this year.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The weather made for bumper raspberry harvests! The kid is really enjoying that! I lost her in the back yard the other day. I called her and cc'd she popped up in the corner by a fence. She found a patch of extra large blueberries that needed harvesting and had to crawl under the bushes to get there.

 

[begreen]

Serious aphid issues for us this year too. First time for us. Plum tree was a mess, then pumpkins and hops severely infested. I’m testing the soap and malathion methods separately to see which works best. I will not be adding ladybugs though I appreciate their help too.

First time for us this early too. Part of the problem is that thatcher ants are tending the aphids so that they get their honeydew. They had a whole cherry tree treated as a colony. Never seen that before. It's common for hops to get aphids. Tie them up well and hose them down. I would not use malathion on anything edible (or drinkable). It's better to have some aphids in the wort than toxins.

 

[AlbergSteve]

Serious aphid issues for us this year too. First time for us. Plum tree was a mess, then pumpkins and hops severely infested. I’m testing the soap and malathion methods separately to see which works best. I will not be adding ladybugs though I appreciate their help too.

Same here. I left a few thistles in the potato patch and the stalks were black with aphids - and ants getting their fill of aphids!

 

[begreen]

Picked our first full-sized tomatoes yesterday, early girls. The cherry tomatoes have been bearing for the last week. Cukes and zukes are going gangbusters and we'll be picking early corn soon. Broccoli is just about done and peppers are ripening slowly. Eggplant likewise. July has taken a cool turn and it's slowing things down.

 

[Dobish]

My garden really didnt happen this year. Business, weather, family, it all took its hit.

I have kale, cokes, zucchini, and tomatoes. Everything else is just weeds and perennials this year.

yep. i have a neighbors garden and some weeds.

 

[AlbergSteve]

Seven hundred and fifty + heads of garlic out of the ground...

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I'm jealous. I planted a bunch of garlic last fall and lost a lot to flooding over frozen ground. I was hoping id have enough to be self sufficient in it after this year. I'll start again this fall. Time rolls on.

 

[begreen]

Seven hundred and fifty + heads of garlic out of the ground...

No vampires in your neighborhood for sure!

 

[AlbergSteve]

I'm jealous. I planted a bunch of garlic last fall and lost a lot to flooding over frozen ground. I was hoping id have enough to be self sufficient in it after this year. I'll start again this fall. Time rolls on.

We weren't sure we'd get any either. The first post in this thread has a picture of what our garlic beds looked like(under water), then had two feet of snow for six weeks.

 

[AlbergSteve]

No vampires in your neighborhood for sure!

Nope, and only really close friends that don't mind the smell of garlic!

 

[begreen]

The big tomatoes and paste varieties are starting to ripen. This is a brandy boy with a cour di bue to the left. By grocery-standard these would be imperfect tomatoes. Some might even call them ugly, but oh the flavor is divine. Our early girls are the showy ones. Each is perfect and way better than any store-bought tomato.

 

[AlbergSteve]

Twenty. Seven. Ounces. What are you feeding them?!

 

[begreen]

Twenty. Seven. Ounces. What are you feeding them?!

That's just the first one. Last year we had one weigh in at 33.5 oz. I just do the initial soil prep in spring. They are on their own after that except for watering. The bed got a refreshing with compost, some bone meal, greensand, and Down to Earth organic fertilizer in April.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

The big tomatoes and paste varieties are starting to ripen. This is a brandy boy with a cour di bue to the left. By grocery-standard these would be imperfect tomatoes. Some might even call them ugly, but oh the flavor is divine. Our early girls are the showy ones. Each is perfect and way better than any store-bought tomato.
View attachment 246514

I would never call it ugly! That’s some nutritious food right there, a labor of love, and that’s a beautiful sight.

I did pull out our cucumbers last month as it just got too hot. I planted some pole beans and butternut squash. I couldn’t bring myself to pull out the tomatoes, and I’m sure glad I didn’t. We’ve been enjoying them fresh and in homemade pizza and marinara sauce. I’ve been stocking a bit away in the freezer as well.



I recently planted some corn and a few more cucumber seeds for the fall garden season. We’ll see if I can keep the surface moist enough for them to germinate. It’s been in the high nineties for weeks with no significant rain. We have less than 200 gallons in our rain tanks, but I’ve been faithfully collecting our A/C condensation (gallons every day), so I can keep providing the potted blueberries calcium-free water even if our tanks go dry. Last September was unbelievably rainy. It will be interesting to see what this one is like.

 

[begreen]

They still look good. You're into your second season already. We only get one shot.