How's your garden doing?

valkyrie said:
<snippety snip>
My neighbor just planted 18 tomato plants. I usually get by with 3 plants total. That's enough to get my through the summer and winter if I pick good producers and treat them well. This year I have 12 tomatoes, all started from seed in the window in early January. I have so many I have run out of room for them and will be potting some out in buckets that I'll turn into self-watering pots (DIY instructions from Mother Earth News). This will be one of my garden experiments this year, along with the squash and pole beans in piles of donkey manure. (So far the pole beans are not coming up in the manure but the squash seems to be just fine.)
<snippety snip>
Click to expand...
I just found some very cool DIY sub-irrigation grow box instructions online using big 18 gallon Rubbermaid containers. I'm going to try those for the tomato plants.
 
Today I got my okra planted, and half of the purple hull crowder peas.

I'll get the rest of the crowders in tomorrow.
I also got my rows laid off in my east court garden, and picked up the stuff
I'll plant there tomorrow.
18 tomato plants, bell peppers, and some watermelon.
I'm going to do cantaloupe, and straight 8 cucumbers from seed.

Then I've got half my big south field left to finish leveling with the tiller,
that my neighbor hit the other day, and I'll plant 1/2 and 1/2 there with
Silver King, and Silver Queen corn.
I'm going to try to get that done too, but may have to finish up monday.
 
well I'm just not what I used to be.
this 'crippled up' shit sux bad sometimes :disgust:

Mom got the peas finished planting.
I've almost gotten the big field ready to lay the rows off for the corn.
The plants are still in the box.

I'll see how far I get today, after I finish my stretches.:retard::gmorning::swing:
 
catocom said:
Today I got my okra planted, and half of the purple hull crowder peas.

I'll get the rest of the crowders in tomorrow.
I also got my rows laid off in my east court garden, and picked up the stuff
I'll plant there tomorrow.
18 tomato plants, bell peppers, and some watermelon.
I'm going to do cantaloupe, and straight 8 cucumbers from seed.

Then I've got half my big south field left to finish leveling with the tiller,
that my neighbor hit the other day, and I'll plant 1/2 and 1/2 there with
Silver King, and Silver Queen corn.
I'm going to try to get that done too, but may have to finish up monday.
Click to expand...
A suggestion on the cucumbers: plant them a week or two apart. I am not sure if straight-8's produce all their fruit in a couple of weeks but if you plant them a week or two apart then you will have cucumbers over a longer period of time. Unless you are wanting to pickle them all at once or something.

I love the Sugar Baby watermelons. They make small, very sweet watermelons that are small enough to be kept in the refrigerator for a while. Can't do those big ones because there's only so much watermelon I can eat and I don't know what to do with the rest of the watermelon (except feed them to the chickens).
 
yeah we'll be doing some pickling, but we eat um pretty heavily when they
come in.
We also have an extended family community here, so there's a lot of sharing.

...

well, all I got done today was...
got my rows laid off (20), and fertilized, and got the first 2 planted with silver king.
I'm hoping I can get the rest planted before the rain gets here in the morning, but it's
going to be close if I make it.
 
rained out.
I got 13 of 20 planted in the corn, (got 8 in the silver king) before it got too sticky.

Mom got all the tomatoes planted, the bell peppers, and watermelons.

so, I've gotta finish up the corn, plant the cantaloupe, cucumbers, and the ford hook limas.
 
they can get to 2-3 feet tall...that's before they seed.
When they start to seed, they can grow higher.
(depends on the variety too)
 
catocom said:
rained out.
I got 13 of 20 planted in the corn, (got 8 in the silver king) before it got too sticky.

Mom got all the tomatoes planted, the bell peppers, and watermelons.

so, I've gotta finish up the corn, plant the cantaloupe, cucumbers, and the ford hook limas.
Click to expand...

whew, well I got it all in, ready for the heavy rain coming.
Got the grass cut too.:cool2:
 
catocom said:
yeah we'll be doing some pickling, but we eat um pretty heavily when they
come in.
We also have an extended family community here, so there's a lot of sharing.

...

well, all I got done today was...
got my rows laid off (20), and fertilized, and got the first 2 planted with silver king.
I'm hoping I can get the rest planted before the rain gets here in the morning, but it's
going to be close if I make it.
Click to expand...
Straight-8's: you're going to have to take them when they're small if you're going to pickle them.
Suggested uses: agua de pepino (cucumber lemonade); gazpacho soup; chopped to make a relish; cucumber salad; sliced thin in sandwiches; Goi Guon (Vietnamese spring rolls; I substitute shrimp for pork); cucumber kimchi (my fave!).

Other cucumber recipes I like can be found here: B's Cucumber Pages
I usually make about 10 jars of cucumber kimchi every summer as I go. I can't find my favorite recipe. I think I have it backed up on my network drive and I'll have to look for it there if anyone wants it.
 
TexasRaceLady said:
My tomato plants are growing like weeds. They even have the beginnings of blooms on them.
Click to expand...
I have blooms on mine also. :)

I've been making sub-irrigating containers (a.k.a., self-watering containers) out of 18-gallon Rubbermaid storage containers. I've made 2 so far. I planted 2 tomatoes in one container and 2 artichokes in the other. I did this because I had run out of room in my garden for the tomatoes and the artichokes. I plan on freezing a lot of tomatoes this year in freezer bags and dehydrating a lot as well. The Juliet tomatoes are so sweet that when you dehydrate them they can be eaten as snacks.

The containers are another experiment for this year's garden.
 
Well...what was growing in my gardens is not happy today.*

Yes, that IS snow..on the 27th of April. We're expecting 2-4" today and maybe more tomorrow.
 
blackberry winter now for about a week, and expected to go another week or so.
My prediction was right for here though...it won't freeze. :)
 
MrBishop said:
Well...what was growing in my gardens is not happy today.*

Yes, that IS snow..on the 27th of April. We're expecting 2-4" today and maybe more tomorrow.
Click to expand...
Bish, go outside and put glass jars over your small plants. It makes a cloche to protect the seedlings. This may save them from the snow and the cold and give them a fighting chance. I used plastic bottles with the bottoms cut out as cloches in mine because of the sunny afternoons here making it too hot for a closed cloche (the turned over glass jar). I can only use glass jars in winter here. Otherwise the seedlings will burn. I keep extra large pickle jars to use for just such an occasion.

If the plants are too big for glass jars then wrap them in plastic sheeting (clear).
 
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