Vegetable Gardening

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Sally, new gardens are just SO exciting!
How sweet that your husband is doing that for you!

I am seeing tiny little baby lettuces and kale and spinach sprouts just coming up through the soil now. So thrilling to see the teeny greenlings pushing up in rows.

[spokewench]

You people are so lucky. I should be planting, but my garden just came out of the deep, deep snow freeze a week ago. I just can't get out and work it yet, cause I still would have to walk through a foot or so of snow to get there. Just can't get myself out there yet; plus it is really quite cold at night 20's still.

spoke

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Updates from everyone?

I planted some seed too early and it didn't come up, so I have had to replant it again. On the other hand, some didn't mind the cold at all, especially the kale, spinach, radishes, and black-seeded simpson lettuce. Another week and we'll be able to have 'baby salads'.

[malkin]

We have made a cat garden for our geriatric Tiger T Cat. Wheat grass, flat leaf parsley (we share) and Walker's Low Catmint. A pair of sunflowers are trying to survive in the center of the grass.

He needed an intervention and a 12 step program after an encounter with Cat Nip so we don't ever have that evil stuff here anymore. The Walker's Low seems to please and calm him without psychotic bursts of agression, and it will have nice purple flowers later.

Growing on the balcony rail are columbine, lavendar, violas, mint, tarragon, basil, sage, and comfrey.

[GLC1968]

We have tons growing! I just did some slug hunting last weekend too (copper around the boxes, beer traps inside them) cause the little jerks were doing a number on our cauliflower plants!

We've got broccoli, cauliflower and kale coming along nicely. Our tomatoes and peppers are doing well in the greenhouse (well, we did lose one type of pepper so we are reseeding those). We've got all our melon seeds started in the basement. The garlic looks fantastic. I harvested all the leftover onions from last year as they bolted and we've been eating them. I need to dice and freeze the rest or they'll spoil before we get through them all.

I've got three types of peas coming up and two types of onion starts planted and looking good. And our strawberries are coming to life again nicely. We also got our sweet potatoe slips a couple of days ago, so those will go in this weekend (along with the other potatoes).

Lastly, the chard, lettuce and spinach are all looking really good. I need to plant more this weekend (particularly spinach).

Oh we also put in 6 trees in the orchard (2 apple, 2 pear, 1 peach, 1 nectarine) and we have a fig and a tea tree bush to plant this weekend. We also need to expand our raspberries and our blueberries...you know...because I like being in over my head.

[tulip]

I have several salads from my garden, and lots of herbs for every meal. The strawberries are turning pink, and I hope I get to them before the critters. I'll try to post some pictures soon. It's pretty. I'm trying several different heirloom tomatoes that I haven't tried before.

I've mostly been focusing on the perennials in my front yard, though.

[bambu101]

I have radishes and peas coming up, and planted carrots and collard greens last weekend. My poor garden is all confused- last Wednesday we had a dusting of snow on the ground, and by Sunday it was close to 90 degrees!

I am going to try Sugar Baby watermelons and an heirloom variety of canteloupes this year that I got from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds. It's always fun to try something new every year!

[OakLeaf]

As always being a snowbird I get a late start, but I have my perennial herbs, most of my red Russian kale overwintered (yay!) and I cut a good bunch of volunteer baby mustard greens before tilling them and all the weeds under.

Got the soil prep done before it rained... now I have to wait for my plot to dry out enough to dig beds and plant!

[OakLeaf]

As I do every year while constructing my dug beds I wonder about building permanent raised beds....

Here's the issue I have though: My sweet corn patch is a different size and shape from my pole bean patch, which is a different size and shape from my basil and cilantro rows, my greens rows, my tomato and pepper rows, etc., etc. Squashes need lots of room to splay out; with carrots, I need to be able to get close in to weed them.

Those of you with raised beds, how do you manage your crop rotation?

[spokewench]

As I do every year while constructing my dug beds I wonder about building permanent raised beds....

Here's the issue I have though: My sweet corn patch is a different size and shape from my pole bean patch, which is a different size and shape from my basil and cilantro rows, my greens rows, my tomato and pepper rows, etc., etc. Squashes need lots of room to splay out; with carrots, I need to be able to get close in to weed them.

Those of you with raised beds, how do you manage your crop rotation?

It is difficult to deal with crop rotation with raised beds. I have raised beds with limited area, they are approximately 4 feet wide and 6 feet long and I have three of them. It does limit you. I do not plant sweet corn for two reasons; one is I really don't have the room for it; and the other is that my growing season is too short and I never get developed ears so I gave up!

I tend to plant closer together than I would plant if I had a great big garden out in the yard that was unlimited in size. and I mix things up quite a bit; companion planting type style. However, I do try to put the tomatoes and eggplants, and beans in a different bed every year to try to rotate in order to keep wilt, etc. from setting in. So far, I have done okay to keep wilt, etc. from setting in. My biggest challenge and all the garden books think this should not be a problem; but I have an infestation of earwigs that like to eat my small seedlings (they love chard) and eat holes in my salad stuff, etc. I am going to try the rolled up wet newspaper to trap this again this year and hope for the best.

I will planting seeds this weekend; and a few plants. We had snow last weekend and some really cold nights still, so I have been lazy this year; I'm also travelling a bit this year; so it is always a challenge to keep the garden watered while I am away.

[skhill]

I'm so psyched-- the beans I planted last Friday are poking up!!! No big news, except that we had about 7.5 inches of rain over the weekend. I was afraid that the seed I'd planted had washed away into my neighbor's garden. Still waiting on the sweet corn, but there's still time.

Today, I put in some more tomatoes and corn, summer squash, and pole beans. All of it's in the new bed, in my side yard. Great sun, and away from the dog!

[bambu101]

Thought I would ask for some more recent, middle-of-summer updates.

Here in New England, it has been very hot and humid, and dry up until a few days ago. My beans, melons, cucumbers, collards, carrots, tomatoes, etc were hanging in there, but were looking a bit crispy. The snap peas and radishes are done.

We had rain 2 days ago, and I went out for a quick check this morning to see how things were looking. I was amazed at how fast things have grown in just a few days! The mustard greens in pots grew about 5 inches, and the cukes and melons have blossoms. The heirloom tomatoes I started from seed in late May might actually produce some tomatoes! Very exciting!

And how are things in your little patch of earth?

[skhill]

After a dry and extremely hot 2 weeks, the garden was looking a bit crunchy. But thanks to the miracle of a wet weekend, everything's looking up!! Right now, I'm getting lots of green beans-- the bush beans are tapering off, but the pole beans are ramping up. Still have some swiss chard going. Lots of ripe cherry tomatoes, the romas are just starting to ripen, and a couple different varieties of slicing tomatoes are showing signs of pink. And I'm planning on eating my first zucchini tonight (many more to follow), maybe with the first bell pepper.

Herbs: my cats are loving the fresh catnip, and I have basil for me. The cilantro didn't make it, tho...

Yet to come: the sweet corn's looking a lot better after the rain (but I never get much). Pumpkin and butternut squash are looking promising. And I planted some more stuff recently, looking towards the fall (beets, carrots, cabbage).

One of these years the garden will take over the yard!

[smilingcat]

Southern California and you would think we would have perfect weather. Well, we live by the coast, can see the ocean. With it, we get marine layer/fog and the cold.

It's been cloudy, foggy and its very humid in the morning and on some days, sun would come out. It's been like that since April. Three days ago, we were wearing our jackets out at 3:00pm. you would think you were living in pacific northwest.

The marine layer has caused powdery mildew to go crazy and managed to destroy half of my cucumber, more than half of my tomato, and all of my zucchini and squash. The upside for us is that our growing season goes well into November and December. We already have replacement seedlings going so hopefully we can salvage our season.

Even with the poor weather, we managed to pickle full years worth of bread and butter pickle of zucchini. have had home made tomato sauce for our pasta...tomato and cucmber salad... Okra a total loss, bell pepper nada. tomatillo is growing crazy don't know why... Jalepeno, serrano, shishito are fairing okay 2 varieties of eggplants are managed to avoid the mildew... only one mellon plant survived the "June gloom".

no canned tomato yet.

Corn got a late start so they are only waist high.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

My vegetable garden has been hugely successful this year-

Here's a pic from June 1st.

And here is from the end of June:

One view,

and the other side

We have been drowning in lettuces and salad greens of all kinds for the past 6 weeks, with no end in sight. (i am heavy into succession planting)
Lots of baby cukes and string beans, and lots of green tomatoes.
Everything except the tomatoes is direct-seeded right into the garden.