Vegetable Gardening

[Jolt]

To the person who said she had a problem with the caterpillars getting into the cabbages/brassicas: here's what I have used on the broccoli that seems to help. Get a few hot peppers, chop them up and put them in a spray bottle (seeds and all). Fill it with hot water, shake it up and let it sit a while. Then you can spray it on the plants (just whatever you do, don't spray upwind) and it seems to repel the bugs. You'll have to reapply it every few days and after rain; keep the bottle in the fridge.

[Tuckervill]

Lisa, raised beds are much nicer to use than a flat plot. Your walkways are automatically made when you lay the beds, and you can reach across to do all your weeding, etc., without reaching too far or stepping in mud. If there's a sawmill nearby, you can sometimes get substandard cedar planks for next to nothing to make the beds with. You could also make a groovy cool pattern with the beds that is pleasing to the eye.

I'd try to make the beds lawnmower-width apart, too.

Karen

[smilingcat]

just got around to this thread.

Yes by all means start small. biggest mistake for someone new is starting big. They all get overwhelmed. three 4x4 raised bed is a pretty good start.

GLC's advice on succession planting is excellent.

For just the two of you, two tomato plants may be enough. one zucchini plant is plenty. In a humid environment, they tend to turn into giant club overnight.

Try beans and stake them up a pole (pole beans instead of bush beans) to save space. You can also do this with mellons. Mellons will require a "hammock" to keep the fruit from pulling the vine out of the ground. Cucumber is pretty easy too. There are lots of kind of cucumber so you need to decide what you want to do with them.

If the summer is hot, save the lettuce for fall and winter and away from direct sun as this will make for a very bitter green.

Tomato plants can get really big so keep that in mind. Oh if the dirt isn't that deep raised bed, you may want to grow patio tomato. They tolerate limited space for the root better than most other variety.

Also try some herbs. Basil, parsley, thyme and oregano are relatively easy. Thyme and oregano tends to be very invasive and so you may want to just pot them.

And enjoy the fruit of your labor.

[smilingcat]

Almost too late in season but managed to order three kinds of blueberries, Jubilee, O'Neal and Ozarkblue (in place of Southmoon). These are warm weather variety.

Also ordered Anne Yellow raspberry, tulameel (sp) raspberry and Ouachita black berry plants. Bit late to get any fruit this year but they should be set for next year.

Southern California is just too warm for stone fruit so have none. Instead we do have citrus trees.

We redid most of our garden so nothing looks established. bit strange to look at. Also about 5 years ago my collection of giant dahlia was wiped out. my mistake. and just today picked up three new varieties. Now I'll get to listen to one guy at my office "well my sunflower is much bigger than your dahlia" sheesh. Anyway, one variety of zuccini has set and probably ready to pick in about two more weeks. Green Zebra tomato has fruit set and first tomato should be ready in two to three weeks. Romas also has fruit set. Maybe I'll take a picture tomorrow and post.

Reading "Made from Scratch" by Jenna Woginrich. I'm just tickled pink by her writing. A young gal in her twenties decided to homestead of sort. Drives an old Subaru, her experience with chicken, bee keeping, three sheep... see coldantlerfarm.blogs.com Another book just for fun is "The Backyard Homestead" Carleen Madigan ed. bought it on advice from Amazon when I bought Made from Scratch. Just lukewarm on the second book.

Oh already pulled up two garlic heads, dried and cured. Need to start on heirloom variety of melons, and snow peas. Soo late.

[OakLeaf]

I use non-enclosed raised beds. Every year I till the whole patch, then dig out trenches/pile up soil in the beds.

It makes for a lot of work at the beginning of each season, but it allows me to till and amend the whole plot all at once and makes crop rotation easier. The way my yard drains, raised beds of one sort or another are a necessity.

I'm getting to a dilemma. I've put it off one more year but I'm going to need to make a decision. I've worked hard over the years to transform my plot from rocky clay to good loose topsoil. In the meantime, a nearby black cherry has worked just as hard to grow taller and taller and it's now shading a good third of my plot for most of the afternoons.

Move the plot? Or cut down the tree?

(Also, I set my tomatoes and peppers out yesterday, and now they've changed the weather forecast to call for patchy frost tonight. I wasn't planning on rolling out the row covers already. )



ETA: Lisa, after several frustrating years, I found the only thing that keeps groundhogs (aka woodchucks) out is electric fence. A small four-volt solar charger is plenty and not too expensive. One strand about three inches off the ground, one strand about eight inches above that with a ground wire between in case the raccoons try to climb it.

Eight feet of light poly netting with a string of twine on top is usually enough to keep the deer out.

You'd think these animals were starving, instead of having thousands of acres of pasture, woodlands and farm to graze. But no, they need my beans, tomatoes, greens, parsley and squash. All of them, if they can get them, and there have been years when they did.