Vegetable Gardening

[tulip]

veggie-wise, I only got two cherry tomatoes from my garden this weekend, but there's alot of basil still to be picked and a two green tomatoes on the big vine.

But the big news is that I harvested 8 wheelbarrowsful (yes, 8!) of finished, sifted compost from my compost pile today! It was alot of work, but a good workout and well worth the effort.

I put two wheelbarrowsful (from now on referred to as WBF because typing that out is a pain) in my winter collards raised bed, two WBF as mulch in two new flowerbeds on either side of the door to my cottage (I have a small cottage in my backyard that will be my office this time next year, but now it's just used as storage). I planted hollyhocks, shasta daisies, and coreopsis that I have been growing from seed all summer. I have alot more of them too! And the last 4 WBF are in the "finished compost" section of my three-part compost system that I made of shipping pallets. I'll be able to use that as needed.

I have four huge oak trees, so most of that compost comes from last years leaves. Just in time for this year's leaves, which will begin to fall in a few weeks. This year I'm renting a leaf shredder!

[Trek420]

Ok all you farmers. It's hardly a vegetable garden but .... I've found that chard, kale, leafy greens will survive and thrive in planters in my dark, sunless patio.

[OakLeaf]

Yum, kale!

The leaves on my red Russian kale keep getting bigger, but they're still tender and delicious. The one plant that overwintered from last year, and didn't bolt, the leaves are nearly two feet across, and still so tender.

Hope it does as well in containers as it's doing in my garden!

[Trek420]

I have very little sun. You see the patio door in the background? On the other side is another group of condos, neighbors walls to either side. So there's sun from maybe oh 10am-2pm

Remembering that greens could bolt with a lot of sun I picked up some starts at a local farm market and whadya know. They are surviving if not thriving.

[spokewench]

Here's my harvest from last night. Eggplant, bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini,tomatoes. Can't wait for that Eggplant parmesan this weekend! It is getting cold at night; have to really watch the garden from now on. I will try to get all the green tomatoes off before it freezes!

[deeaimond]

I don't have any edible vegetables but I have a monster tomato plant that just started growing out of one of my pots. It has now completely overtaken the original pot owner, this Jasmine plant...

I mixed some worm castings into the soil... I think that is the big factor, coz before i did that it was growing pretty slowly. It grew all the bits above the metal stick's hook in just one week.

Also featured are some ginger and tumeric plants i have just potted about 2 weeks ago. seem to have taken root pretty well. turmeric is top right of the aloe and sole ginger shoot is bottom right.

anyone got ideas whats the next step to this tomato plant. does anyone have an idea if it will bear fruit? i mean, do i need to have two plants for pollination or something?

[OakLeaf]

Tomatoes are self-pollinating. You're good with one plant. Might want to stake or cage it though, because it'll start falling over when the fruit gets heavy.

I had no idea you could grow ginger in pots! How cool is that.

I made five more pints of tomato sauce last night. How is it that all those tomatoes cook down into such a tiny amount of sauce??