Vegetable Gardening

[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.