Vegetable Gardening

[grey]

WOW sgtiger! WOW! I love it! I've wanted to do something like that myself, integrating ornamentals with produce in my front yard since it gets more sun than my backyard, but DH pooh-poohs me (and we're moving at some point anyway, might as well keep the easy-care perennials out front). Maybe if I show him your incredible pics he'll be ok with it for our next house. :-)

[badger]

here in the PNW, I've not had a good season. My beans and snow peas did really well, but none of the tomato flowers managed to bear any fruit. They've also very short, too.

My banana and acorn squash that came out of my compost have borne some fruit, but they soon turned yellow and dropped off. My basil's still only about 2" tall and my cilantro only managed to be about 6" before they started blooming. Never quite got the big leaves, just went straight to flowers. It's been rather disappointing.

[buffybike]

WOW sgtiger! WOW! I love it! I've wanted to do something like that myself, integrating ornamentals with produce in my front yard since it gets more sun than my backyard, but DH pooh-poohs me (and we're moving at some point anyway, might as well keep the easy-care perennials out front). Maybe if I show him your incredible pics he'll be ok with it for our next house. :-)

Google "edible landscaping" and you'd be amazed at how beautiful your front yard can be with some vegetables/fruits thrown in! I'm a huge fan of growing veggies/herbs/fruits in available space. When it comes to landscaping, if I can't eat it, I'm not real motivated to take care of it.

[Serendipity]

WOW sgtiger! WOW! I love it! I've wanted to do something like that myself, integrating ornamentals with produce in my front yard since it gets more sun than my backyard, but DH pooh-poohs me (and we're moving at some point anyway, might as well keep the easy-care perennials out front). Maybe if I show him your incredible pics he'll be ok with it for our next house. :-)

Grey, we've been gradually replacing ornamentals with vegetables. As my DH says, it takes just as much work to look after the ornamentals as the vegetables so why not have the fresh veggies. Last fall we added two raised beds to our front yard and planted carrots, beets, onions, swiss chard, peas, and random dill in the beds. That's my DH picking swiss chard in the rain!

So far, the neighbours have been intrigued more than anything else by the gardens in the front yard. My goal eventually is to replace all of the lawn with a mix of vegetables & ornamentals - but one year at a time!

[smilingcat]

I haven't had any complaints from my neighbors when I turned my front yard into a veggie garden. But that was California.

We now live in very progressive area of Oregon. So I don't expect to have any complaints from my neighbors when I turn the ugly lawn into a veggie garden mixed with native berry plants and evergreen.

In retrospect, maybe having an ugly lawn to start off was the key. Anything else was better than a ugly burnt, weed infested lawn. Lesser of two evils to some

[jobob]

We have 7 (was 8) heirloom tomato plants growing in what used to be our backyard. Most of the tomatoes are finally ripening, here's our first large haul from a few days ago.

We'll be canning crushed tomatoes and making lots of ketchup & tomato jam soon.

from L to R: Brandywine Black, Aunt Ginny's Orange, Texas Star (that's the single tomato), Amazon Chocolate, Hawaiian Pineapple. Still to come: Hugh's, Love Apple.

RIP: Black from Tula (it suddenly started to shrivel up badly so we cut our losses and dug it out; we'll figure out what to do with the dozen or so green tomatoes we salvaged).

[skhill]

A nasty groundhog has been destroying my garden this summer. Any ideas on how to get rid of him? I think he's living in my neighbor's shed.... I've tried scattering some used kitty litter along the fence, but it's not working. In the past, my dog kept the back yard well marked, but he's retired these days, as he can't manage the stairs from the back door.

Luckily, my squash/pumpkin patch is in the side yard, and the @#$%@# groundhog hasn't found it yet. There's also a single, volunteer tomato plant there...

Lots of folk have vegetable gardens in their front yards in my neighborhood-- but then I live on the edge of a really poor neighborhood. On some streets, the yards are really small, and the best light may be in front. There's even one family that's planted okra in the strip between sidewalk and street!

[spokewench]

Well, doesn't look like anyone has posted this year re their garden. I will have to send out a picture. I was a bit worried yesterday since we had a big thunderstorm and some parts of Flag got about 1/2 foot of hail. We were lucky, looks like it rained well, but not too hard and not too much hail. I lost my garden to hail damage completely last year.

So, I'm all happy that there is no hail damage this morning when my cat goes racing out the back door (before being fed, really weird) all slunk down low and moving fast. I thought that my husband left the gate open and that the neighbor's dog might be in the year which happens some times. Well, then the cat goes around the house and comes racing right back in his cat door and back to the back door. He is real low slung and I think wow, there really is something back there.

So, I go back there and two big havelinas are running around in my back yard! It is completely fenced.

I go down to my garden and thankfully, they only ate two squash plants in a pot that I have down there; the rest they have left alone! Thank goodness.

I chase them slowly out the gate and close it. They were pretty cool!

It wasn't too long ago that havelinas did not come up this high, 7,000 feet, but in the last 10 years they have been coming up higher and higher.

[OakLeaf]

Electric fence is the only thing that keeps out groundhogs and raccoons. Probably would work on javelinas. A 4 volt solar charger is enough for most gardens and not too expensive.

[snapdragen]

I planted a small garden this year, after doing nothing for a couple of years. I tried a couple of Earth Boxes for some tomatoes and tomatillos; they didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I think my tomatoes in the regular raised beds are doing much better. I'll use the Earth Boxes for flowers or herbs next year.

I have 4 pounds of tomatillos waiting to be made into salsa verde The tomatoes in the raised beds are about to burst forth - I will be overloaded. I'm sure Chloe will begin stealing 'maters off the vine very soon. I grew eggplant for the first time - Rosa Bianca. They are delish! Another first time for me was baby bok choy, a new favorite.