2022 Vegetable Garden

[Tobra]

Had a few setbacks, ended up with better than a dozen various tomato plants, ten pepper plants, 3 groves of tomatillo plants, herbs, zucchini and butternut squash

I got it going early this year, started a lot of stuff from seeds, had a plan for my snap peas that was great. Would create a shaded dog run along the fence as they grew up the twine.

Had a problem with the peas. Dogs like snap peas. It turns out, if you pick them, eat the peas and give the husk to the dog, before too long they figure they cut out the middleman and pick the peas themselves. My plan was to get the peas growing, then when they start getting blooms, I put up the walls from this wire kennel as a fence. Apparently the little plants are tasty also. Dogs ate about 15 pea plants, have it fenced off for round 2 You can see the row of peas the dogs ate, did not get a shot of the little fence I made. I am going to make a frame and plant some out front I think.


Had a cold snap that killed them back some, lost a few tomato plants, and the peppers were not happy. Looking good now, ought to have real tomatoes in a couple of weeks, supposed to get hot. I had a ton of tomatillo volunteers, potted a bunch of them and gave the plants away. I dig that green salsa.

This is a couple months ago





These were today, have already been eating the little orange tomatoes and had some zucchini.

[flatbutt]

My yummies are just getting past the cotyledons. It was a cold spring here.

[Rawknees'Turbo]

For the first time since I was a kid living at home, I planted vegetable plants this year - trying out container growing (big, canvas-type bag pots) and planted 15 jalapeno pepper plants in 5 pots (I eat sliced jalapenos with almost everything . . . 3-6 per day typically). Has worked very well - plants are big and producing tons of peppers.

[Tobra]

Those canvas bags are the cat's ass.

I have some citrus trees in them and they are doing much better than the ones in conventional pots.

I have seen a kit to grow "upside down" tomatoes. Basically a hanging basket, where the tomato vines grow down. Just the ticket for a tight spot.

I am lucky. I have mild climate and rich soil. My house sits on a hill, backyard has been somebody's garden about 75 years.


Texas has what I refer to as angry climate. 10 years living in the Piney Woods. Had 100 year floods twice in that time, then again 2 years after I left. I guess they named 100 year floods and common sense on the same day or something. I could not count the times where there was a greater than 40(forty) degree Fahrenheit swing in the temp, going up or down from the time I left until I came home that night.

No doubt this has something to do with the attraction tornadoes and hurricanes seem to have for the area.

I traveled the state a bit, Natural Bridge Caverns, floated down the river on that trip. Saw the dinosaur footprints, Laredo, Galveston, number of trips to Austin, 6th St and what not, got my picture next to SRV by the river, do the bats still come out from under the bridge? Houston, Dallas, used to drive through Cat Springs on my way to San Antonio, because it was a fun road to take.

In all my travels around Texas, I never saw any soil that was even mediocre. I would do containers or raised beds down there. Unless I knew someone with livestock, in which case I would be a chicken/horse/steer manure spreading mofo.

Containers have the advantage of portability, in case the weather goes from 75* and windy, to 35* and sleety. ALWAYS carried a jacket in the trunk when I lived down there.

[gacook]

Looks like a good garden, Toby. Wife is trying a few new plants this year in ours (hers, this year since I'm leaving in a few days for a while).

The outdoor garden is usually "my" thing, so she's had a couple missteps.

-Planted several varieties of tomatoes. Tomatoes do great here. Except when you plant them in the area the cats use as their litter box...not surprising the cat removed the plants from its litterbox.
-Planted strawberries. Doing great, starting to turn red, and then "poof"--gone. Apparently, the birds like strawberries, too. I'll need to devise some sort of overhang/caging to keep the birds away next year.
-Everything else is growing well. Only thing she's been able to harvest so far are some form of squash that I've never seen before, and 1 cucumber.

[Rawknees'Turbo]

No doubt about the soil around here, Tobra - thick, nasty clay and rocks.

And yep about sweetness of the bag pots being portable - I've already moved them under cover twice when hail was in the area, like it usually is this time of year (threatening to storm here now, in fact, but haven't seen anything about hail so far).

[Tobra]

Behind the tomatillo plant, 4 sungold tomato plants, about 5 feet tall, fairly huge. Pulling a few quarts of little tomatoes out of there every few days, and the pear and red cherry tomatoes have not even started yet. I got these other ones too, sun sugar I think, not as productive as the sun gold, but just as orange and tasty. The big red tomatoes are coming in big time though, and I finally have snap peas going that the dogs have not eaten

[flatbutt]

My tomatoes are quite stunted still. The green beans, squash, raspberries and grapes are looking very good.

[Tobra]

Fertilizer maybe?

In the last week, I bet I have given away 30 pounds of red tomatoes, every one bigger than your fist

Kids go for the little orange ones, sungold. Planted 4 of them next to the snap peas on the left in that last photo.

Dogs are still eating the snap peas, the ones behind the tomatoes anyway. My sister had the same problem.

[flatbutt]

I've used Miracle Gro initially and now use my compost tea.

[Tobra]

In the ground or in containers?

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by Tobra

In the ground or in containers?

In ground.

[Tobra]

Damn



Till in some chicken manure at the end of the season maybe.

[john70t]

I've got worn out sandy soil, but everything improved with a handful of compost around the base of each plant with nightly watering during the hot days.
Straw keeps everything cool and moist plus keeps the shoes clean.

12yo Asparagus fronds in the back with another bed not shown. It's the first year that asparagus beetles didn't strip them bare.
Six red potatoes in front (with a couple rouge cherry tomato plants). Several almost croaked from dog pee of death(DPOD). Almost over-watered and they started drooping. The spuds were half rotten in the bag but eventually grew. I stuck them whole in pits and mounded the soil when the stalks got taller. First time for them.


Rabbits ate the broccoli and kohlrabi within a week. Went after the lettuce but they recovered. Some bugs/wilt on the basil but not much. Coriander. Parsley. I thought the zucchini would spread out like melons but they climbed. There are a couple pickling cukes in there as well. And a couple of bell peppers that haven't even budded yet.

[MBAtarga]

So here are three pics of our garden. We converted to raised bed for about 3/4 of the garden starting 2 years ago. The 3rd pic is of our 4 zone water timer for the drip zones we set up this year.

Edited to add details. The raised beds and walkway mat are new additions. This has cut weeds back to almost nothing - where before we were battling them weekly.
Tomatoes in this bed - about 3 varieties with 5 blueberry bushes and 2 fig trees on the right side. We've still got unused space beyond the tomato bed - sometimes we plant sweet potatoes or beans but didn't this year.


Wife's herb bed on the far left, bell peppers and jalapeno peppers in the 2nd bed, 3rd bed is squash/zucchini and behind them 2 beds of dahlia flowers. Blackberry plants along the fence behind them.


The 3rd pic is of our 4 zone water timer for the drip zones we set up this year. This has taken the burden out of watering the garden and makes the hobby much more enjoyable.

[Tobra]

Good lord, that is beautiful

I have a jumbled mess, zucchini getting gigantic, butternut squash running all over the place. Ithought I planted the tomatoes far enough apart from each other, but they got so big. Sort of over planted too. My neighbors are loving me right now.

Ran a row of snap peas that are not hidden behind the tomatoes, looks like they might survive the dogs

[john70t]

These cukes and zukes seem to be growing overnight.
Gonna be making some bread to freeze and pickeling the other.


I made my own pickles from store-bought cukes before.
Boiled about 10min in vinegar/salt/garlic/red pepper/mustard seed.
Not too bad. I should have added a bit of sugar and/or water to cut the acid.

[PorscheGAL]

Veggies look so good. One of my fav restaurants has stuffed squash blossoms this time of year. They stuff with goats' cheese and tempura fry it.

[craigster59]

Originally Posted by PorscheGAL

Veggies look so good. One of my fav restaurants has stuffed squash blossoms this time of year. They stuff with goats' cheese and tempura fry it.

I've been thinking of making some fried squash blossoms since my zucchini plant has nothing but male blossoms, no "fruit". I'll have to watch the YT video of how to hand pollinate the blossoms if it isn't too late.

[flatbutt]

Well, I think this season is going to be a bust. My tomatoes refuse to fruit, the birds have wiped out my raspberries (this has never happened before) and now my apple tree is dropping the green fruit. Only two yellow squash so far.

I may get a good crop of green beans though. They're fruiting well and the few early ones that I have eaten are very sweet.