2024 garden thread
 

So, how is your garden growing? This spring has been brutal here. Mostly too cloudy, cold, and windy to want to be outside, with a few 70 degree teaser days just to piss you of when the clouds roll back in and the temp drops the next day.

But the past 3 days have been pretty good. It's late in the season and the pressure is on to get going. I've been outside most of the day for three days and my face is sunburned. Life is good!!

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Finally got our onions out Wednesday (two rows in the forground). The garlic is 2 feet tall and doing great (next two rows). Strawberries are in bloom and we've been eating and canning asparagus for two weeks.

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I planted next year's strawberry bed this afternoon.

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This morning I did the first tilling of the area where I'll be planting tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, peppers, and corn. This is my trusty Kubota with the tiller and redneck home made "land plane" for leveling the soil. It's a 2x6 bolted to the bucket. :o

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We moved the chickens from their winter quarters to their summer palace a couple of weeks ago. Today I moved their run so it included the freshly tilled garden. For a chicken, freshly tilled soil is like an all you can eat buffet of bugs and worms - Vegas Baby!! They're loving it!!

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My tomato plants are a foot tall and beginning to set blossoms they NEED to get outside and soon. The weather report has no temps below 45 at night for the next two weeks. I think tomorrow may be the day I set them free.

I have 15 tomato plants in the ground now, been a lot of rain.

I told my wife THREE tomato plants max this year. Last year they all seemed to be ripe at once. Staggered date planting didn't help. They are on their own calendar.

Not growing any veggies here, Patrick, but really admire your operation!

Curious how irrigation is handled there.

Thanks! ~Baz

I use drip irrigation for the tomatoes.
For everything else I have half a dozen 5 gallon Primo water jugs with a 1/6" hole in the bottom of each one. I set them near whatever needs to be watered (usually trees and cucumbers) and fill them from a 25 gallon water tank that I can either put in the bucket of the tractor's FEL or put on a cart and pull around with a golf cart.
Except for the tomatoes and young trees we don't need to do a lot of irrigation around here.

OK thanks!

We have a bunch of raised bed planter boxes in front and back yard with some starts and seeds in the ground, and a bunch more seedlings and starts in the house waiting for it to warm up. Veg gardening season is just starting here. The sunniest bit of dirt on my postage stamp of a lot is going to get dug up and paved this year, so we are trying the planters and seeing what we can grow elsewhere. We have a lot of big trees and not really much super sunny areas, but hopefully we’ll find out what grows in the space we do have, and focus on that in future seasons. Hopefully it’s something we like to eat!

This is from a week ago. Dog dug up couple pepper plants

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We've had crazy rain for May here and a warm early spring. Tomatoes are already 2 ft. Trying a different trellis this year-2 16 ft cattle panels on edge supported and tied to 5 ft t posts. I'm weaving the tomatoes and zucchini in and out of the holes in the panels. Less work than individual stakes. Why do the zuke that way? I have a tractor mounted tiller and leave space to run between the rows for weed control but vines go everywhere, so trying vertical this year.

I tried the companion plant stuff this year. My salad bowl garden (Tomatoes, Cukes and Spinach) are surrounded by onions like they do in Mexico. Supposed to stop the bugs. When you stick your nose down there, you can smell the Onions. So far so good.

My Artichoke plants are off the charts after the big rains for two years.

BTW, Butter or Mayo?

Raspberries are not a couple vines, the rains made them into a full scale Bramble.

Just planted my Sandia's

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The entrance walkway into the house from the parking area for guests.

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The new flowerbed we built this year and 2,150 pounds of soil to fill it.

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This one was enlarged last year to include the tree. The bottom of the weeping redbud tree in at the top.

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The west side of the driveway. Part of it is the compost area.

We have another flowerbed along the west edge of the parking area of the driveway.

We have a the Koi pond, and it's garden area, and in the corner is yet another garden, and one flowering hybrid flowering tree that blooms all summer.

Not one vegetable or fruit tree. Nothing to eat for us, but we feed a ton of bees, butterflies, humming birds, skinks, toads and other insects.

First thing I did when we got this place was plant a half dozen fruit trees. Have citrus practically all year long

That is a pink grapefruit

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Taken this morning, tallest tomato plants about 4" now

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Ah you guys are rookies at this planting stuff. Here's our new venture, selling succulents.
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We went all out on veg gardening this year. We put six 4’x3’ planter boxes in the front yard and two 1’x6’ in the back, got lots of seeds and starters, 3 yards of soil. Result - so far, not much. Yeah, it’s early, but still a little discouraging.

Looks like a pink bowling ball!

Our garden is making the transition from spring to summer.

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The asparagus has gone to seed, so no more asparagus this season.

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The 2024 strawberry patch is toast.

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2025 strawberry bed is healthy and vigorous. The plants are busy sending out runners.

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Black raspberries are small this year, but tasty and abundant.

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The blackberry canes are loaded with berries. They should be ripening in about 10 days.

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This is the best blueberry crop we've ever grown. I pick about 2 quarts every morning.

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Our red raspberries are ever bearing, which means they produce relatively few berries at a time, but produce over a long period. We pick about a quart every morning.

Signs that summer is here!

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Garlic is ready for harvest!

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Intermediate day onions are starting to bulb out.

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Long day onions are still waiting for more sun to begin transitioning to the bulbing phase. They'd better hurry.

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All but one tomato plant is healthy. I don't know what's wrong with the slacker. A tomato on the "Forth of July" plant should be ripe in a week.

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A bunch of giant sunflowers came up on their own, as did about 6 potato plants. I leave them alone and just work around then.

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I only have 2 hills of cucumbers this season - no plans for making pickles this year.

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The peach trees are loaded with green fruit. I'm watching the birds and bugs closely. I'd really like a good harvest this year.

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Pears are damn hard to grow. They are susceptible to about every disease a tree can get. The last time they got Fire Blight was two years ago, but the fungus is back for 2024.

Nothing edible:


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