2010 Vegetable Garden Thread

[syncroid]

This is what the side yard looked like in the begining. Garden 2010

[Steve Viegas]

Should I be concerned about the picture that shows up if I just type in the root of your URL considering that you are my neighbor?

[syncroid]

Originally Posted by Steve Viegas

Should I be concerned about the picture that shows up if I just type in the root of your URL considering that you are my neighbor?

LOL! No not at all. Its my own web site. Part of my last name.

[Steve Viegas]

In that case, we will have to get a beer sometime.

[syncroid]

Sounds like a sound plan.

[jyl]

I'm getting to this thread late - as I am to my garden. We hardly had a spring this year, just rain and gloom through May. During a brief decent patch in early April, my son and I planted the boxes with lettuce, carrots, spinach, and other seeds. Only the carrots took. I planted a couple of basil starters. They look sickly. I planted four tomato starters. Two look good although they haven't grown much, two are sickly. The long rainy spring seems to have brought on a bunch of rust. We took out one rose plant, pruned another back to stumps, and have been treating the others, and the tomato plants. So the 2010 garden got off to a very bad start. But things are looking up a little. The weather is improving, it was actually hottish for one day recently. I've yanked the sickliest of the basil and planted more starters. Planted a mess of lettuce and other starters where the seeds failed to germinate. And one interesting surprise - a pea plant leftover from last year has turned itself into a pea bush, that's all I can call it, densely sprouted with hundreds of miniature pod peas. I don't know if they'll be edible but it is cool anyway. The strawberry plants which produced almost nothing last year spent the winter propagating, and now we have lots of promising little strawberries starting to grow. Our blueberry bushes, only a year old, are starting to produce a few fruits, these are still 3-4 years from being real producers but it is a start. Last year's onions are coming back, the hop vines are filling out - only decorative, but it adds to the feeling that the garden is trying to make it a season after all. We're not giving up on 2010.

[Tobra]

facing East, tomatoes on every single plant. Getting hot, they should start going off soon


tomatoes in fore ground, zucc farther out, with peppers on right. Peppers not doing great.

[willtel]

Our little 4x4 raised bed garden is doing pretty good.

We have two types of cucumbers, two types of watermelons, bell peppers, banana peppers, cherry tomatoes, some kind of onions, Roma tomatoes, yellow squash, and some strawberries. Most things are doing well, the strawberries don't seem to be producing much and I think we have some vine borers on the squash we need to sort out.



An Icebox Watermelon that is about baseball size now.


This little guy has taken up residence in our garden. He stared out not much more than a quarter inch long and is now up over an inch. I check on him daily and he has been hanging out on top of the same cucumber plant for about 3 weeks now. I had no idea they would stay in one place so long. I'm sure he is helping us keep pests away.

[Eric 951]

I'm hoping for some advice for my veg. garden. I have had it planted for about 6 weeks now and things are coming along nicely--just your standard fare, tomato, broccoli, cabbage, zuchinni, green beans, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce. The problem I have is that something has been getting in the fence the last week and eating my broccolli, zuke, and lettuce. I have a 3' fence which is staked at regular intervals. I can't find evidence of where whatever it is is getting in. Last year I had a groundhog that I took care of, but this has me stumped. I tried the "preda-scents' which are worhtless and I have pie-pans up as "scarecrows", but does anyone have a home-remedy suggestion for an effective repellent.

I can't shoot it, as I have never seen what it is--just the evidence of leaves being gone. It is definately some critter and not bugs.

[slodave]

Originally Posted by Eric 951

I'm hoping for some advice for my veg. garden. I have had it planted for about 6 weeks now and things are coming along nicely--just your standard fare, tomato, broccoli, cabbage, zuchinni, green beans, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce. The problem I have is that something has been getting in the fence the last week and eating my broccolli, zuke, and lettuce. I have a 3' fence which is staked at regular intervals. I can't find evidence of where whatever it is is getting in. Last year I had a groundhog that I took care of, but this has me stumped. I tried the "preda-scents' which are worhtless and I have pie-pans up as "scarecrows", but does anyone have a home-remedy suggestion for an effective repellent.

I can't shoot it, as I have never seen what it is--just the evidence of leaves being gone. It is definately some critter and not bugs.

Look in the shadows for slugs and snails. Most of my lettuce seedlings disappeared over the course of a few nights. At first I thought slugs/snails, but I never saw the slime trails. At one point I had picked up a little plastic seedling tray that I had set in my garden area and to my surprise, a slug. Then I looked under the strawberry leaves and saw the snail.

[vash]

i tend to agree with slo...my basil disappeared overnight. it was snails! i sprinkled (?) sluggo around my garden years ago..they still havent returned. worth a try. i think the main ingredient is copper? cant remember.

for the fence, have you considered adding a section along the bottom in the shape of an "L"? animal tend to go to the corner formed my the earth and the fence and burrow under from there. with the "L" skirts, they will never get thru. nothing is smart enough to back up to the horizontal leg of the skirt and go under there.

[Tobra]

Facing East, again, starting to get some size on those tomatoes, already had a few of the little orange ones





A lot of peaches, I thinned about 400 pieces of fruit off this tree alone

[slodave]

I've had some success and some failure so far. All but three of my lettuce, planted from seed are gone. The tiny seedlings either died or the slugs got 'em. I ended up with one decent head of romaine, but it is about half the height of last years. I was trying to grow everything from seed this Spring. My radish was a failure. I finally figured out why my yellow squash and zucchini failed last year - lack of pollination. I have been hand pollinating and have a nice yellow squash going and I should have a few zucchini as well. I am trying bell peppers again and I did notice a couple of tiny bells forming, so I think they managed to pollinate on their own.

From 5/29


Today


My first maturing squash! I should have another one - if things went well with my help.


Two of the successful zucchini, there is a third that I hope will take off too.

Now I see the reason for two or more of each... More chance of self pollination and more chances to have male and female flowers open at the same time.

So far, my only tomato. I'm not sure what's going on with this plant. Some leaves are yellow and visible. There are brown, dried ares around the leaf stems and it also knocked out the rest of the flowers next to the tomato. The other plant is fine, just has teeny tomatoes starting.

[Tobra]

My peaches are getting ripe. Wierd this year. It rained a lot in the spring. I ended up spraying it with the copper sulfate a few times rather than just once. Got a little peach leaf curl, but not bad. Lots of little peaches this year. they are so small, I did not think they would be getting ready any time soon. The pits are small, there is more peach there than you would think when cutting them up.

You cannot buy a peach anywhere close to as good as from your own tree

[dan79brooklyn]

Here's our garden in Japan...With some help from our farmer neighbors, it's coming along nicely. It's rainy season here so everything is growing like crazy.

We planted, sweet potatoes, corn, tomatoes, ginger, edamame, green beans, eggplant, carrots, cauliflower, black beans, shiso leaf, cucumbers and pumpkin.

So far we have been harvesting the cucumbers, and eggplants steadily.





Tomatoes are coming along nicely, but need some good hot days to ripen.

I'm hoping that my compost pile will be ready in time to add some good soil without having to use fertilizer...

Lot's of fun, I have some nice blisters to show as well, weeding is a pain..

[Tobra]

I find that granular, delayed release tree and vine food works well. Be careful with putting anything out of a compost heap on your plants, can burn them. I like to do the composting and soil amendment in the fall when I pull them up, gives it time to break down.

[jyl]

Raining again here in PDX. A couple days of sun, then clouds and rain. Not good. I can supply water, but I can't supply sun.

[Hugh R]

I have a lot of Oak trees and mostly shade, this is the only place I get enough sun. Six kinds of peppers, a tomato plant, a zucchini, and in the galvanized bucket I have parsley, two kinds of basil, cilantro, garlic, oregano, sage, thyme. In front, cucumber and I forget what else.

[vash]

finally got off my butt to snap a few pics. i had to surround my garden with a ghetto fence to keep the marauding chickens out. i know i planted my garden too tightly. but only a eggplant got smothered..i have been eating zucchini and yellow globe squash..jalapenos are not that spicy.




and here is "big mama"..she provides the fertilizer..

[Danimal16]

With the exception of my peppers, all of my tomatoes, onions and basil sprouted from seed. I got to much going and have been providing great stock to the neighbors.

I will post photos later. These are great threads.

DanB