Garden Geeks thread

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Planted the first two rows of peas this weekend, first seeds into the garden itself. the rest of the beds are still under black ground cover.

about five weeks ago, we started tomatoes, peppers, morning glories, zinnias indoors, now in a bedroom filled with folding tables and grow lights, we are seeing all the seedlings progressing nicely. time to start cukes and beans indoors soon.


I keep "intending" to maintain a journal, at least so far as to itemize how much we harvest of each thing we grow. It would be fun to see the "grocery store equivalent value" and then work backward from the store prices to find the pre-tax equivalent of our hourly rate....not


I would like to note how much we harvest, skip the rest...I suppose it would stop the "tossed a row of radishes into the composter today because they went to seed before we harvested them" entries from appearing so often....

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Planted the first two rows of peas this weekend, first seeds into the garden itself. the rest of the beds are still under black ground cover.

about five weeks ago, we started tomatoes, peppers, morning glories, zinnias indoors, now in a bedroom filled with folding tables and grow lights, we are seeing all the seedlings progressing nicely. time to start cukes and beans indoors soon.


I keep "intending" to maintain a journal, at least so far as to itemize how much we harvest of each thing we grow. It would be fun to see the "grocery store equivalent value" and then work backward from the store prices to find the pre-tax equivalent of our hourly rate....not


I would like to note how much we harvest, skip the rest...I suppose it would stop the "tossed a row of radishes into the composter today because they went to seed before we harvested them" entries from appearing so often....

I have a Garden Journal from Lee Valley Catalogue. I am in my 2nd one (this being the 11th yr I have kept it.) I just write one or 2 lines, sometimes just a few words about the day. It has all sorts of fancy stuff- pages for garden plots etc that I used at first but then that sort of petered out. It does cue me to think of things when last yr at this time I did X. Of course this yr everything is about 2 weeks ahead but still....

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I have a Garden Journal from Lee Valley Catalogue. I am in my 2nd one (this being the 11th yr I have kept it.) I just write one or 2 lines, sometimes just a few words about the day. It has all sorts of fancy stuff- pages for garden plots etc that I used at first but then that sort of petered out. It does cue me to think of things when last yr at this time I did X. Of course this yr everything is about 2 weeks ahead but still....

Part of me is curious as to what the garden is "worth" in pecuniary as well as in avocational terms.....

generally we get 'pint after pint' of raspberries, a half-pint of strawberries 'at a time', a fine harvest of green beans for dinner once a week 'in season', and tomato harvest varies on presence or absence of blight....one year we add all we could, gave many away, and made about 4-1/2 gallons of sauce to boot, another year we had half-gallon of sauce and barely had any to share beyond that....we still have dried hot peppers from several years ago before we figured out how many peppers you would get from just a few plants. I guesstimate maybe $225 worth overall, really hard to know. I do know that our one-season experiment with zucchini is unlikely to be repeated, that summer, when our neighbors saw us approaching with yet even more zucchini in hand they would run inside and lock their doors.

always amazed that if you harvest scrupulously then the bearing season is so much longer, kind of a miraculous symbiosis.

and then we also are doing our share to counterbalance global warming by removing CO[SUB]2[/SUB] from the atmosphere by having the plants capture it in their stalks and stems....

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

In the last few yrs we have had horrendous luck. Peas got some sort of blight, the squash bugs always come out when we are on vacation and decimate the crop, the tomatoes got some horrid blight even tho I start my own seed. We plant nickel and soliel bush beans in the ground (From Scheepers) one planting and harvest shopping bags all summer until first frost. Arugula, lettuce do OK. Cukes are just not happy no matter how I ammend the soil. This yr putting the cukes in an earthgrow pot, the tomatoes in tubs as far away from the garden as possible. Hopefully I will get something besides green beans, wax beans, basil, lettuce and a world of pain trying everything else.

 

[Carter]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

In the last few yrs we have had horrendous luck. Peas got some sort of blight, the squash bugs always come out when we are on vacation and decimate the crop, the tomatoes got some horrid blight even tho I start my own seed. We plant nickel and soliel bush beans in the ground (From Scheepers) one planting and harvest shopping bags all summer until first frost. Arugula, lettuce do OK. Cukes are just not happy no matter how I ammend the soil. This yr putting the cukes in an earthgrow pot, the tomatoes in tubs as far away from the garden as possible. Hopefully I will get something besides green beans, wax beans, basil, lettuce and a world of pain trying everything else.

We tried putting the tomatoes in tubs too, to no avail. The blight that we get here in southern Wisconsin is air-born, and only spraying with a fungicide has made any difference. Knowing you're pretty strictly organic, I don't know where that leaves you. Good luck, though. I certainly know the frustration you're dealing with.

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

We tried putting the tomatoes in tubs too, to no avail. The blight that we get here in southern Wisconsin is air-born, and only spraying with a fungicide has made any difference. Knowing you're pretty strictly organic, I don't know where that leaves you. Good luck, though. I certainly know the frustration you're dealing with.

It leaves me screwed. I will keep trying tho.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Wow, what a spectacular week of visual cornucopia! The dogwoods are starting to bloom, the first blossoms on the lilacs and wisteria are beginning to show, the bleeding hearts are blooming, yet the forsythia have not quite faded.

Now, if we can only get some rain!

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

A friendly reminder to my fellow gardeners (or at least to those in certain parts of the country): remember to use gloves when weeding. I went out for a short stroll during lunch break, and noticed an invasive vine starting to grow in one of the beds. I started to reach for it, then stopped just in time, as I recognized the innocuous-looking tri-part leaflets that identify poison ivy!

 

[FiveHole12]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

A friendly reminder to my fellow gardeners (or at least to those in certain parts of the country): remember to use gloves when weeding. I went out for a short stroll during lunch break, and noticed an invasive vine starting to grow in one of the beds. I started to reach for it, then stopped just in time, as I recognized the innocuous-looking tri-part leaflets that identify poison ivy!

Hit it with RoundUp! Gone forever.

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Tomatoes, all 135 of them, are in the solo cups and are at least a foot tall. Basil is about half that (3 flats of 72). My garden swap at church isn't until the 20th. I am going to have transport problems

My garden is absolutely decimated by voles. The cat from next door is gone I think and we had a mild winter. ANyone know what voles won't eat? I would have thought alliums but those turned out to be cocktail onions for them. They ate a bunch of species allium, the crocosmia, the columbines, the dafs ??!!(I thought those were poisonous), grape hyacinths, etc. Usually my garden is at its absolute best right now. Instead there are very large bare areas. Let me tell you- with what I had crammed in there you would not have believed that was possible.

Have the cascara ready to go but it needs to not rain long enough for it to work.

 

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Tried to get into upper garden, just a hair too wet still, sucks as its supposed to rain most of the week again. Tried lower garden, its definitely too wet. Got squash, cukes planted indoors yesterday, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower all look good

 

[Carter]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Tomatoes, all 135 of them, are in the solo cups and are at least a foot tall. Basil is about half that (3 flats of 72). My garden swap at church isn't until the 20th. I am going to have transport problems

My garden is absolutely decimated by voles. The cat from next door is gone I think and we had a mild winter. ANyone know what voles won't eat? I would have thought alliums but those turned out to be cocktail onions for them. They ate a bunch of species allium, the crocosmia, the columbines, the dafs ??!!(I thought those were poisonous), grape hyacinths, etc. Usually my garden is at its absolute best right now. Instead there are very large bare areas. Let me tell you- with what I had crammed in there you would not have believed that was possible.

Have the cascara ready to go but it needs to not rain long enough for it to work.

No offense, but what in hell does someone do with 135 tomato plants???? Do you grow commercially?

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

No offense, but what in hell does someone do with 135 tomato plants???? Do you grow commercially?

No. I started yrs ago (probably about 20) wanting varieties I that I couldn't find without going to a bunch of different places. I bought the seeds. They said put 2 seeds in a pot and then thin them. I thought that was a ridiculous waste so I planted a seed to a peat plug. Of course with beginner's luck they all sprouted and I had a ton of tomatoes. I decided to run a swap at church- bring a plant take someone else's. It is now a tradition- who would have thunk it! A few yrs ago I was thinking I had had enough of doing it and wouldn't you know- people start asking me in January if I was doing it again.

I plant each seed in a peat plug, most survive. WHen they outgrow the lights I put put them in Solo cups with a few holes drilled in the bottom. I usually have 4 or more varieties and they all seem to come with 20-30 seeds. I plant them all. I know myself enough to know I won't plant them the next yr because something else will catch my eye.

People clear their perennials out and bring them to trade, start other seeds and bring those. People who never come to church come on this day for plants. Kind of cool.

 

[Carter]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

No. I started yrs ago (probably about 20) wanting varieties I that I couldn't find without going to a bunch of different places. I bought the seeds. They said put 2 seeds in a pot and then thin them. I thought that was a ridiculous waste so I planted a seed to a peat plug. Of course with beginner's luck they all sprouted and I had a ton of tomatoes. I decided to run a swap at church- bring a plant take someone else's. It is now a tradition- who would have thunk it! A few yrs ago I was thinking I had had enough of doing it and wouldn't you know- people start asking me in January if I was doing it again.

I plant each seed in a peat plug, most survive. WHen they outgrow the lights I put put them in Solo cups with a few holes drilled in the bottom. I usually have 4 or more varieties and they all seem to come with 20-30 seeds. I plant them all. I know myself enough to know I won't plant them the next yr because something else will catch my eye.

People clear their perennials out and bring them to trade, start other seeds and bring those. People who never come to church come on this day for plants. Kind of cool.

Very cool indeed! So how many tomatoes do you ultimately plant in your garden? We usually have around 8 plants.

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Very cool indeed! So how many tomatoes do you ultimately plant in your garden? We usually have around 8 plants.

Somewhere around a dozen. That leaves a lot of plants for people to get at church. The ones no one wants I huck up on our back hill.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Very cool indeed! So how many tomatoes do you ultimately plant in your garden? We usually have around 8 plants.

We usually put in 24 - 36 and grow them vertically. We don't use cages, instead we use bamboo poles that go up around 10 feet or so (long A-frames). i pinch off the side branches so there is only 1 main stem until around 4' to 5' off the ground, and the plants are around 12" apart.

In good years we'll have enough tomatoes to eat, to give away, and to make sauce (around 5 gallons). However, the past two year's we've had blight. This year we are trying 16 tomatoes 24" apart instead. Put them in the ground yesterday.

 

[nmu_27]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Garden planted today. Peas, beans, lettuce, broccoli, and squash.

 

[Carter]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Garden planted today. Peas, beans, lettuce, broccoli, and squash.

Yeah, I tilled on Tuesday, and when my wife got home from work she set out the plants. Tomatoes, hot peppers, broccoli, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, and cabbage. On Friday, I planted the wall-o-beans, and we set out some more rhubarb plants. A question for the other gardeners. When we set out the broccoli and kohlrabi, I went down to check it the next day. One of the plants looked completely wilted, leaves just flat on the soil. When I touched them, I realized they'd been nipped off right at or below ground level. Over the next 2 days, about 3 more plants met a similar fate. So what's doing this? Each plant has 2' high chicken wire around it, which keeps bunnies out. It also largely discourages birds. Is there some kind of bug that bites off these plants? Or is it perhaps brave birds?

 

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Is there some kind of bug that bites off these plants? ?

Yes on the bug but for the life of me I can't remember whats it called. I remember what my parents used to stop it from happening though, a square of tar paper, maybe 4 inches, one slit to the middle, slide it over the stem and leave it. The tar paper surrounds the stem and touches the ground

 

[Carter]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Yes on the bug but for the life of me I can't remember whats it called. I remember what my parents used to stop it from happening though, a square of tar paper, maybe 4 inches, one slit to the middle, slide it over the stem and leave it. The tar paper surrounds the stem and touches the ground

Thanks for the insider knowledge!