How are the gardens?

NHAtHeart said:
Other than the fact it looks like a crab grass festival it's producing well. We've frozen 5 quarts of beans, canned 7 pints of dilly beans, 5 large zucchini, about 7 quarts of broccoli and tons of lettuce.

That's on top of all we've eaten so far. Can't wait until my tomatoes start to get ripe we should have TONS of tomatoes.
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How big is your garden!!!
Super jealous. We just got some green beans, peppers and broccoli. Aside from that the only thing we had early was lettuce. The heat did in the snap peas and the tomatoes are just recovering from the rain. The squash looks promising. Potatoes look good too. Fighting off the cabbage worms and seem to be winning on that front.
 
I have no squash... Getting male and female flowers - but not squash. Must be a lack of bees... Got some string beans, maybe a handful. not much. Tomatos are doing well and my cucumbers are starting to take over the garden. No peppers or jalapenos yet. My garden is only 4x8 so I don't have a ton of room, but I'm doing what I can.
 
This is my first year with a garden, and I think I started too late.

Tomatos are doing well, I have 7 beefsteaks all outgrowing their cages, with close to 30 tomatos and plenty of blossoms waiting to form more. The first few seem to be starting to color up a little. 3 romas starting to produce lots of fruit, and one of my two German Johnson's are starting to flower.

Bad luck with my walking onion, its hanging in, but I wont get anything from it. Maybe a few sprigs.

Cilantro has gone to seed, so I'll have some coriander and seed for next year eventually.

Zucchini and Pumkin's havent given me any female flowers. The zucchini, I inhereted 4 as seedlings from a neighbor, two of them are starting to grow really well, and the pumpkin seed came from one we bought at the store last year and chucked behind the shed to rot. I picked the earliest and hardiest looking sprouts and planted 6. Squash vine borers have been a nuicance. I didnt even know what they were until NES set me straight.

4 Eggplants, two are starting to flower really well, one is getting about the size where it really starts to grow, and the last is just hanging in. I doubt I'll get much from that one. This weeks heat seems to have been a boon.

Peppers, I have 6 or 7 plants, sweet green, fajita bell, jalepeno, hot red cherry, and chili red hot all have one or two peppers each and they looked like they werent going to do much else but this past week theyve doubled growth and look to have another round of blossoms coming. Oriental beetles have been moderatly destructive.

Lettuce, my romaine has bolted and now I'm just waiting for the seed to develop. It's bringing more bees to the garden, which is nice. I wish my oak leaf would bolt, I would really like to get some seed from those, but it's just hanging in, not bolting, not really producing much in this heat.

I've learned a lot, and with planning, I hope next year will be much better.
 
ThePreBanMan said:
I have no squash... Getting male and female flowers - but not squash. Must be a lack of bees... Got some string beans, maybe a handful. not much. Tomatos are doing well and my cucumbers are starting to take over the garden. No peppers or jalapenos yet. My garden is only 4x8 so I don't have a ton of room, but I'm doing what I can.
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I'm in the same boat. Plants are doing well - no produce. I've got pole beans that look like bushes, some flowers, no beans. Peas did crappy. Peppers are late. Broc. yield low. Squash plants are huge, all dud flowers. Peppers/cukes are 'tarded, just starting to spurt. Lettuce did great. Yay.
:/

I've seen one bee.

ETA - i tried heirloom seeds this year. Maybe hybrids are better.
 
This bastard eat an entire tomato plant over night.

20130722_083502_zpsefe79a7e.jpg
 
mass said:
This bastard eat an entire tomato plant over night.

20130722_083502_zpsefe79a7e.jpg
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If there's one there's more. Keep checking your plants and pick them off. We usually have one round of them each year and then they are gone.

If you find one with little white things attached then pick if off but don't kill it. They are carrying predatory wasp eggs. The wasps hatch and eat the worm that is the host.
 
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I missed the boat for properly growing you peppers and tomatoes inside prior to planting out but nevertheless they are growing. I'm at 7 weeks now and my tomato plants are 18 inches and the peppers are 6. Cucumbers are starting to take over and branch past my raised bed and i am fighting with them to leave the tomatoes and beets alone. Beets are doing very well and I have already cut some greens off for salads. I also have carrots and beans that seem to be doing well. Looking forward to the next 2 weeks when i expect beans, carrots, beets and cucumbers to be done.
 
One of the things I did after starting the garden recovery was to add some "fossil fuel" it's humic acid and some other good ingredients to give the roots the ability to take up more nutrients and become much stronger. I noticed a marked difference about 5 days later. Now the stems are think and strong and the leaves are full of life.
Fossil Fuel Humic Acids | Planet Natural
 
Cowgirlup said:
How big is your garden!!!
Super jealous. We just got some green beans, peppers and broccoli. Aside from that the only thing we had early was lettuce. The heat did in the snap peas and the tomatoes are just recovering from the rain. The squash looks promising. Potatoes look good too. Fighting off the cabbage worms and seem to be winning on that front.
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about 25'x15' or so, It's been getting larger each year, this year I upgraded to a Troy-Bilt Horse tiller from the early 80's it's a tank and makes life so much easier in the spring/fall.

We did a full row of beans, and tomatoes, 2/3 row of broc, 1/3 row of lettuce, full row of squashy things plus some other misc. things.
 
daveyburt said:
I'm in the same boat. Plants are doing well - no produce. I've got pole beans that look like bushes, some flowers, no beans. Peas did crappy. Peppers are late. Broc. yield low. Squash plants are huge, all dud flowers. Peppers/cukes are 'tarded, just starting to spurt. Lettuce did great. Yay.
:/

I've seen one bee.

ETA - i tried heirloom seeds this year. Maybe hybrids are better.
Click to expand...

Same boat with the squash, all male flowers and the plants are huge! Never had this problem. Cucumbers have been great, already have pickled 12 pints and 2 quarts. Heat did in the peas, but our brocolli, bush beans, butternut, corn, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers and sunchokes are loving it. Hoping this heat will extend the season this year.
 
Got some tomatoes on the plants, one almost ready to pick. With the heat waves and such, not sure how good a harvest I'll get.

The hot peppers are doing well (in a window box). Planted one each jalapeno, habanero, and Thai chili peppers. Got a LOT of Thai peppers on the plant (all green still). Got about a dozen on the habanero, and half dozen (or so) on the jalapeno (after picking one today). The sweet basil plant is pretty much done for this year I think (in the other window box). Parsley is still doing well as is the oregano and boxwood basil plants. Already made one batch of basil butter and plan to make some more.

Looking forward to when the chili peppers are ready for picking. Want to make a batch of chili and maybe even freeze/dehydrate some peppers for use later.
 
Has anyone had luck with baking soda sprays for powdery mildew? Tried the milk solution last year but didn't feel like it really cut it.
 
This year we tried growing zucchini since we can't grow cucumbers to save our lives. We made dill pickles and dill relish out of the zucchini treating it like cucumbers.

The pickles came out quite good, a little softer than a typical cucumber pickle but overall not bad. The relish is excellent seeds are a little bigger than cucumber but definitely still edible. So for anyone out there that can't grow cucumbers zucchini is a reasonable alternative that you can't really seem to screw up.
 
great to hear all the good reports. Ours is still pumping out squash zucchini and now pumpkins are expanding . Tomatoes are exploding although nothing ready to pick. We even found a "wild" tomato plant growing from last season..
 
Cucumbers coming in, herbs been picking for a while, tomatoes loaded but unripe, no squash yet but a metric ass load of ghost chilies (of course the one thing you have to eat in extreme moderation).
 
Overall doing okay this year - lots of Potatoes in my test plots (will be going for a full on potato tower next year)

Cucumbers did not do well this year

Tomatoes are amazing - one plant is about 13' tall - grew to the top of my 8' trellis and now I have it growing sideways along the top.

Quick question to the group - something is eating my tomatoes - not a deer, don't think it is a rabbit as it hasn't touched other things in the garden - could it be raccoons or squirrels - saw a family of raccoons in the neighborhood recently?

- - - Updated - - -

NHAtHeart said:
This year we tried growing zucchini since we can't grow cucumbers to save our lives. We made dill pickles and dill relish out of the zucchini treating it like cucumbers.

The pickles came out quite good, a little softer than a typical cucumber pickle but overall not bad. The relish is excellent seeds are a little bigger than cucumber but definitely still edible. So for anyone out there that can't grow cucumbers zucchini is a reasonable alternative that you can't really seem to screw up.
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I may have to go that way as well next year - cucumbers have given me trouble the past two years
 
coastie said:
Tomato Horn Worms? We watched 2 fawns munching out back yesterday.
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Bigger I think because they are pulling the cherry tomatoes off the bottom foot or so of those plants - with the larger tomatoes they are either pulling them off and leaving half eaten tomatoes on the ground, or climbing up the trellis net and eating 2/3 of the tomato and leaving it on the vine
 
I think you are probably right - they would be light enough to climb up the trellis and can fit through the fence - have you come up with a way to protect the tomatoes?
 
I just shoot the little bastards. I find if I can clean them out one year I get a couple years before they come back. If that is a no go use a rat trap baited with peanut butter. Maybe tie it up a couple feet on the trellis. You can also put a bucket out filled with about 8" of water. Put a stick running up the side of the bucket like a ramp. over the bucket hang a tasty treat. Chipmunk climbs up the stick to get the treat, falls in the bucket, cant get out and drowns. Kind of a shitty way to go but it works slick.
 
Thanks - we used to have a pair of hawks that nested in the back yard for the past 4 years or so - they and the new ones kept the chipmunk and squirrel population to zero - they didn't come back this year so the buggers are starting to show up again.

Thanks for the info - I'll put some traps out and see what I can get.
 
My garden is finally starting to produce. This week I got 4 lbs of beefsteak tomatoes, 1 1lb zucchini, a large sweet pepper, and 1 jalapeno [laugh]

My pumpkin plants have yet to produce any female flowers, and I had to perform squash borer surgery on all 5 of them, but they don't seem to have been bothered by the damage. I covered a few feet of the cut stems with soil and hopefully they'll take root. Even if they dont produce, it was good practice to deal with the svb's and the male flowers are large and abundant and seem to attract lots of bumble bees.

I have pea, bean, and broccoli seedlings, they are off to a nice start for a late summer/fall batch, and I prepped and planted 3 rows of carrots this week.
 
Stryker said:
Bigger I think because they are pulling the cherry tomatoes off the bottom foot or so of those plants - with the larger tomatoes they are either pulling them off and leaving half eaten tomatoes on the ground, or climbing up the trellis net and eating 2/3 of the tomato and leaving it on the vine
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I've caught the damn red squirrels in my tomato plants. They have no problem climbing the plant to get any tomato they want. Gray ones as well, occasionally. It seems to happen more in dry conditions. They must eat them in order to re-hydrate
 
Only thing that seems to be working well is the cucumbers and hot pepper plants. Everything else is doing pretty poor. Huge pumpkin plants with tons of flowers but only 4 or 5 pumpkins just starting.
 
My beets and carrots were a fail cause i messed them up. I pulled 4 pounds of cucumbers off the plants i have and made 7 pints of pickles. Had a good run of green beans and also canned them. I was late to plant my tomatoes but one plant already has fruit so maybe i will luck out and get some.
 
Billsail said:
No matter what your growing, you need to feed 'em. Fertilize guys!!
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My herbs and tomatoes were nearly dead from the rainy season, and would not come back. I had bad drainage in my pots, and extra holes helped the plants get healthy, but they wouldnt grow. I fertilized and not only are the plants growing again, they are healthy and bug resistant.
 

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