Topic: 2010 Gardens

[Jeff]

Who is planning what?  I haven't had a garden for several years and then it was mostly hydroponic.  I know I want tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and lettuce.  Any suggestions as to which lettuce does best here?

I've heard that there may be a seed shortage so I'm planning on getting what I want soon.  Probably from Zamzows and some mail order.

[WTF]

seedsavers.org

[GrayWolf]

Who is planning what?  I haven't had a garden for several years and then it was mostly hydroponic.  I know I want tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and lettuce.  Any suggestions as to which lettuce does best here?

I've heard that there may be a seed shortage so I'm planning on getting what I want soon.  Probably from Zamzows and some mail order.

All of the vegetables you listed do very well here, with the exception of bell peppers (in my experience, anyway).  Hot peppers do very well, though.

All lettuces do well, as does spinach.  Spinach has the highest concentration of vitamin A.

Are you planting in ground, or in containers?  Containers are so much easier IMHO.  Here's the book I have that got me started:  http://www.amazon.com/McGee-Stuckeys-Bountiful-Container-Vegetables/dp/0761116230/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265685066&sr=8-1

[Jeff]

I'm thinking about going big this year.  I'm thinking about fencing off about 1/2 of my back yard and planting it all.  If I do that I'll run drip irrigation to cover the plants.

If I get any chickens I would let them free range in there. 

[Nomad]

 You may want to think about hen scratching in your garden, wouldn't not leave them there at
a long period......

[meinidaho]

Hope this does not come off in the wrong way, but I have a small acreage custom tractor business and do tilling work.  I do need 60 inches width to enter a place then can do acreage size  to small gardens.  The reason I mention it is because the first time tilling ground is especially tough and the tractor will dig deeper and fluff better than any hand held.

Anyway, somehow get a tractor to break up hard ground.  You will thank the tractor ... and me.

As Jeff knows, I do like to trade for toys ...

[scoob]

If work doesn't move me out of town this year, I intend to experiment with converting our raised beds (or at least one of the three) to a Square-Foot Garden.  If I do go, I hope my wife is just as curious and runs with it.
I just bought a $2.38 window starter and planted some herb seeds in it.  May pick up another and put some early season seeds in there, as soon as I figure out what is early season. 

[MarkinIdaho]

We are planning on doing a garden this year - first time in a long time for me.  I have a friend who does the raised beds... but damned if he can tell me what the benefit is... he was just told to do it that way.  Anyone care to enlighten me?

[NGO]

sq foot gardening with the raised beds is the only way to go!!!

that along with drip irrigation is a big producer.

lettuce, we did several types they all did well.

cauliflower and broccoli tended to bolt early when the hear came on...

bell peppers did OK when in the shade.

melons always do well!!!, you may need to cover with plastic at the end of the year to get the final few to set before the frost gets them.

tomatoes do well but need to cover in the spring to prevent killing frost. upside down was a joke, don't bother. they stay too wet and get the blight to easy.

potatoes did well with the  box method, use mulch or sand as a filler, you have to keep the new growth buried  to create long roots , can't let the top growth get more than 6"s above the ground. Your making long roots basically.

Corn does well....but if you have people within a block growing corn it will cross pollinate, so maybe corn pollen bags are needed, in the city.

hot pepper do great!!!

beans do good,

green peas are a real producer!!

carrots , we are still pulling some out from the ground!!! over 600 hundred plants in a 3' x 6' bed!!!


onions do real well also.


1/2 your yard?

you are going to be busy and unless you process it you will have more than enough for you for the whole winter !!!

[goodcomdeadcom]

Greetings, and God bless.

Hey, MarkinIdaho

"We are planning on doing a garden this year - first time in a long time for me.  I have a friend who does the raised beds... but damned if he can tell me what the benefit is... he was just told to do it that way.  Anyone care to enlighten me?"

If there are benefits beyond what I'm about to mention I don't know what they might be, but my knees and my back tell me that they like raised beds a lot more than going all the way to the ground to work the ground.

[GrayWolf]

Greetings, and God bless.

Hey, MarkinIdaho

"We are planning on doing a garden this year - first time in a long time for me.  I have a friend who does the raised beds... but damned if he can tell me what the benefit is... he was just told to do it that way.  Anyone care to enlighten me?"

If there are benefits beyond what I'm about to mention I don't know what they might be, but my knees and my back tell me that they like raised beds a lot more than going all the way to the ground to work the ground.

+1.  That's why container gardening is now my choice.  I got tired of spading, bending over to pull weeds, etc.

[scoob]

Yup, it's easier on the back and knees.

Some more reasons for raised beds, according to the SFG method:
You don't have to dig or till your exisiting soil, which means less work.  If you bring in a new soil mixture, (per SFG, this is called Mel's mix) you don't have the weed seed population like you do in your existing soil.  Unlike traditional row gardening, you don't walk on your soil, which compacts it, and means you'll have to turn it/dig it/till it to plant in it.  It looks cool.  It's organized.  It makes you maximize your space.  It's easy to accessorize, like if you want to go vertical (grow climbers), or frame an improvised greenhouse over it, or fence it off to keep critters out.

The down-sides:  Initial cost of the soil mixture (6" of peat moss, vermiculite, compost), and the wood.  The wood you may be able to use scrap though.  Again, this is just from a Square-Foot Garden point of view.  YMMV.

Raised beds don't have to be expensive.  Our first version was made from railroad ties that we got a good deal on.  Our beds (3 of them) now are made from 2x12's and they are 4' x 16'.

Back to original topic:  We'll probably put in a variety of tomatos & onions, cucs, squish, lots of peppers (both hot and not), spinach, and hopefully some lettuce.  Haven't nailed down what varieties of lettuce yet, but will probably depend on seed availability.

[rubbleroser]

A few years ago, I invested in a dozen halved wine barrels, with drilled drainage holes in the bottoms. I mounted them on masonry bricks, filled with soil, and inserted tomato racks in a few for my tomatoes. The rest of my garden, also in the halved barrels; lemon cucumbers (my favorite variety cucumber), crooked neck squash (my favorite variety squash), and asparagus (cuz it's extremely healthy and usually too expensive to buy in a store). My two fugi apple trees provide the finishing touch to my summer garden, though they're sure "a lot" of work maintaining. I have no advice on the lettuce--I've never tried growing it. But good luck with it.

[NGO]

Last year we did a red & green left letteuce mix, roman also. They grew very well, we had lettuce all summer long!!!

The box for them was in the shade of the north side of the house, That helped and they grew well. You could always make a shade if need be.

The cauiflower , even in the shade bolted early. Will plant them sooner this year.

[NGO]

For our raised boxes I used old plastic deck boards about 1 1/2" x 6".

Also I didn't use vermeulite, too expensive, just added Mushroom compost.

This year I will "refresh" the beds with old horse manure.

Just not using a soil product and the vermeculite was used to hold water in the soil anyhow.

You want a loose product to give the roots easy space to grow into.


Any weeds that do pop up are real easy to pull since their is no dirt for them to grab hold of. And as the plants grow the density crowds out any new weeds from growing much. The weeding is so easy now.

Like someone said the setting up and mixing of the fill is the hardest part, but the time invested is made up since you don't need to till and the  weeding takes so little effort.

[GrayWolf]

On a related note, I've found the GardenWeb forums to be very helpful.  They've answered more than a few questions for me, especially about tomato growing.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/tomato/

 

[scoob]

+1 on Gardenweb... I used to surf it a lot.  Thanks for the reminder, GW!

[J Mack]

We've  started our garden in the laundry room with fluorescent tube grow lights.

If you do decide to use the standard type of fluorescent tubes; mix one cool tube along with one warm tube in each light fixture to get a better mix of light output.

Day and Night Cycles

Light requirements vary based on the type of plant and growth stage. For most plants, 18 hours of light followed by 6 hours of darkness is ideal for the vegetative growth phase.

Seedlings should be under continuous light until the first real leaves appear. At that point, they should be switched to a regular 18/6 light cycle. Fluorescent lights are best for seedlings because of their soft light and low heat output. Using a timer will automate your garden and ensure consistent light cycles. You can find inexpensive timers at any hardware or Home Depot/Lowe's type store.

[WTF]

Holy Necro Post batman!

So how'd everyones garden turn out this year, since we had a very cold and late spring start, and short summer.

Our garden came out crappy due to the late cold spring, so this year we focused on melons and had to replant 3 times.

We planted 10 different types. but one of the best ones I want to point out was the Boule d'Or Melon, http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=1407 as it has a shelf life of several weeks after picking, which I feel is important to mention. and range in 5-10lbs in size. this is a very sweet variety and grew well up here. this stuff tasted like a honeydew, but only better. I couldn't stop eating them. they were that good.

another one I recommend is the Noir des Carmes OG melon, http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=1208%28OG%29
very productive plant, very sweet juicy melons ranging from 2-5lbs in size. very short shelf life.

eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes all grew well, everything else did crappy.

 

[9Shooter]

My tomato plants exploded with fruit, but none of it turned orange.  I have a vineful of great looking, but green, maters.  We had a half dozen ears of corn from 3 stalks that grew full height and enough edamame from the two soy plants we had for a couple of snacks.  Our herbs did great and are still looking good, except for the basil which died a couple weeks back.  Soon I'm going to cut and dry what's left of the herbs.

[popsgunner]

We grew in containers on the deck two tomato plants, carrots, radish, bell peppers, banana peppers, strawberries, watermelon and cheyanne peppers. In the ground in a flower bed are green beans and onions. Of the containerized veggies the carrots and radishes didn't do well at all. The watermelon got a disease and croaked. All the peppers are doing well. The tomato plants grew but the tomatoes on both varieties are very small. The green beans are coming on like gang busters and the onions are doing great. The stawberries are doing very well. Also planted grape vines on a narrow portion of dirt between the patio and fence and have two blueberry plants in containers. Neither are producing yet but next year they should be doing great. Planted mesculin mix of lettuce a week ago when the weather suddenly cooled so that is just coming up. Next year we will mix the dirt differently and aquire more containers to plant other items as well.

[NGO]

well ...potatoes just started flowering and the grass hoppers showed up and ate the plants down.

Strawberries were OK...first year plants anyhow.

Asparagus finally took off after the heat and are doing well. Again first years plants...hope they transfer well???

Corn was OK...didn't plant many and glad we didn't, grasshoppers again

Melon and squash, zucchini was poor... I think the cool weather really set them back.  Plus grasshoppers went after most of the flowers and eventually the plants....below average output, but not a total loss

Tomatoes...not what I hoped for....first plants died in the snow the first week of June. Had to buy some from Edwards and they took forever to produce..been getting some for the last month...should have been for the last two months. Last year we boxed 4 boxes and had tomatoes until January. This year Maybe one month worth of green to box up. we'll see.


Green Peppers did about half of what they should have but also late, but nice produce.

Hot peppers are OK, habinaros (sp) might get red yet.

Basque have only been half the size the should have and many are still green


Carrots have finally taken off and are growing...will be one of the last things out of the ground when we move.

green beans and peas...1/3 of what they should have been



Onions...actually did great...nice size and flavor


With the cool weather we did good on lettuce, broccoli's, and cabbage are growing...broccoli's just bolted again....

[Nomad]

 Our garden has had small yields as well but with this warm weather it may take off...

[agunforeachhand]

My lemon cucumbers went nuts. I am so sick of them lol lets just say I have been taking them to the range now