Vegetable Gardens: Tips, Advice, Questions, Tales, Pictures

[Danster]

This Year we have been experimenting with the veg. We've got Carrots and Parsnips in pots at the bottom of the garden, Tomatos and Butternut Sqaushes in the (makeshift) greenhouse and some Ordinary Peas and more Butternut Squash in a growbag.

The Tomatos are starting to get little green blobs where the flowers have died (which I am guessing are the tomatos). The Squash seem to be growing very well! We should be expecting some flowers soon. The Peas are tying themselves round one of the Squash Plants instead of the cane

I'll get some pictures soon

http://img33.imageshack.us/i/dsc00356jdj.jpg[IMG]
The Peas and a Squash Plant.

[IMG]http://img32.imageshack.us/i/dsc00357m.jpg[IMG]
Our Makeshift Greenhouse

[IMG]http://img39.imageshack.us/i/dsc00358a.jpg[IMG]
Our Biggest Butternut Squash Plant.

[IMG]http://img39.imageshack.us/i/dsc00360psa.jpg[IMG]
One of the Tomato Plants (Sorry, Wrong way Round.)

[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00361xnk.jpg[IMG]
The Tallest Tomato Plant (Wrong way again.)

[IMG]http://img190.imageshack.us/i/dsc00362g.jpg[IMG]
Our First Tomato!

[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/i/dsc00363n.jpg[IMG]
The Parsnips

[IMG]http://img32.imageshack.us/i/dsc00364k.jpg[/MG]
A Maze of Carrots and Parsnips.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

^ All I see is red x's.

We have quiet a bit of action in our garden now. Lots of small peppers growing, corn has tassles, lots of tomatoes and one of the strawberries is already red!!

 

[Sureboss]

I don't think I've ever had an American Stawberry...

Need to go and put the Sweet Basil in a bigger pot in a moment, too many shoots for the little pot it came in. Just the smell you get when watering it, is immense.

 

[Sniffs]

I don't think I've ever had an American Stawberry...

Need to go and put the Sweet Basil in a bigger pot in a moment, too many shoots for the little pot it came in. Just the smell you get when watering it, is immense.

wait, WHAT? if you buy any in the stalls, you have.

it doesn't look like there's gonna be much in the way of tree fruit this year, except nuts. the trees went nuts this spring and bloomed like maniacs, but nothing's set right.
meanwhile, every time I look at the garden (i'm not really allowed near it, my mother thinks tobacco will give everything the Tobacco mosaic virus), nothing's changed, much. even the weeds are stalling.

 

[FoolKiller]

^ All I see is red x's.

It's because he put a / at the end of his image links.

it doesn't look like there's gonna be much in the way of tree fruit this year, except nuts. the trees went nuts this spring and bloomed like maniacs, but nothing's set right.
meanwhile, every time I look at the garden (i'm not really allowed near it, my mother thinks tobacco will give everything the Tobacco mosaic virus), nothing's changed, much. even the weeds are stalling.

It has been a cool year. My wife's grandparents have two small apple trees and the few apples that have appeared have gone straight from green to brown (should be goldish red). It's a shame really because when they come in I like to grab one for a snack as I go under on the mower.

The past few years we are typically dealing with 95+ degree heat and drought conditions. This past weekend we have had highs in the 70's and I have had 1-2 inches of rain nearly every week.

 

[Sureboss]

wait, WHAT? if you buy any in the stalls, you have.

It's all UK, Dutch, Spanish here.

 

[FoolKiller]

Well, despite doing everything but an electric fence the raccoons were trying to get into the corn again this year. I managed to interrupt them four ears in and then my wife and I picked the rest that was close to being ready. I figured slightly early corn was better than no corn at all.

We used the box as we didn't have anything else readily available.

 

[Solid Lifters]

.22 pellet rifle = dead 'coons. 👍

 

[FoolKiller]

.22 pellet rifle = dead 'coons. 👍

Animal control officer as a neighbor = jail.

I asked.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Animal control officer as a neighbor = jail.

I asked.

That sucks.

I just kill the varmints going after Bob's food. I looked into getting traps. I need to get a hunting license (NBD, get one every year), trappers state tag (stamp on hunting license) and then a trappers license from the county and one from the city.

I like the suppressed .22 pellet rifle much better.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Well we finally decided to pick our first item from the garden.
This hot pepper just didnt seem like it was growing at all so we decided to pick and eat it. If anything I think it is smaller. The ends were not hot at all but the middle with the seeds sure packed a surprising eye watering punch. lol
Our yellow banana peppers are easily 3x larger than this little pepper. I will get some pics tonight.
This is what I said when I picked this little pepper. "I feed you miracle grow for over a month, water you every day, and this is all I get????!!" haha
Try not to laugh too loud. lol

 

[FoolKiller]

Peppers are hot because of capsaicin, which is mainly found in the veins and somewhat less in the seeds. That's why the inner parts of your peppers are hot but the ends weren't.

Keep this in mind if you ever have a friend saying that he can handle a hot pepper better than you.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Here is the funny story behind the pepper that proves your theory correct.

Heather does not like hot food AT ALL. So she insisted that I take a bite of the pepper first. So I picked the end piece and ate it which simply tasted just like a green bell pepper. I reasurred her that it was not hot at all. So she grabs a piece and starts eating it. She instantly starts making a scene and yelling how hot it was while trying to get something to drink. I sat in total confusion asking why she was exaggerating. It was not hot at all to me. So then I grabbed the middle piece with the seeds next and wow what a surprise. Then she sais "See I told you it was hot!!"

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

8/4/09 Garden update. 2 months total growing time.

For some reason the Orange bell and Red bell started to shrink in size so we pulled the orange bell last night. I think they are just stunted because of the crouded space in the back. The Roma plant seems to be taking over the entire garden and is producing quite a few roma tomatoes. There are at least 20 green cherry tomatoes and at least 1 a day is red.

The yellow banana peppers are also doing very well but they are away from everything. One of them is at least 7-8 inches long!

cherry tomato----corn----roma tomato----grape tomato


-cherry-cherry-cherry-red bell


This is a pic of the 7-8 inch yellow banana pepper.

 

[Solid Lifters]

They're not getting enough sunshine. You have them too close to the fence. Plus, that big tree of your neighbor is causing too much shade.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Thats what I figured since they are way in the back behind the roma, the corn, and right next to the cucumber. Next year I will put the smaller plants up front and the taller plants in the back. I also dont plan to grow corn next year. I have learned a lot and it sure has been fun experimenting with our first garden.

 

[GT3mich]

I have learned a lot and it sure has been fun experimenting with our first garden.

That's what its all about. Beans are also very easy to grow. I've been getting enough every day to feed 4 for about a month now and planted more seeds last week to get some in September. Tomatoes are starting to ripen also.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Its getting really fun now. My Roma plant is HUGE!! Its about 4' in diameter with at least 20 romas just not ripe yet. Plus we have some really tiny cucumbers starting to finally grow. The cherry and grape tomatoes are starting to finally get ripe. Plus there are quite a few banana peppers.
We picked all this last night. Put 3 of the banana peppers in a pickle jar just the way they are as a whole pepper. Then we cut up the remaning banana peppers and put them into yellow banana pepper juice. Had the tomatoes and bell pepper for dinner. Quite rewarding night.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

I dont have any updated pics of our garden but my Roma plant is about 4-5 feet in diameter. We picked a few light orange Romas. I have about 40-50 tomatoes but they turn orange very slow. So after talking with a few co-workers they recommended that I trim my tomato plants so the tomatoes would ripen faster.
So last night Heather and I spent about an hour and trimmed a LOT. I hope it wasnt too much. I guess we will see.
I also seem to have quite a few spiders in the garden. At least 3-4 a night.
Oh I do want to share a pic of my grass after installing the sprinkler system. So rewarding after all the hard work and the sprinkler system only cost me $100. That includes all 4 heads, all the connections, and the 1" line.

 

[Solid Lifters]

That's an awesome shade of green, there! 👍

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Thank you. I never even added fertilizer or anything to it yet. Thats just with the $100.00 underground sprinkler system. I dont even know what type of grass it is. Hard to believe seeing grass grow can be so rewarding. I guess thats the beauty of being a home owner. Or I am just getting old.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Thank you. I never even added fertilizer or anything to it yet. Thats just with the $100.00 underground sprinkler system. I dont even know what type of grass it is. Hard to believe seeing grass grow can be so rewarding. I guess thats the beauty of being a home owner. Or I am just getting old.

It's both.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

While trimming our tomato plants last night we found 2 huge tomato worms. Freaked Heather out big time. It didnt help that I cut them in half with trimmers which popped juice all over the place. She started dry heaving and took off.

I opened up some of the little husks of corn and this is what we had. Not much at all so I just cut them down. They simply didnt have enough sun or enough space to grow and we knew that. So no big loss.

The good news is that all our tomato plants and yellow banana peppers are doing excellent. Our bell peppers are also starting to produce quite a few peppers but I dont expect much from them. We have picked a few cucumbers and put them in a big pickle jar.

 

[FoolKiller]

I think my garden is done for the year. I may get some peppers still but everything else has slowed down now that we are back into mild temperatures. With temperatures dropping into the fifties at night some of the stuff has just stopped doing anything. And even when it isn't raining it is cloudy and/or foggy now, so even sunlight is limited.

I tend to hate hot years but I realize now that while I enjoyed this mild summer it really stunted gradens in the area.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Anyone else have problems with spiders in the garden? Maybe something with the cooler weather? I bet we kill at least 3 a day out there.
Oh also our cucumber leaves have some strange discoloring to them almost like a mold. Same with one of our flowers in the front of our yard.

 

[GT3mich]

That mold has been plaguing all the cucumber and squash plants in S.E. Michigan. My mother in law read about in the Freepress. They recommend bagging up all those plants because it can transfer to other varieties. I bagged up ours 2 weeks ago. Those tomato caterpillars are pretty scary when seen for the first time. My grandfather used to grow a lot of tomato's and would get the bugs from time to time. Thats where I saw one for the first time. I haven't seen one here where I live ever. I hope I never see one again. Here is what they look like.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

Looks like our first frost for this fall is tonight.
Guess I will have to either pick the rest of the tomatoes or cover them. Sure has been fun this summer watching everything grow. Sucks winter is on its way and summer is over.

 

[Sniffs]

did anybody else lose all the tomatoes this year due to whatever this black mold was? almost everybody in this STATE had to burn their whole plants!.

Camaroboy: WHAT summer? we had a grand total of two weeks of summer weather. everything else was a gigantilc stall of perpetual April, down here. now, we're in friggin november a couple month early (we dodged the frost, thankfully)

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

We had strange discoloring mold looking stuff on our cucumbers but still ate them. lol

Last night we picked about 20 tomatoes and a few yellow banana peppers in preparation for the frost. Covered everything with some old sheets. I think we saved everything!! Its supposed to warm up a little so maybe our bell peppers still have a chance and hopefully everything else will keep producing. The bell peppers started blooming like crazy over the last week. The bell pepper plants are at least 2-3 feet tall!

Oh is it true that if you put tomatoes in newspaper or other paper they get red faster?

 

[Solid Lifters]

We had strange discoloring mold looking stuff on our cucumbers but still ate them. lol

Last night we picked about 20 tomatoes and a few yellow banana peppers in preparation for the frost. Covered everything with some old sheets. I think we saved everything!! Its supposed to warm up a little so maybe our bell peppers still have a chance and hopefully everything else will keep producing. The bell peppers started blooming like crazy over the last week. The bell pepper plants are at least 2-3 feet tall!

Oh is it true that if you put tomatoes in newspaper or other paper they get red faster?

You need a ripe or over ripe piece of fruit, like an apple or banana, and put it in the paper bag with the tomatoes. These ripe fruits give off ethylene gas which speeds up the ripening of the tomatoes.