2012 Veggie Garden Thread

[Boomer28]

Fucking rabbits ate all my god damn lettuce. Everything else untouched, lettuce looks like someone took a hedge trimmer to it.

Next purchase, high powered pellet gun.....

[userA]

slugs are the enemy in pnw gardens

[pointedem]

The problem is it tends to get pretty plugged up quickly and then I need to wade into the pond and clean it out again. I've always wondered f it would be OK to just put the pump in without an kind of filtering. Will it get ruined if I do this?

pump will prob overheat and die, but i've pumped out some pretty gnarly water w/o filters... shop vac it out and get dirty if you want to play it safe.

[BurnHard]

Latest...

I finally finalized my irrigation system. Went with pro-quality drip irrigation from Lowes, cheap, efficient, easy to set up. Routed 100ft of 1/2" feeder hose through my entire garden and I'm slowly attaching drippers and mini-sprinklers where needed. Under $100 total incl. timer, hoses, soaker & drip lines, emitters, etc. All by Orbit.

Kohlrabis are growing strong!


Finally got rid of the jungle under my grow lights in the apartment and planted everything out.
Total of 15 blooming tomato plants (San Marzano, Cherry, lots of hybrids), 7 eggplant plants, bell peppers, zucchini, melons, cayenne pepper, etc..


First Early Bird tomatoes already growing!


Been harvesting Mesculin salad for a few weeks now. F'in incredibly tender & juicy, ridiculous!




Now on to building 15 tomato cages! Ouch...

_B

[Bobby Stainless]

^

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/cata...gry=SEARCH+ALL

[BurnHard]

Yeah, these could be an option:
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...&storeId=10051

15x $4 comes out to $60 bucks for flimsy cages that aren't big enough for my bigger tomato plants (San Marzano).

I was thinking of this:

http://www.homedepot.com/Building-Ma...1#BVRRWidgetID

Rolled up into 2ft diameter cages, 100ft length roll gives me just about 15 cages for $100. More expensive, but sturdy as fuck & large enough for my San Marzano plants.

Or, build a serious trellis system that spans my entire bed (20ft x 3ft), wire up trellis to stakes in the ground, and train tomatoes to climb up wires. I've read fan trellis like that allow for best plant growth.

I could turn my garden into a fuckin science project & engineering nightmare....

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Update from the Garden State:

Upper Garden


2 types of lettuce, kale, and celery (plus a couple baby spinach at the bottom of the row)


spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, and beets


young yellow and green bell Pepper, jalepeno


my lady with our dinner harvest


the lower garden with asparagus, yukon gold potato, and onions




Just transplanted some ghost eggplant, and purple basil. Regular basil is being hardened off, and tomatos will go in soon! Got blue dino kale, and brussel sprout seeds that will be planted later for fall harvest!

[Flounder]

Nice gardens Whiteroom. Hope to eventually have enough space for larger gardens. In the meantime, we are growing quite a bit on our tiny city lot. These are from last weekend.


6 raised beds, cedar and 4' by 6'. blackberries and raspberries in the back.


Lots of flowers as well. Rhubarb is in there somewhere. There are a couple of kiwi vines in there that are supposed to bear fruit in a couple of years. If you look close off the corner of the back addition you can see the most important gardening tool, klipsch outdoor speaker and subwoofer. Gotta drown out the obnoxious neighbor kids.


Strawberries in first bed. The lettuce and spinach beyond was self seeded from last year. We just let it bolt at the end of the year. Way in the background is one of two blueberry bushes we are trying to get going. In between are peas, carrots, cukes, tomatoes, and peppers and what ever the wife puts in. Potatoes are in a bag to keep them corralled.

Lost some plants last year when we were climbing in Tahoe and got hit by a heat wave. This year we had irrigation put in to prevent damage and hopefully increase yield.

[userA]

oh i so want to just get absorbed in my garden,
i am only committed to ski till june 20, 9 pm.
then it's full on dirty hands and feet and blueberry season.
i don't count indoor gardening
bf

[Ksyrium]

slugs are the enemy in pnw gardens

I've declared war on the slugs in my garden here in the north east. Its been wet and rainy for a while now, and the damn things are everywhere.

[Zesty Not Spicy]

Amazing what a piece of plastic draped over your raised beds will do for the early season growth. First year doing a hoop house and compared to my other beds without them these guys are enormous (broccoli & 3 kinds of lettuce). I'll be adding them to most of my raised beds to get an early start on next season and also for a fall harvest I'm planning.

[Sirshredalot]

I've declared war on the slugs in my garden here in the north east. Its been wet and rainy for a while now, and the damn things are everywhere.

Sluggo has worked miracles for us this year. The slugs were decimating our lettuce and sunflower seedlings, overwhelming our beer traps, etc. Then we sprinkled sluggo all over the place. Problem solved. The shit works.

[BurnHard]

My tomatoes are going crazy. Blooming at a crazy rate, little tomatoes everywhere:



Btw, I built my trellises!



Three cedar 2x4x8' dug two feet deep into the ground and screwed to the existing beds ($18), two treated pine 2x4x12' ($8) across the top, and nylon twine ($4) to string the tomatoes vertically. I'm making sure to prune the little sucklings off about twice a week to make sure the tomato grows vertically on only 1 vine. Growth is crazy with this method, I already have the tallest tomatoes with the most blooms out of anybody at the gardens. Super cheap system, too, vs. buying $100 worth of wire fence to make cages.

Harvesting Swiss Chards like crazy! Young broccoli (ridiculously good!!!) and some basil & garlic starting to come up.



Can't wait for the tomatoes!!! Planted 4 more plants, putting me up to a total of 19 tomato plants.

[leroy jenkins]

So I am an absolute gardening jong, no idea what Im doing. I've got a bigass compost pile that I started last fall thats ready to get spread around and get shit planted in it, I dont really want to fuck around with buying the stuff to grow indoors, I just want to stick some stuff in the ground and get it to grow. Right now I'm thinking peppers, basil, summer lettuce, onions, garlic, and perhaps some kind of berries and potatoes. Anyone wanna give me a clue what I'm doing? I know I could google but I'm lazy, and it might do someone else some good being in this thread anyways.

Also, there is a strawberry plant that is naturally growing next to my compost pile, looks like its been there for a while and is hanging on ok but hardly thriving, and tips on growing/replicating that thing?


I'm in salt lake city. I really don't want to spend any money on anything besides some seeds or something. Havent bought soil, not making beds, don't want to buy lights. I just have a bigass pile of compost, and a hose to water with. Is this unrealistic?

[BurnHard]

Strawberries are self-replicating, and very fast at that. It's likely not producing much 'cause it's new - strawberries need a few years to 'settle in', it's best to snip off any flowers/fruit you see the first year at least. You should be able to dig deep & wide around it and replant it somewhere better. It'll throw offshoots in no time and you'll have more plants next year.

Bigass pile of compost is perfect. Maybe start by digging out one or two 4x10 areas in your yard/lawn, just kinda delimiting a bed without actually building one. Double dig, maybe 1-1.5' down, and mix in all the compost you got. Ready to start planting.

Kinda late to start anything from seed unless it's fall/winter veggies (winter squash, parsnips, potatoes, etc), so you'll have to spend some more $$ buying plants from the nursery. Well worth it though.

[Zesty Not Spicy]

I planted 20' of new bare root strawberries this year and I've been picking all the flowers off but it's killing me! They are doing great so I might just have to let some fruit knowing that I'm probably screwing myself on what would be a great crop next year. Patience is not one of my virtues.

[neck beard]

Strawberries are self-replicating, and very fast at that. It's likely not producing much 'cause it's new - strawberries need a few years to 'settle in', it's best to snip off any flowers/fruit you see the first year at least.

Didn't know that. Damn, they were looking good this year after going in last year. Amazing how well they survive under months of snow.

Any other berries/fruits which handle cold and heavy deep snow? I'm slowly building up my blueberry crop, and have some other super sour local things that are prolific and un-killable, but take enamel off my teeth (or feel like it)

[Cyber Cop]

Amazing what a piece of plastic draped over your raised beds will do for the early season growth. First year doing a hoop house and compared to my other beds without them these guys are enormous (broccoli & 3 kinds of lettuce). I'll be adding them to most of my raised beds to get an early start on next season and also for a fall harvest I'm planning.

I bought a book on cold frame gardens last year. Still deciding on what design/style I'm going to go with. I have my raised beds barren right now waiting to stucco a wall behind them. Hoping to get to that soon so I can plant a nice fall garden in august. Excited to try and get going year around. Hopefully can get a small greenhouse built in the next year or so too. I've gotten basil to go until late november unprotected here in the southwest.

[Zesty Not Spicy]

Any other berries/fruits which handle cold and heavy deep snow?

Raspberries go dormant and over winter well but take a little more care than Strawberries. You have to prune them in the fall and trellis them.

[grskier]

Damn late frost.. lost my tomato plants. Our season for growing up here sucks. Potatoes have died off and regrown twice now. Lettuce is doing well, just planted the corn, herbs are doing meh. July usually brings better growth up here. I'll have to go buy new tomato plants though, may look at doing those in the upside down thingamajiggers next year to get a longer season.

[bagtagley]

I bought a book on cold frame gardens last year.

What book?

Zesty, did you build the hoop houses yourself, or did you buy a kit?

[brice618]

My Mr. Stripey heirloom is taking over. It's almost 8' tall now and covered in fist sized fruits. Had to cut out the Swiss chard to let it re fill. It was stealing all the light.



Knife is 3 inches long

[Zesty Not Spicy]

Zesty, did you build the hoop houses yourself, or did you buy a kit?

Myself, it's super easy! My beds are 5' by 10' so here's the list. 4 pcs of 10' x 1/2" PVC pipe. 2 T's and 1 "X" (or cross). For anchoring your PVC you can use a few options, I did rebar into the ground but a lot of people use 6" pieces of 1" PVC attached to the side of the raised bed with half round pipe clamps. The 1/2" then slides into the 1". A roll of 6 mil 10' x length plastic.
Cut your 10' PVC sticks in half (5').
Glue the T's into two sets and the X into the other.
Slide one end of each into your anchor and then bend it around and into the anchor on the other side. The piece with the X should be in the middle. The T's at the ends should be faced inward.
After your 3 pieces are forming a hoop side the 2 left over 5' pieces into the T's & X at the top. Don't glue these so they are easier to take apart later.
Drape your plastic over the top and cut to length.
Buy a 2' stick of black poly pipe (the somewhat flexible stuff some people use for irrigation lines) and cut them into approx 3" pieces. Then use a blade and cut a 1/2" slot vertically along the length. These are used for your "clips" to attach the plastic to the 1/2" PVC pipe. WAY cheaper than the prefab ones you can buy.
For the ends you have a few options. The easiest way is to just cut your plastic sheeting long and anchor them with a big rock or a few bricks. I ended up copying this idea that I found online. It's cleaner, doesn't take up as much room with overhanging plastic and makes putting the plastic on and off much easier. Basically they just cut out and taped the ends permanently on. Then they used pieces of 10' PVC and taped them to the bottom of the plastic edge on both sides. So this way you can just roll up the plastic when you want access, it also makes storage easier when they are not in use. This is my first year with them but they were fantastic for getting an early start in the PNW this spring and I plan to do a fall/winter garden using them as well.

[neck beard]

Raspberries go dormant and over winter well but take a little more care than Strawberries. You have to prune them in the fall and trellis them.

Trellis wont survive the snow unless I build a super bomber one, or up against a suitable house wall (the only one of which is currently occupied by three struggling hop plants).

Nice beds and hoop houses. Again, my bed frames need to be bomber to last.

I've started several sheet mulch beds last year and planting them this year. I'll report how they go.

[Cyber Cop]

What book?

Zesty, did you build the hoop houses yourself, or did you buy a kit?

Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman... http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/books/index.html#harvest