Garden 2019.

[Tank-Girl]

Today my insect row cover turned up.

It was 20mtr long by 6 mtr wide.
I had to unfold it and cut it out on the footpath.
It ended up making 4 10mtr by 3 mtr row covers.

I can finally get my broccoli in the ground.

 

[WVDragonlady]

Harvested 3 more cucumber, pint of blackberries ( which will be made into muffins this morning lol) and about a pint of "salad" tomatoes.
My little blueberry plant is heavy with a quart of berries but they're not turning yet. Close, maybe this weekend hopefully.
My larger beefsteak tomatoes are just starting to get some color on them. Can't wait for a tomato sandwich....num

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Sounds wonderful @Tank-Girl I get all excited when we have a new project to do and have all the needed supplies ready and waiting. Those darn cabbage moths and caterpillars drive us to despair here too on our broccoli.

 

[backlash]

I am already feeding my excess zucchini to the neighbors goats. There are tomatoes turning color and I ate the first red cherry tomato yesterday.

 

[Amish Heart]

My tomatoes all got thrips. Now they're chicken food.
I do have some growing in another area on our property, hoping they'll be edible.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Sounds wonderful @Tank-Girl I get all excited when we have a new project to do and have all the needed supplies ready and waiting. Those darn cabbage moths and caterpillars drive us to despair here too on our broccoli.

Thank you.

I finally planted my broccoli and set up my first ever low tunnels.
I used conduit for the hoops because the woven insect mesh is heavy duty and weighs quite a bit.

I cut heavy guage fencing wire onto 2mtr lengths and duct taped to strands together to make it double thickness because a single strand was too soft.
I put orchard netting over the wire hoops, which has smaller holes than bird netting, which will do fine at keeping the cabbage butterflies from landing on my swiss chard and kale and laying eggs on them.
I hate kale. I really do. I'm growing it for the chickens so if the odd grasshopper gets through the mesh and has a nibble it will more protein for the chickens.

I have more wire hoops to cut, more broccoli and collard seedlings to plant and then low tunnels to build over them.
I hope I like collards more than kale because I am going to be planting a lot of seedlings. I have enough to plant a 30 foot row.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Sounds like it will be fabulous @Tank-Girl and adapting with the materials you have is the best bit without spending additional money.

I have posted the photos of what we have done in the gardens over in post a photo so you can see the garden enclosure we built with mostly recycled materials (it cost in total $39.46 with the shade cloth we purchased) and the plants we took from our previous rental gardens and replanted here.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Been a busy time out in the garden.

Built most of my low tunnels over broccoli, cabbages, swiss chard and kale.

My horrible Legion roma tomatoes have almost burnt themselves out and good riddance.
I have a flat of 36 Roma VF determinate tomato seedlings to replace them with.
When I pullout the Legion plants I will scrub down the trellis in a strong bleach solution to
kill off blight spores that came off them.

I refurbished the 4 large raised beds and between the 4 of them I planted another 36 Roma VF
tomato plants in them.
I really hope these are a good tomato because I am planting a lot of them.

So far I am very happy with the performance of the f1 Big Beef tomatoes.
The disease resistance is even better than the Legion romas, their stems are like tree trunks and the amount and size of the fruit on them is surprising.
The real test will be Summer production.

The first bed of zucchini have almost burnt themselves out. I'll give them a liquid fertilizer made of soaked chicken manure pellets
and see if that revives them. If not it will at least two weeks before the second bed is in production.

So far I have another flats of broccoli, collards, nappa cabbage, spring onions, celery, dutch flat cabbage to plant yet
and I still haven't gotten around to replanting more beans.

My potato patch is looking a picture. I am very happy with the health of the plants.

When the dew dries I will be harvesting my first ever home grown Motherwort flower spikes.
I will be drying them to make into a tincture once I get enough.

 

[LadyLocust]

We had put two short rows of spuds in the ground in January (moved here 22 Dec. so weren't sure where to put things.)
Retched vole ate one whole row. We just dug up the other row and got wonderful big spuds. Also, this evening hubby pulled the carrots. There were only half dozen. (Planted them too close to the peas and they got choked out.) But the few we got were huge! And taste good as I've already eaten one;-)
Our tomatoes are an immense jungle and totally loaded with fruit just beginning to turn. We moved from zone 5 (in a good yr.) to zone 7! This is crazy! I love it.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@LadyLocust glad you got some lovely vegetables to eat .

We do get rats and mice in the garden and one year they ate about half of our sweet potatoes but the strange thing is that they are poisonous to them as they contain a substance that turns into arsenic in their systems and they die. What rats the sweet potatoes didn't polish off the cat did and left them in a neat row on the lawn.

Still have to fully enclose the garden beds from the roof down to the ground before we can plant here as the swamp wallaby jumps the property fences.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

@Tank-Girl good to hear that your garden is coming along well and you are doing some wonderful prep work there. I hope the new tomatoes you planted produce well for you. The F1 beef tomatoes are a hybrid so probably had some disease resistance built into them over the years. The F1 code is a hybrid code for most vegetable seedlings from my reading.

 

[timmie]

if we don't get some rain our garden is done. hubby is watering but it needs rain.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

We so relate to needing rain @timmie as we are in drought here with severe water restrictions. Most locals cannot even buy water to fill their rainwater tanks for use in their homes here. Fortunately we are on town water as well as tank water and have a good supply of rain water in storage to run our home with.

 

[Meerkat]

if we don't get some rain our garden is done. hubby is watering but it needs rain.

Hope you get rain soon Timmie.
We have been really lucky this Spring and Summer so far. Just enough rain and it cools things off too. May came in record breaking scorching but that changed afterwards and ok before.
Now its time to decide what to do for Fall garden.

 

[Tank-Girl]

My horrible Legion romas are almost finished and looking really ratty.
I can't wait to rip em out by the hair and throw the nasty things in the bin.

I got several flats of Roma VF to replace them with.

Built more low tunnels and my newly planted beans are sprouting.
I am building a low tunnel over them with the finer mesh because it seems the stink bugs like stinging the beans.
Just as well they're a French dwarf variety so the low tunnel doesn't have to be very high.

I ran out of seedling soil and poultry manure so planting is on hold until next pension day.

The low tunnel hoops made out of the doubled up 10 Guage fencing wire are holding up well.
Much better than I expected.
The conduit hoops are holding up under the weight of the heavy duty insect mesh. I just need to
cut more reo rod to act as ground pins so I can build more tunnels.
So far I have found one green caterpillar in all my rows of cabbages, swiss chard and kale.
The time and money put into low tunnels has been well spent.

 

[GrannyG]

I love this idea.….

 

[Support Gunner]

Will those buckets be big enough for the root system?

They wont get root bound?

 

[GrannyG]

I don't know...will not let me post from the link...looks like a good idea..I have the photos on my FB page he posted

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...9Sys2bYxFnHQjLwgEI6_rUWnyWm0A7BnCt3Mjc5EaH-pk

 

[backlash]

I don't think there is enough space between the buckets. He will have a huge mess of vines covering everything. I have that problem in my garden now. I left 6 feet between rows and my tomatoes and cucumbers are growing into each other and you can hardly walk between the rows.
Check this Youtube channel. He grows a lot of vegetables in wicking pots and 55 gallon barrels filled with water and fertilizer.


Tonight we had fresh picked corn, cucumbers, and tomatoes from the garden for supper.
Going to have the same thing tomorrow night except we will add fried potatoes and beans and cornbread.
I love garden season.

 

[Bacpacker]

I trellised my cukes this year on cattle panels, but I ran out and left 2 plants on the ground. They have ran and are highly competeing with the nearby tomatos on more panels.
In another spot I put out other tomatos on panels they are doing fine. But I also planted a row of Gourds next row over on panels. Those stupid things have climbed the panels and went back down to the ground and are running out in the field, across to the tomatos and up and over those panels. And they are just now starting to flower. Vines are still running.

 

[backlash]

I trellised my cukes this year on cattle panels, but I ran out and left 2 plants on the ground. They have ran and are highly competeing with the nearby tomatos on more panels.
In another spot I put out other tomatos on panels they are doing fine. But I also planted a row of Gourds next row over on panels. Those stupid things have climbed the panels and went back down to the ground and are running out in the field, across to the tomatos and up and over those panels. And they are just now starting to flower. Vines are still running.

Same thing here. I thought I could keep the tomatoes and cucumbers under control with the cattle panels but they are growing huge. My wife planted some squash and they are huge. Running all over the garden and even into the pasture. The biggest one has died, probably from the heat.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Well the Legion tomatoes are finished and in the bin.
I don't compost potato or tomato plants because I don’t want to
spread viruses.
I pulled up a flowering potato plant to see how the potatoes are developing.
The problem with using supermarket potatoes as seed potatoes is you
don't know if they are early, mid or late varieties.

Bunnings has put up the price of their budget seedlings 25 cents per punnet to $3.25.
It's too much and I am going to have to get serious about seed starting.

The 36 newly planted tomato seedlings are doing well. I will have to come up with
a suitable trellis or staking system for them but at the moment they don't need it.

I am very disappointed with my sugar bon snap peas. The pods are tiny.
I chose the variety because they are mildew resistant and to be fair they are...BUT
they just aren't productive at all.
I'll be sticking with the melting mammoth snow peas from now on and just make my
peace with the inevitable mildew that they get.
I may have enough cooler weather left to get a harvest if I plant them now.

I picked over a kilo of red and green capsicums that I had individually bagged on the plant with insect mesh drawstring bags.
It is the only way I get to harvest any because they get stung by fruit flies and rot before they are even close to ready.
The mesh bags have paid for themselves already.
I put most in the freezer to use in salsa and as pizza toppings.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Another 20 tomato seedlings planted this afternoon.

 

[WVDragonlady]

Just been trying to keep things alive by watering them. Having a dry spell here now. Been getting tomatoes and cucumbers every day almost. Have to get some of the window boxes ready for carrots and spinach since thats what my growing calendar says I can plant now for the fall growing. Still have a month before I can plant any type of greens except maybe kale

 

[Tank-Girl]

Planted collards and covered them in a insect mesh low tunnel.

Planted a 10ft row of white hailstone radish.

Replanted bush beans. The seeds keep dampening off and rotting in the soil.
This time I let the soil dry out a little and then I walked away from them after planting without watering so the soil moisture can germinate them.
3rd times the charm.

 

[Support Gunner]

We had quit a bit of seedlings damping off this year.

 

[SeventiesWreckers]

I don't know...will not let me post from the link...looks like a good idea..I have the photos on my FB page he posted

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...9Sys2bYxFnHQjLwgEI6_rUWnyWm0A7BnCt3Mjc5EaH-pk

Here you go. Just click on the thumbnails for the full image.

 

[Bacpacker]

Thats a mess of food grown in a small area.

 

[LadyLocust]

I have a tomato jungle! It's crazy. Up the mountain, I grew tomatoes always hoping to get enough before frost hit. The plants would get three ft. Tallish. Down here the plants would be 6' tall if the trellises were. As is, I know the trellises are under there somewhere. I have some 5' wooden trellises I made that I will be using next year.
@Tank-Girl you are going gangbusters! Sounds like since the Roma's are gone it's going pretty well.

 

[Tank-Girl]

I have a tomato jungle! It's crazy. Up the mountain, I grew tomatoes always hoping to get enough before frost hit. The plants would get three ft. Tallish. Down here the plants would be 6' tall if the trellises were. As is, I know the trellises are under there somewhere. I have some 5' wooden trellises I made that I will be using next year.
@Tank-Girl you are going gangbusters! Sounds like since the Roma's are gone it's going pretty well.

Thank you.
You're no slouch in the gardening department yourself.

I am having to make the decision to rip out some older zucchini plants and replace them with new ones.
I have to wrap the stems with tin foil when I plant them out otherwise the cutworms will kill them overnight.
I also have to put orchard mesh over them because the crows who are very curious about the foil
will walk down the row and yank up every seedling because they can.
Once the seedling gets established I can take the mesh off.

I harvested over 4 kilos of red capsicums.
The insect mesh bags are doing a awesome job at stopping the fruit flies and the stink bugs from stinging the fruit.

We had a frost the other morning...freezing...and every potato plant that got damaged is now getting attacked by thrips.
Thousands and thousands of thrips. A flying sap sucking insect that looks like a small skinny fly.
I think it's going to affect the quality of my potato harvest.

It's time to plant sweet potato slips in the next week.