Garden 2021

[Meerkat]

Urban, you are the sane zone as I am. I definitely am going to plant lettuce in fall. what kind of cover do you have onyour raised beds?

meer, was that a big broccoli variety? how was the taste?

Thanks LilMissy,They were great tasty and tender even the stalks were tender.cooked the leaves aka greens too.

 

[Amish Heart]

Today I planted rhubarb, horseradish, chives, and sage. Then went to the greenhouse around the corner for a bunch more flowers for our back deck.

 

[WVDragonlady]

My arctic kiwi is going to bloom this year. first time ever

It was growing out of control so I had hubby trim it back severely at the end of winter.
it hasn't bloom yet but if the wind wasn't blowing 30mph with gust of 56mph I'd take a pic of the closed blooms
this thing must be about 6 yrs(?) can't remember and its the only time its really tried to bloom. it gave a half hearted try a couple of years back but nothing happened.

hope I get some fruit this year

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

I have four kiwis coming in on Monday. Sounds like I will be dead before they fruit.

 

[LadyLocust]

@WVDragonlady Good to "see" you Don't you have the new green house closer to the house now? (or am I mis-remembering?) How's it going? You like it?
@UrbanHunter I am inferior to many/most on this thread, but when you transplant your tender plants outdoors, do you water them in with manure tea? It gives them a little extra boost to help them through the shock. Also on companion planting, I've done some with mixed results. My joke is it really doesn't matter what I plant. It's God's garden and He has a sense of humor. Last year I had millet come up in my garlic. I did not plant millet, but there it was. Basil at the base of tomatoes does well. Had sunflowers amongst the cauliflower. I never planted sunflowers. We do have a lot of birds around here which could explain some things. This year so far, I have a couple either beans or peas coming up in the onions. I might have mentioned before, but have you read "My Handkerchief Garden"? It's free on Gutenberg.org & has some great ideas about intense gardening in small areas.
@Peanut Thank you for that chart. I have all of those but catnip and marigolds. We get plenty of aphids so will be planting a few in between the brussels and broccoli.
@elkhound That's a nice grinder! Should serve you well for a long time.
That's a lot of responses and still probably missed some. I'm finally catching up on this thread.
After the chat about store bought vs. seed spuds, I'm doing a little experiment. So far my seed spuds are sprouted a good inch or two and the store bought are just emerging. In all fairness, the seed spuds were further along when I planted them so it will be interesting to see what happens come harvest.
I have a couple artichokes planted, carrots seeded, onions and garlic are looking good, bush beans are sprouted, only 1 pole bean sprouted so replanted them this morning. Cilantro is sprouted, volunteer lettuce, and a few mystery plants. I need to go out and get busy again. We will go to the nursery this weekend so will be busy out there in the dirt getting tomatoes, peppers, etc. all bought and in the dirt.
Oh, my peanutbutter isn't sprouting yet. I might need to reseed that too. (I'm not growing peanuts. I'm growing peanutbutter )

 

[UrbanHunter]

Urban, you are the sane zone as I am. I definitely am going to plant lettuce in fall. what kind of cover do you have onyour raised beds?

meer, was that a big broccoli variety? how was the taste?

Hi @lilmissy, I use a 3 mill clear-ish plastic cover on my beds with a center support, it gives me about 30" of head room in the center. My beds run east and west so one side is facing south with the cover almost perpendicular to the sun in the winter. I find that the arrangement buys me between 20 and 35 degrees F in the day time. One thing I have to watch out for is if the outside temperature gets above 65 degrees I can very quickly cook my plants.

Here is a picture from back in 2013 showing the center support and you can see clear plastic attached to the swing arm using a 1X2 furring strip at the bottom of the picture. In the summer I will replace the plastic with thin cloth to shade the plants, allow rain in, control moisture loss. These beds are still in use. The end triangle pieces are plywood and they don't hold up as well as the raised bed boxes. (I replaced the plywood in 2014 and again last year, so they last about 6 years before rotting out).

Here you can see how the swing arm pivots over the center of the box making a tent like structure.

Here the lids are closed... Light can get in, as you can see through the plastic.

 

[UrbanHunter]

@LadyLocust, this year I did not plant the transplants with go juice... Unfortunately I got side tracked for several weeks and the tomato plants were dried out and very leggy, I planted them about a 16" deep with just a few inches of green showing, today most of them are perking up and some are 16" tall so I am hoping that all is forgiven.

Every evening I try to move a couple more plants outside. I have been watering the plants wrong (in the evening) and will try to correct that over the next few weeks.

I am very happy that my maple tree is greening up nicely, I guess it was worth digging that crater to plant it in. Last week I finally hauled away the root ball that came from the old gum-tree that had died there.

 

[lilmissy]

Thanks for the pics Urban. The boxes look great.

i picked rhubarb today. It actually had seed pods. I have never had that happen before.

 

[Meerkat]

Nice pics Urban looking good too. We had to throw up some wire around raised beds rabbits were checking them out waiting for them to produce,

 

[LadyLocust]

Got the sitting area, beans, and in ground spuds weeded. Garlic is weeded and mulched. Carrots weeded. Little back yard watered well. We don't have a single garden plot here so I have little "areas" and pocket gardens.

 

[UrbanHunter]

This afternoon the wind came up (over 50 mph) so I closed the lids and placed as many containers as I could in the walkways between the beds to protect the plants. My tall beds are just high enough that the rabbits just walk around on the outside and leave my plants alone, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen them do it.....

 

[Bacpacker]

Watered my beds and pulled the few weeds I found. Lettuce and spinach is ready to start eating on. Pulled more green onions for supper. Early cabbage have formed small heads, late cabbage is growing nicely, snow peas are starting to put out runners, all my asparagus came up and it's about time to finish filling up the bed. On the down side 9 of my 12 maters got some burn on them from our recent cold spell. I pruned off all the burn areas. 2 of the plants may or may not make it, but I think the rest will be ok. I need to get some pics. The beds are starting to look decent.

 

[joel]

Thanks LilMissy, They were great tasty and tender even the stalks were tender, cooked the leaves aka greens too.

We never grew broccoli when I was a child, I grew it as an adult & someone told me to cook the leaves too. I said I never heard of that, he said just like kale or collards, but not as strong.

 

[Meerkat]

We never grew broccoli when I was a child, I grew it as an adult & someone told me to cook the leaves too. I said I never heard of that, he said just like kale or collards, but not as strong.

Yes the leaves are good too especially with corn bread and onions or pepper sauce.

 

[joel]

You can keep the hot sauce, I will have another glass of whole milk with my hot corn bread.

 

[lilmissy]

You can keep the milk too. I like warm maple syrup with my cornbread.

 

[Amish Heart]

Butter for me

 

[Meerkat]

Never put milk in cornbread,I like mine with butter only.

 

[Meerkat]

This afternoon the wind came up (over 50 mph) so I closed the lids and placed as many containers as I could in the walkways between the beds to protect the plants. My tall beds are just high enough that the rabbits just walk around on the outside and leave my plants alone, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen them do it.....

Ours isn't that ll so we threw this up since squash and beans are already blooming.

 

[joel]

My oregano has spread to three pots, I am thinking of using it as a ground cover in my blueberry patch.

 

[UrbanHunter]

This morning I checked the garden and noticed some of the container plants that I moved down to protect them from the wind had been nibbled on by something. Then the wife noticed a groundhog from the kitchen window. I went looking for my trusty pellet gun... From the window, with the wife looking on I slowly took aim with my little pellet pistol, he was very good at keeping the raised bed frames and containers between he and I. But finally he gave me a clear shot. I know it wasn't powerful enough to kill him but based on the way he vacated the area he knows that he was hit with something.....

If he comes back, I may try to string some wire around the edges of the garden space to let him know he is not welcome here.

 

[Amish Heart]

I put up sticks all around the inside of the stock tanks I grow greenbeans in. I suspect a rabbit has been in there. I guess I could of sharpened them. Ha.

 

[Double R]

Came out to water and something ate some of our melon plants right off to the ground. Saw a couple holes in the ground so we dug down and found the culprit. Took a lot of research but found out the nasty little worm we found is a cutworm. Not a lot we can do about them from what I’m reading. DE on top of the soil but they will eat the roots of the plant underground also. Not looking good for the garden this year for some of the plants I’m afraid.
Got to eat my first strawberry and it was delicious!
I ordered a net for our fig tree and it finally came. Not sure if it will work or not but would love to finally get some figs before the birds wipe them out. Was interesting to get the net on but hopefully it works.
Corn has gone crazy so far. Time to thin them out this weekend.
Peppers are still slow but are all growing so I’m hopeful we actually get some.

 

[elkhound]

martin heirloom garlic is rocking it now...i see the ground bulging up !

 

[Meerkat]

martin heirloom garlic is rocking it now...i see the ground bulging up !


View attachment 65417

Looks great ElkH.

 

[joel]

With over 70 varieties, I have missed this one, but my garlic shop sale it.
I will try it, but it may not like the hot southern Springs, we will see.

https://filareefarm.com/martin-aos-heirloom/

 

[joel]

I found this:

I first bought it in 1982 or 1983 from Jung's Seed Co. It was the first and last time that I saw it. It was simply listed as "Topset Garlic", or something similar, and sold only as bulbils. Upon getting them home and reading the planting instructions, they were to be planted 4 to 5 inches deep. Whoops, that can't be right! I contacted Jung's to point out the error and it was due to failure to convert metric to English. It was supposed to be 4cm to 5cm! Therefore, anyone who bought a packet, and planted according to instructions, got nothing in return.

Now forward 20+ years and I've been growing it ever since. Thus far, nobody can find out what it originally was named or if it were merely a local landrace from somewhere. Information on where Jung's obtained it went up in smoke several years ago. Thus it's sort of a mystery as well.

It's a hardneck variety, possibly a German porcelain type, and with rather large bulbils. An old Bavarian friend told me that they used to use those large bulbils in cooking and making stock. Those bulbils will produce normal divided bulbs in a single season, and that's how we planted them for many years. Some years, we got a lot of small bulbs and other years had larger ones and always from bulbils. In recent years, we began planting back cloves instead and got really big bulbs. (Go back and read other threads about growing and harvest results for it.)

Overall, it's unlike any other garlic that I've grown. It may be close to Schumacher which is another old heirloom from around this area. Both have similar growth habits except that Schumacher has more red on the clove skins. I've yet to see if Schumacher will do when grown from bulbils but they are about the same size.

I've completed planting the Martin's today and have at least 50 cloves and 100 bulbils left yet. In my Exchanges offer, I failed to mention that the 10 cloves come with 20 bulbils. Anyone who has received it now are being trusted to do a mass grow out of at least 30 specimens. 30 plants, allowed to produce bulbils, can be enough to support a major business in a few years!

Martin

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1720329/martin-s-heirloom-garlic-what-s-the-history

 

[elkhound]

i been growing garlic since 1994 when i got my first start from local amish. i got my martin heirloom from martin himself in 2005 and been growing it ever since.it out does all other garlic hands down for me. the taste is fantastic. the cloves are huge.

my entire family would revolt if i didnt grow this garlic to be honest...lol

currently i am helping martin...well he included me in his garden dealings not so much as i am helping per say..in growing out some rare items of onions and shallots. onion seed hopefully this year will be produced and more bulb of a rare shallot to expand with.

 

[elkhound]

this past week i been pulling and dehydrating several batches of walking onions. its garden time yall and we got to fill our larders. this area is going to be tiled under for corn so i decided to harvest all i could. i till so many walking onions under and sorta work around them a bit they are all over my garden and i have clumps at end of 2 rows that have permanent fence posts to produce sets for me to use.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today, when I checked the garden I see that my spring planting of spinach is now coming up, I am also seeing some of the flowers I planted as pest control showing their heads.

I picked a couple of in-door tomatoes today and the outside plants are now growing well, I am happy to report that all of the San Marzanio tomatoes are now a foot tall, considering I was just praying they would live when I transplanted them, I feel very blessed. I hope they do well on the fence support that I installed.

The bulbs I planted last fall have or are now flowering. I followed the wife's directions, planting the ones that flower first in the back and the later one in the front so they appear in waves and hide the plants that are losing their flowers. Spring is fun.

I place 3 barrels in the rack that I built. This weekend I hope to make the second half of the rack and if I am lucky connect the lines to the water collection system.