The Garden Thread

[AuEagle]

Tomatoes, onions, peppers, squash all in the raised beds for almost 2 weeks.

Perennial beds really waking up.

[Dirtshooter]

Well all the only thing I don't see in weather forecast is snow. Supposed to be 39 Wednesday night, 36 Friday night and 35 Saturday night. That is the reason my tomatoes and peppers are safe inside when it isn't nice outside. At 35 we could get a light frost. I questioned how it could frost at 34 or 35 and they measure the temperature about 5 feet off of the ground and naturally it is a bit cooler at the ground. So ya'll watch the forecast and keep them 'maters covered up. Hope everyone has a great garden this year!!

[gregintenn]

It never frosts in May! Global warming my ###!

[Dirtshooter]

Just for the record we had a good frost this morning, I didn't look at thermometer 31 or 32 I think was the low. Next week the 'maters and rest of garden goes into the ground. Yea Greg this global warming sure is working on my wood pile. Have had a fire 3 or 4 times since spring sprung!!

[peejman]

Yep, we had a bit of frost this morning as well. Supposed to be a little colder tomorrow morning too.  My wife and youngest have been out covering all the stuff in the garden.  Hopefully there won't be any damage. 

[Dirtshooter]

Ok it is official, my garden is all planted and awaiting 4th of July snow. If it does we are packing up and moving south.

[gregintenn]

My beans are starting to peek through, but the corn hasn't sprouted yet.

[Ronald_55]

We got our raised bed together last weekend, but dirt got delayed and only came yesterday. Guess I know what I am doing this weekend. Guess I am going the "buy plants" route. 

[gregintenn]

Finally a break in the monsoons! I plowed mine this morning, and you can sort of see some dirt again.

[Raoul]

Everything is up in mine. Adequate rain and reasonable temps. Tomatoes, beans, peas, onions, peppers, and asparagus are all starting to happen. With everything else going on I'm looking forward to eating from the garden.

[Alleycat72]

I planted 1.29 acres of eagle soybeans 1 week ago. They are coming up strong. I can't wait to see 5.5-6 foot soybeans. 

 

https://www.eagleseed.com/forage-soybeans.html

Edited May 25, 2020 by alleycat72

[Raoul]

13 minutes ago, alleycat72 said:

I planted 1.29 acres of eagle soybeans 1 week ago. They are coming up strong. I can't wait to see 5.5-6 foot soybeans. 

 

https://www.eagleseed.com/forage-soybeans.html

What do you use them for?

[Alleycat72]

2 hours ago, Raoul said:

What do you use them for?

They are engineered for deer. 

[Raoul]

4 minutes ago, alleycat72 said:

They are engineered for deer. 

Well duh. Of course.

[gregintenn]

http://

Finally got it hoed and plowed. The corn came up kind of spotty, but everything seems to be doing well. We are already getting tomatoes.

Edited June 14, 2020 by gregintenn

[Ronald_55]

Well everything is growing. Got a couple strawberries off the Alpine bushes, but nothing else so far. Have cucumbers on the vine and a couple squash. Tomatoes and peppers too. Monsoons we had right after we planted kept the beds a mud hole. Hopefully things have evened out now. Have a row of pumpkins down from the bed. Plus the purple basil that is everywhere. That stuff spreads like wildfire.

 

I plan to top the beds off heavily with compost in the fall. Things just did not come together quick enough this year. Dirt we got was pretty much topsoil, but we grew more in worse growing up. 

[Mark A]

Well, I hate to break in to the Covid forum but I thought I would get some garden stuff going. Last weekend we got a start building our new greenhouse. It is a highwall (7.5') 24x48 structure. We did pretty good for a bunch of not very good layout folks. I hope to have it finished by the end of October. Still trying to decide if we are going to do in ground beds, or raised beds or maybe a combination. We like raised beds the most but they are expensive to build; especially now with the cost of lumber... Next year we will be adding a second layer of plastic and a fan to create an air gap between the 2 layers for insulation

[Raoul]

This morning I cleared out the last of this years garden. Holy crap...okra is a serious pain in the backside...lol. Looking forward to the next round in the spring.

[Omega]

I picked what I thought was my last jalapenos, but I have flowers still and a few green tomatoes which may still have time to grow if this weather keeps up.  I planted late, real late but still got a decent crop of peppers, the matters went to the squirrels as usual, hopefully the black walnuts will keep them busy so I can have this last batch.

[Raoul]

34 minutes ago, Omega said:

I picked what I thought was my last jalapenos, but I have flowers still and a few green tomatoes which may still have time to grow if this weather keeps up.  I planted late, real late but still got a decent crop of peppers, the matters went to the squirrels as usual, hopefully the black walnuts will keep them busy so I can have this last batch.

It was a good tomato year for me. I froze enough to keep me cooking until next years crop.

[peejman]

11 hours ago, Mark A said:

Well, I hate to break in to the Covid forum but I thought I would get some garden stuff going. Last weekend we got a start building our new greenhouse. It is a highwall (7.5') 24x48 structure. We did pretty good for a bunch of not very good layout folks. I hope to have it finished by the end of October. Still trying to decide if we are going to do in ground beds, or raised beds or maybe a combination. We like raised beds the most but they are expensive to build; especially now with the cost of lumber... Next year we will be adding a second layer of plastic and a fan to create an air gap between the 2 layers for insulation

This is awesome. I wish we had space for something like this. 

We had a mediocre year. Tomatoes did great right up until the birds found them. Ended up freezing a few bags but not enough to bother with canning. We also made a couple batches of salsa. We planted pumpkins and more green beans but I don't expect much yield. 

I've got quite a pile of cayenne peppers sitting around. I think I'm gonna try making hot sauce with them, never done that before. 

I'm gonna try something new and plant a cover crop for the winter. I'm curious to see if that improves production next year. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by peejman

[Omega]

2 minutes ago, peejman said:

This is awesome. I wish we had space for something like this. 

We had a mediocre year. Tomatoes did great right up until the birds found them. Ended up freezing a few bags but not enough to bother with canning. We also made a couple batches of salsa. We planted pumpkins and more green beans but I don't expect much yield. 

I've got quite a pile of cayenne peppers sitting around. I think I'm gonna try making hot sauce with them, never done that before. 

I'm gonna try something new and plant a cover crop for the winter. I'm curious to see if that improves production next year. 

I used to plant a bunch of cayennes, but would get so many that I gave most away.  One thing I did was dry a bunch out by laying out on a newspaper, turning them now and then.  Once dry, I ground them up and use them to sprinkle on food like pizza, steaks etc.  Takes very little to spice things up.  Tried the same with ghost peppers once, almost choked to death grinding them though.  Gave that away, way too hot for my uses.  Now, I'll do just a few, along with other peppers, depends on what strikes my fancy at the time I look for seed or seedlings.

[Mark A]

2 hours ago, peejman said:

I've got quite a pile of cayenne peppers sitting around. I think I'm gonna try making hot sauce with them, never done that before. 

Try fermenting some of them. You can make a great fermented chili paste

[peejman]

3 hours ago, Omega said:

I used to plant a bunch of cayennes, but would get so many that I gave most away.  One thing I did was dry a bunch out by laying out on a newspaper, turning them now and then.  Once dry, I ground them up and use them to sprinkle on food like pizza, steaks etc.  Takes very little to spice things up.  Tried the same with ghost peppers once, almost choked to death grinding them though.  Gave that away, way too hot for my uses.  Now, I'll do just a few, along with other peppers, depends on what strikes my fancy at the time I look for seed or seedlings.

I've got a container of dried cayennes from last year and several jars of pickled jalapeños from a few years ago. 

Cayennes or habeneros are all I can deal with heat wise. I don't mess with ghost peppers or any of that other foolishness. 

1 hour ago, Mark A said:

Try fermenting some of them. You can make a great fermented chili paste

I'll give that a look, thanks. 

[ReeferMac]

21 hours ago, peejman said:

I'm gonna try something new and plant a cover crop for the winter. I'm curious to see if that improves production next year. 

I've been using a combination of different kinds of clover with good luck. You have to cut it up good when mulching in (green manure), but after a couple years I've noticed an improvement. Makes good bee food, too. I've got some kind of pea going in addition to an oat I plan to try to harvest for the chickens this year. Buckwheat makes a great cover crop, and can re-seed if you let it go.  Knoxville seed over by the zoo usually has good stuff and saves shipping. I've also been putting daikons out in the pasture area to try breaking up the soil, and its been working well. I want to try a really dense planting in the new garden space we're trying to get going.