How Does Your Vegetable / Fruit Garden Grow? 2018

I let my garden go fallow over the last few months and now it’s growing season again!

Today I removed a lot of random weeds and found four tomato plants that decided to grow all by themselves when I wasn’t looking. I also planted sunflower seeds in a little side plot, by which children walk on their way to the park.

What are your plans for a garden this year?

I’m on schedule, with staggered plantings of herbs, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. Basil, oregano and thyme have already sprouted. I’ll start the cucumbers in a couple of weeks, because last year they grew so fast that they started flowering before it got warm enough to put them outside. Slow down, cukes!

garden

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Funny, I’m just reading the Charlotte Mendelson’s tiny 6m2 / 65 sq foot patio growing 100 different species of edibles plants in containers, including 2 varieties of artichauts. Amazing.

I have started fava beans and peas indoors 2 weeks ago. In a week’s time, will start growing from seeds tomatoes, nasturtium, basil.

Didn’t clean up the weed and the remains of last year tomatoes…now the snow is gone, will try to find time this week.

This happened to me only in June or July. Your climate is so warm? Envy that!

I’m in Los Angeles. It has been a very warm and dry winter. Only enough rain one week to cause mudslides in the fire burn areas. :frowning:

Mine is on hold because I’m going to be spending a couple of months in Europe, and DH can’t be trusted to keep an eye on seedlings. I’ll have to buy starter plants when I return, instead of growing from seed this year. However, we have had warm enough weather the last few weeks that I have early tulips popping up, garlic and ramps sprouting and rhubarb unfurling its first leaves.

DH and I completed a huge digging project in the fall and installed nine 4x4 raised beds on the only flat, sunny area of our property. I’m guessing only seven of these beds will really get enough sun for things like tomatoes and peppers, but we shall see. Looking forward to filling them up, but we have to get rid of the 8" of snow that’s coming tomorrow. Ugh!

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Mine is worse, can’t be trusted even for watering…

Sounds great! Looking forward to hear from your planting projects this year.

Too bad, for my case, the recent years the city decides to let trees on pavement grow vertically as much as possible. And due to budget cut, they do not even want to prune the extra branches that create shadows our garden. I always tempt to do something to that 2 trees…

Hope you have a good trip! Don’t forget posting in the Europe board if you come across something nice. :smiley:

I can’t plant my seeds, even though I start indoors, until well after St Patricks Day; they can’t go outside until almost Memorial Day. Last year I was in San Diego then, so didn’t plant until almost mid April…turned out to be way late, not that I didn’t get anything but I was the last on my block to do so :wink: This year will be different, for sure.

Unfortunately the local seed swap was a bust this year, so I mostly just have the usual assorted tomato and pepper seeds left from last year. Maybe I’ll pick up some oddball plants at the local grocery, they come from a nearby farm and are really healthy.

One thing I want to try is adding seaweed to the soil, I’ve heard good things about that. Gotta get down to the beach soon though, I’ve been putting that plan off way too long.

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I have once bought some fertiliser and also soil with seaweed, plants liked that.

Did anybody tried fish heads, aspirins, egg shells and bone meals when planting tomatoes?

I’ve had good luck finding unusual and interesting seeds at farmers markets this time of year. Not all of them, but some. I also visit farmers markets when traveling and look for seeds there.

I’ve tried egg shells. They never really broke down and I can’t say there was a noticeable improvement. I have a friend who swears by adding dried milk powder to the soil. I tried that one year and thought there was a slight improvement in the reduction of blossom end rot. Not enough imo to repeat though.

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I think a lot of these are from the olden days, when commercial tomato food wasn’t available. Some may work, somewhat, but I simply use an organic commercial fertilizer, together with free compost our city gives out each year.

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I think you are right. I feel that concentrating on feeding the soil and correcting ph solves most issues.

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Thanks for letting me know! There is so much seaweed on my nearby beaches this time of year, maybe after the Nor’easter tomorrow I’ll get over there with a giant garbage bag and pretend I’m “cleaning” up :wink:

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Just this week, our local Farmers Market did advertise seeds being available, with a photo. I think $1 each. Didn’t see anything out of the ordinary though: I didn’t get down there last weekend but hopefully soon. Also, my library is having a seed swap one evening, that’s pretty cool. I do have it marked on my calendar, and will try to swing by there too.

I do like growing from scratch best; it’s not like I can’t get what I need at the local farm stands, but just something I get a big kick out of.

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Agree too. I have tried egg shells, didn’t see big change. Also tried fertiliser with mycorrhiza, didn’t see big difference either.

One year I had pretty bad blossom end rot with green tomatoes, I bought some calcium magnesium supplement, instantly the problem was gone. Though it is better to use it before the plantation.

So far I see big difference with grafted tomatoes plants, very impressive the production that particular year compared to non grafted plants, but they were expensive. Any specialist in this in this domain? I would like to learn to do it myself.

Do you use special equipment to measure the PH? I have always been hesitating to get a meter.

Lesson learned, better late than early. One year I started tomatoes seedings indoor end of January, planted them out end of March, a sudden dip in temperature for 2 weeks in early May, the shocked plants never recovered from the shock, they reminded small.

That’s how I learned too, the hard way!