Vegetable garden planning, what will you plant this year?

Culture, Media, General Food Gardening, Foraging
61

Another update. With all the weather problem, this year the tomatoes will be really late or never.

I only have my blue tomatoes ready to be consumed now.


[quote="ewsflash, post:40, topic:3313"] Just to give you my take on the blue tomatoes [/quote] I think unlike yours, this one taste quick good, kind of sweet. The only problem is the skin is quite thick. Actually when ripe, it's not blue anymore.
Another variety of bigger blue tomatoes.
Unfortunately, some tomatoes suffered with a black bottom. I don't know why this have happened. For the time being, I think it's a lack of calcium. It happened to the most productive plant.
A friend from the Netherlands sent me a lot of vegetables seeds, here is one variety, actually, they start slow, but catching up fast, this fruit must be 500g already, my biggest fruit this year.
Black cherries, French heirloom variety
The slugs nicely leave me some leftover!
Luckily, the lack of harvest is compensated by some nice flowers...
Especially this Vanda orchid , which hasn't give me any proper bloom since 2-3 years.
Always the joy to have them around.
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62

The blue varieties are pretty. Love the cat photo!
Hope you get to eat some of these before your holiday.

63

The black cat belongs to my neighbours who is on vacation now. He gets stressful with all the buttons all over him because his folks were away, poor cat! He is the sweet one and likes to follow me when I work with the plants, my own cat prefers to party elsewhere.

Good that Iā€™m finally on leave now, I have more time for the plants, cooking and writing ā€¦ food! Vacation in 1.5 week!

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64

I donā€™t really get my soil. This year tomatoes (6 heirloom, green color types) all are disasters. The plants barely grow to 1 ft or 2 ft, like last year. And they look like they want to expire any time. I donā€™t know if its because I didnā€™t fertilize enough or loosen the soil enough.

The fava in the spring though, were fantastic.

65

I remember I had the same problem when using the seeds harvested from my own tomatoes, they became dwarf plants and the fruits were tasteless.

Even poor soil, the plant will grow big, just you wonā€™t have much fruits.

Maybe try various sources, buying young plants, trying different heirloom seeds.

66

I started with plants. So it was confounding.

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67

Side question- that should only be a potential issue if they are non-heirloom plants, right?

68

Mine were from heirloom tomatoes, I think there is the possibility that the plant evolve to adapt to the environment, cold and relatively lack of sun. The plants, by the way, was beautiful, compact, perfect looking fruits, just without the sweetness of good tomatoes.

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69

Any 2017 updates? Once again, Iā€™ve bitten off more than I can chew. Planted three stone fruit treesā€¦In containers! (Gahhh!)), Rafael, garlic and shallots going, some potatoes, but still have some to put in bags, and really need to get these snap peas out! Readying starter mix for peppers and tomatoes, with some overwintered peppers gasping for life.

Inside Iā€™ve got some herbs in so e sort of aerated water contraption. Can those work?

70

With all the warm weather weā€™ve been having, things are starting to break through early this year! I planted garlic last winter, which has started to come up, along with a few crocuses and hyacinth. I have two cherry trees on order - Iā€™m planning to keep them in containers until I can figure out exactly where they will get enough sun. I also have blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and elderberries coming, so weā€™ll see how those do in my yard.

Unfortunately, my grand plans for a large raised vegetable bed will probably have to wait until next spring. I need to remove an entrenched privet hedgerow to build the bed, and itā€™s not going to be as simple as I was hoping. I do have a couple of existing beds on the property, though, so I will be able to grow herbs and some smaller things there. Iā€™m planning leeks, maybe some peppers - weā€™ll see just how much sun they get.

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71

February and the chives are up about 4"! Can see lots of tiny mache plants starting - second year that I spread the mache seeds in the fall for an early spring crop. Had more mache than we could eat last year. Tulips are all poking thru. Hope we donā€™t have a repeat of last year with early budding then a nasty freeze. Ruined all the magnolias and our local farmer is worried about his peach trees. Peach harvest was pretty poor last year.

72

Last year I had two beds fenced in and the other two open. Didnā€™t get much from the open ones, the critters decimated those. The two that were fenced did very well, not that a few didnā€™t go missing; I was smart enough to put the tomatoes and peppers in those. This year I went ahead and bought more fencing at Agway for the other two, so weā€™ll see. Thatā€™s where my peas, cukes and etc go, and I was really mad that I only got a handful.

Went to the seed swap again this year and get a whole bunch of Long Island Cinderella/cheese pumpkins, they are the latest rage around here. Promised Mom Iā€™d share but I have 20 altogether so Iā€™m good. Also snagged fennel seed, mustard greens, radish, snow peas, Brussel sprouts, and three kinds of tomatoes: Jersey Devil, Bulgarian Triumph and Black Ethiopian. Never heard of any of those so should be fun. I saved a lot of heirloom tomato seed and hot peppers from last year too, so I should be set, my garden isnā€™t THAT bigā€¦although I have a great ā€œherb farmā€ nearby that has tons of unusual plants, both herbs and vegetables (and flowers and shrubs but Iā€™ve got my hand full with the garden!) The peppers which I mostly grew from seed did ridiculously well and I was picking them until Thanksgiving, which is a real fluke for around here.

I wonā€™t plant anything indoors nor out til the end of this month, snow predicted Friday. I always jump the gun! The greenhouse worked out great for a week or two of hardening off in May, and for the 50 weeks or so itā€™s sitting in the garage it makes a nice storage unit for my paper goods. A great bargain at $15 @ Big/Ocean Lots in the fall.

Never tried hydroponic, but with our short season itā€™s something I plan to look into one day. I always do my herbs in pots up on the porch, because the critters seem to love eating them the most when theyā€™re in the backyard. This way I can just walk out and cut some while Iā€™m cooking, without having to get my tick riot gear on.

I have a friend that lent me his rototiller last spring but trouble is, it knocked out my rhubarb, fennel and the other few things that always came back. I also got a lead this fall from a friend at the gym on horse manure, and her daughter delivered a big truck full and even spread it for me. That should be interesting! Iā€™m not the greatest gardener, itā€™s not really intuitive to me like my Mom and husband, but I AM stubborn :wink:

My property used to be part of a farm, so I have wild strawberries, blueberries and raspberries all over the place, even in my lawn! The birds and squirrels do get most of those but I definitely donā€™t mind my little handful or two. Would love to get into foraging someday too, plenty of classes to be had.

73

Our late frost last spring made my magnolia flowers turn brown and icky, luckily it was just that and not that the tree had a disease as I feared. Around the same time, our peach farm got hit by a mini tornado the end of last spring and it was a mess. She sold the place this fall, and I am so sad. Best peaches Iā€™ve ever tasted, theyā€™d been there for almost 100 years.

74

That sounds great! Can I " follow"?

I wrote ā€œRafael, garlic and shallots going, some potatoesā€¦ā€ WTH is Rafael"? Maybe my favas.

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75

Iā€™m looking at our garden plot every time I take the pups out. It looks sad. Itā€™s right in the middle of our backyard, put there for maximum Sun exposure. We increased the plot to 14 X 12 feet, but unfortunately didnā€™t put a border around it. So late Fall grass growth really took hold and overran the plot. A lot of work needs doing from mid-April to Memorial Day before itā€™s ready to plant.

We already decided to cut back dramatically on what we plant this year. Our targets are:

Four heirloom tomato plants;
Four Bush Cucumber plants;
Six Bell Pepper plants;
And, a 14-foot row of herbs.

I have to re-think fertilizer support, too. I donā€™t think the 240 pounds of Cow Manure we spread, did much last summer to ā€œsweetenā€ the garden. :pensive:

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76

I promise to try to make an effort to report on all stages of production this year. Maybe that will keep me more on my toes too!

77

Thatā€™s about how much manure I spread over my four 25 foot square beds (thanks to my sister they do have a 4 or 6 inch lumber border) and I am hoping for magnificence. My mom swears by manure. With my luck, it will probably burn all the plants to death; but I did put it down in the fall. Luckily there is no shortage of farm stands around here, so if worse comes to worstā€¦

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78

Thatā€™s a lot of manure. Chicken manure work for us (60 pounds per 100 square foot bed).

79

Do you think so?

It added about 2 / 3 inches of height to the plot. I figured with rain, and the drip irrigation we used, the nutrients in the manure would break down and seep into the soil ā€œefficientlyā€. Canā€™t verify that in any way, because we way-overplanted the plot last summer.

80

The woman who gave us this went on and on about how flowers and even grass seed grow in pure manure. I do remember as a child (1960s) that a man would come around with a pony, for 25 cent rides, and a particular neighbor would rush out with a broom and shovel and sweep up all the manure for her garden. There must be something to it :wink: