Vegetable Garden Update-May 2010

From In the Garden

It is that time of the month-Veggie Garden Update time and I have to ask where oh where did the time go? It's hard to believe it is the third Wednesday already! Anyone else feel this way? The above chipmunk might be feeling it wishes time would pass quicker. It had the misfortune of getting stuck inside of a cinder block and my trusty best friend in the garden-BJ-sniffed it out. It was a lucky critter to get away but was most scared though you really can't tell it from its picture. I think if it had more time it would've dug its way out but as it was it only made a hole big enough to fit its head into the adjoining hole of the cinder block. The body was on the other side of the partition. Poor thing. Maybe it will move on now. Onto the vegetables...

In this shot you can almost see the entire vegetable garden. There are a total of six beds including the center circle bed (it used to be the banana bed). I do not include an annual/ornamental bed in this bed count, only the beds used for vegetables. Where the bananas used to grow I have planted cantaloupe to hopefully grow on the cedar arbor. You can make out the large cabbage plants also in this bed. They are doing fantastically! Now if I can harvest the heads prior to the cabbage worms taking over I will declare them a success. Some years I can, some I can't. To the left of the above picture are two beds. Let's take a closer look at them.

Lettuce grows the full length of this bed both in and out of the coldframe. The A-frame is in preparation for bushel gourds; which have been sown but which are slow to germinate during the recent cool weather we've been having. Weather in Middle Tennessee has been a bit odd, though I welcome the rain and coolness. Looking through the A-Frame you can barely make out Swiss chard in the far bed. It is about to flower and has probably gone past its prime. I initially thought this was kale. Duh me. My mother pointed out it was chard and then it came to me. Hey, the memory ain't what it used to be. These two beds are on the left of the first vegetable garden picture. This is the south side of the garden but north of mature oak trees.

Here are the same two beds from a different point of view. Note all of the lettuce growing. The lettuce has been absolutely awesome! I purchased a few six packs from my local big box store and also started a bunch of seedlings. We eat the lettuce every single day and it has been the most rewarding vegetable this year (but it's still early). I do think that as the weather warms up more I will be unable to eat the lettuce because the lettuce is already starting to get a bit bitter. Try saying that twice!
There are two beds on the right side of the vegetable garden. The center circle garden is the focal bed but the whole vegetable garden works well for me. It is a bit small and somewhat shady but I still try to grow veggies. Sometimes I'm successful. This first right hand side bed has tons of peas and lettuce seedlings. I grew two kinds of peas. The taller peas I chose to grow are Burpee Super Sugar Snap peas. I used to think I only liked the taller varieties but I'm not so sure now. This variety is delicious! The package said peas will be mature in 64 days. The time is pretty much on schedule and these were easy to germinate though it took a few weeks. The shorter variety I grew is Burpee's Burpeeana Early. The package said the vines grow to 24" and do not need support. I have not found that to be true. Mine are a bit shorter and leaning on the lettuce. They do however produce as many peas as the tall ones. All things considered I think I prefer taller peas in my garden simply for ease of picking (no bending) and the taller variety seems to cling much better to the support.


The bed right next to the pea/lettuce bed contains five tomato plants. Mixed in with the tomatoes are a few holdovers from last year. Can you see them? It is elephant garlic. I will not harvest this garlic until the foliage turns yellow and falls over. I have also sown some marigolds along the outside of this bed for decorative purposes as well as for companion planting benefits. Directly outside of this garden is the Sunny Perennial Border. This border is located on the northern side of the vegetable garden and adds so much to the vegetable gardens without taking away the sun that it is a definite bonus growing the perennials like this.

The two hay bales growing their peppers and eggplant are doing quite well. If the eggplants can survive the flea beetles I should get some good eggplants. Fingers crossed on that.

Other vegetables planted are kuri squash, and zucchini. I planted beans last year but have no plans to do so this year. I never grow corn because I don't have the space and it is just as easy to buy it at the grocery store, though not as good of course.

Some general notes on vegetables. If you desire all season long vegetables you might wish to succession sow cucumbers, beans, corn, and zucchini. I plan to try succession sowing this year. It is not too late to plant hot season crops but it is too late to plant cool season crops. In fact, all cool season crops should be about ready to harvest in a month or so. This includes garlic, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.

How is your vegetable garden doing this year?

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team,

In the Garden

Getting Growing

Posted by Dawn

It's been a busy month in the garden, Northern New England has warmed up nicely, it's not too muddy not too wet.

I...am enjoying my new camera! Obviously.

Anyway, last I posted we were breaking new ground in the veggie bed, that being done it is time for the fencing. My garden is surrounded on 3 sides by dense forest and I'm taking no chances with the critters, nothing any more disparaging than finding all your hard work destroyed in one night by a hungry animal.

We did have a lot to debate though, my local farm/tractor supply shop sold three kinds of fencing, rabbit proof with a pricey cost, four foot high fence with 3 inch squares or a combo of both, the rabbit proof (1 1/2 squares) at the bottom of the 3 incher on top. Problem, the combo is only 3 feet in height, essentially not deer proof. So with the help of a few thinned out maple trees, some snow fencing and roof shingles, we went to work creating a barrier while providing a heavy wall that small critters would have to spend a great deal of time digging under. I love the look of it.

After the installing of the raised bed over the large rock,

and a rustic "it's not very pretty" cucumber trellis,

we made some tee-pees for the vining veggies, we used the tops of the maple trees and birch that were bent over from this winter storms. They wouldn't recover or survive.

The tomatoes are in the background, happy to have those planted, although I had to cover them once to protect from the frost.

Here is my daughter putting down newspaper between the bean rows, I'm a big believer of newspaper and use it whenever I can. I'm not a good one for weeding all summer. See the tires behind her? Those are for potato plantings, we have never done this kind of growing. Research tells me you can get 60lbs of potatoes per tire. Has anyone done this?

Less explaining daughter dear, and more action!

And here she is again wetting everything down this weekend, I'm so glad she enjoys gardening.Last Friday rolled in the last of the plantings for a northern veggie bed, some things can be staggered though, we are planting beans every two weeks. That sounds better to me in the long run, picking them at once is a lot of bean eating!

My husband constructed this cute little gate, I teased him about not having the skill to age it for me! Too funny! Anyhow we saw Lola's pot plantings with rebar and decided to see if we could do it with some of the buckets. It turned out pretty good, we had a few 6 foot fence posts and used them instead of the rebar. These buckets have herbs planted within them, catnip being on top. Ha!

Another long shot.

Time for the potatoes to be planted, I read NOT to use soil with manure in it as it causes scabbing on the potatoes. Well, that did away with any garden soil we have available....we could buy it at a huge price, (tire planting takes a lot of dirt!) or we could make it.

We made it, we shredded piles of composted leaves. We opted to do this because the piles had many roots growing within it. That was fun, peat moss flying everywhere.

We screened it....it really went quickly.

My daughter could not keep her hands out of it. It felt like water. I never thought I'd be making 'dirt', it worked well though, "I want more!"On with planting of the onions,

But wait, what's that....peas getting growing! Here,And there,it was a good feeling after 2 months of constant planning and work. Basket of Gold, or Mountain Alyssum.

In The Garden....

Vegetable Garden Update August 08

Tina's Vegetable Garden Update:
We here at "In the Garden" enjoy posting about our vegetable gardens. Skeeter's vegetable garden is new, my mother also has a new one, Lola has one in Florida as well. I chose the 16th of the month because it is the day after GBBD and many bloggers participate in GBBD. (But! If too many bloggers are tired from GBBD posts, maybe another day would be better? The 20th Maybe?) In my mind I thought picking a certain day to post on veggies was a good idea, so that is what I have done for many months now. I post on many things but on these two days I know exactly what I will be posting about. Readers can always count on these two posts here on those two sacred days. I know many bloggers who do post about vegetables occasionally, and some all the time. Vegetables are great, especially with the price of all goods rising so fast, but not all gardeners grow vegetables or blog about them all the time. If you are a gardener who grows vegetables and posts on them (occasionally), why not pick a day and post about them? I'd like to read all of the vegetable posts. You see, I can't always visit all the blogs I love each and every day, so on the for sure days I know there is a special post up, I would truly endeavor to visit all blogs who post a GBBD on the 15th, and Vegetable Garden Update on the 20th. Thanks! And I hope to see some vegetable posts on the 20th! Dawn? Dave? Frances? Cindy? and anyone else who posts on vegetables! DP-you already do a great job with all of your vegetables-especially Barney! Gail? Marnie? Perennial Gardener? Garden Girl? And all of you great garden bloggers (too many to name) Do you have some veggies hidden somewhere you could post about on the 20th?

Now to our monthly updates on the Tennessee garden (Tina) and the Georgia garden (Skeeter)! The above vegetables are a few I recently harvested from the garden. The black bell pepper was a surprise. Apparently I purchased a special variety and had forgotten. All the bell peppers on the one plant I planted are black or turning black. Can you see it above the eggplant? I have three eggplants growing. This one will go great with some homemade spaghetti sauce. Skeeter, Do you know the type?
There is so much going on in the vegetable garden I can hardly walk in it anymore. The above picture is a long view looking southeast. Just a few short months ago there wasn't 'much to look at here. The orange cosmos have finally come into their own. You can see the dark cannas on the left of the cosmos, and the 15 foot tall banana tree in the center of the vegetable garden proper.

Can you say gourds? Because I did not have any gourds last year, I went overboard this year. I think there are about 6 vines growing. This is way too many! I will probably get about 50 gourds from them easy. I'll be painting and drying for days this winter. The above picture shows my A-frame, or should I say the vines covering the A-frame and growing into the lawn and all over other plants in the garden. I don't mind really, but the other plants do. I try to keep the vines contained by roughly pushing them back into their place. Their tendrils are so tenacious they grasp anything in their way, even grass, and hold on for dear life. That is where the rough comes into play. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt the vine a bit. Gourds are tough. They are growing vertically, horizontally and everywhere! This A-frame has far exceeded my expectations. The gourds are hanging beautifully and the vines have a place to grow.

Here are two of the fruitful fruits. Gourd vines are tough and I have found the fruit do not need to be held up. Actually, it is best to let them hang so they will grow straight. These ones will be very straight and big as they are 4+ feet off the ground and growing nicely. No gourds laying on the ground have ever rotted in my garden. I will not harvest these until the first frost kills the vine. They should be good and sturdy by then. I will post my drying method later. The eggplant are finally maturing. I noticed three are growing now. Finally! I still say it is not worth a gardeners time growing these vegetables to eat, but for fun-go ahead. Be prepared to battle bugs and receive a bit of disappointment. These guys are slow to start but doing well now. The flea beetles haven't slowed them down.

I have been picking: banana peppers (sweet, due to my great dislike for spicy foods because that is all the Army served us in Iraq!), the black bell peppers, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. The cabbage has all been harvested and eaten, but I noticed new cabbage plants are sprouting from where I left the last two stems from my cabbage in the garden. Cool, maybe they'll grow some more cabbage. The onions are still hanging out under the A-frame and most likely will not be harvested until next spring. We'll see. I will be planting some different types of lettuce and have already planted some Broccoli Raab in order to get a fall harvest. Now is the time to start planting some seeds for fall crops. Some to consider are: radishes, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

The only failure in the vegetable garden has been the rhubarb. Even though I have grown a clump for about four years I have decided to not bother with it anymore. I really loved growing it but its fickleness with the heat and humidity down here is just not worthy of space in my vegetable garden. It tends to fade and nothing I can do seems to help it out. So it came and straight into the compost pile. Oh well. Here's to all of you and your vegetable gardens!

P. Price of Red, White and Grew blog fame has asked bloggers to post about their vegetables and vegetable gardens. Her post can be found here. It is a very informative post and talks a lot about Victory Gardens. Who remembers Victory Gardens? I do. I began intensively growing vegetables because of it and Organic Gardening. Since fall is an excellent time to grow vegetables, it is also an ideal time to talk of vegetable gardens and share knowledge we have on growing vegetables. Why not post on the 16th? Please see P. Price's blog for more information about spreading the word of Victory Gardens and answering her questions on her blog for others. I will probably prepare a post of my own on Victory gardens, but wanted to answer one of her questions. She asked what I called my _______ garden? I don't consider my vegetable garden a Victory Garden per se, but then again, any success in the garden can be considered a victory. Growing your own vegetables does put you in a good position of providing for your family. This was one of the main goals of the government's program of encouraging private citizens to grow their own fruits and vegetables during World War II. Look for these posts on vegetable gardens and participate too if you grow vegetables. Thanks! I call my food for growing and eating garden a "Vegetable Garden", but Victory Garden would work just as well.

in the garden....

Skeeter's Vegetable Garden Update:

Water in the Rain Gauge is something we have not seen much of this summer or the past 3 years down here in Georgia! Happy to report with a few rainfalls, we have been able to gather a few crops from the garden. Look at the beautiful salad I made with our tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers! I added a few more fun things such as feta cheese, black olive and spinach leaves. It was yummy!

You can see a split on a tomato from too much watering. I must water in order to keep the ground from drying out in this drought but too much water was getting to the tomatoes. They tasted just fine though.

The Eggplant did not get as large as we had expected but one of them sure was yummy in a casserole! The other two will be put into a stir fry dish and served on rice by the time of this posting.

The Cucumbers continue to grow and in those funny shapes. Hey, look, we have one normal looking Cuke! They are tasting mighty good in Gurken Salat, a German salad. We are so grateful to have our German friends send us the seasoning packets for this cold summer treat!

We still have Eggplant growing so we will harvest more soon and try out another recipe.

Tons of baby gourds have died on me but these three look like they will become birdhouses some day! All three of them have tried to escape as the vine went over the fence. I have never grown gourds before so this has been a learning experience for me. They were slow to start from seed but once the vine started to grow, it has really gone wild! Hope deer and bunny do not like gourds since they are over the fencing...

The Roma tomatoes seem to be doing better than the Goliath. There are a lot of them starting to turn red and about ready for us to harvest.

The Zucchini and Crook neck Squash are not doing too well. I have only picked one crook neck and no zucchini as of yet. See how the baby zuck in the back looks so healthy and the one to the front is turning yellow? That is what is happening to all the squash, then they just dry up to nothing! Someone suggested removing the bloom as it could be blossom rot. So I have now removed several blooms to see what happens. Stay tuned to next month for results in this experiment!
I know it is not because the bees are not doing their job of pollinating. Just look at those two little busy bees working away inside the squash plant!

We added 3 new peppers last month. Banana, Sweet Red and another Sweet Green Bell. We have the first white blooms (left) on the Sweet Banana and a baby on the Red Pepper you see to the right. Hopefully I will have a picture of bright red and yellow peppers for you to see next month. I will cross my fingers for the green but he is not looking too good.

The Saint has been picking his Cowhorn and Jalapeno peppers as fast as he can! We only have a few of them on the vine. Once they are picked, I believe that will be the end to them. They really did not seem to mind a dry summer or the 75 straight days we had of above 90 degree temps.

The tomato plant we added last month is now blooming and hopefully will give us some juicy red maters.

We had a bit of success last month and considering this drought, we are happy with VEGETABLE GARDEN UPDATE AUGUST 08, In the Garden...

Tune in Sept. 20 for more!

A-Frames

The vegetable garden is probably the focal point of the backyard. It is both ornamental and functional. I think all gardens should be both and it really isn't a difficult thing to do.



I have posted pictures of my A-frames before, but never disclosed the plan or story. So here it is. When I first retired and began intensively gardening I had this vision of a wooden trellis with decorative poles sticking up in the vegetable garden. The decorative poles are part of the A-frame. Can you see them? Unfortunately, I am not real quick when it comes to visualizing things. I got the idea for the decorative poles from a magazine picture. What I did not know was that those poles were permanently placed in the garden. I did not want this for my garden.



So I initially created the most stupidest trellis just so I could have decorative poles sticking up in my garden. It consisted of the two decorative poles, some 2x2s, and a string trellis. The trellis looked great, and even kind of worked, but only when nothing was growing on it. The stand was a 2x4 base which was supposed to keep the trellis upright. It was fashioned kind of like a hat rack. Not too stable at all. Nope. It blew over all the time, and I finally got sick of it. Like I said, I am not always the sharpest tool in the shed.


An A-frame was the solution. There is no way this baby is going anywhere. I used the following materials:
a) Two decorative poles (about $20 for both at Lowes)
b) 4 total 2x4s (for bracing the top and bottom of the end pieces together (2) and to join to the decorative poles to make the frame)
c) 1/2" carriage bolts (2) [They need to be long enough to fit thru both the decorative pole and a 2x4]
d) 8 1/2" washers (4 per pole for a total of 8 per A-frame)
e) Concrete reinforcing wire, but a string trellis or any type of fencing will work too.


I stood one of the two decorative poles up in a bed (most all of the beds are the same width so that was not an issue), and held a 2x4 next to it to mark for the hole. This is an important step to be sure you get the right angle for your beds and use. I cut the 2x4s to size, leaving a bit of excess for a decorative purpose, drilled the holes through the decorative poles and 2x4s, placed one washer on the carriage bolt, stuck it through the decorative pole, placed two more washers (so the two poles would move freely and fold up easily), put the 2x4 on, placed on the last washer, and finger tightened the nut. That takes care of the two end pieces.


I next determined the length of the trellis. I made three A-frames for my garden. Some of my beds are long, and some are short. I wanted the flexibility to move the trellises around into any bed. I can also mix and match the trellis if desired. You don't want the trellis so long you can't handle moving them easily. I cut two more 2x4s to length and nailed them onto the top and bottom of the end pieces horizontally. Now the basic frame is complete.


I next added the concrete reinforcing wire. This stuff is worth its weight in gold to the home gardener. It has so many uses and if you are smart and lucky, you can find it for next to nothing. I cut the wire to length and attached it to the frame with cable ties. On one of the A-frames I used regular galvanized fencing wire since I am out of concrete reinforcing wire. It will work fine but the holes are a bit smaller. I prefer the large holes of the concrete reinforcing wires since I can reach through them easily. Any twining vegetables you grow on these A-frames will most likely hang down through the holes. You can easily harvest the vegetables on the underside without reaching through any holes.


My frames are stained but that is not a necessary step. I prefer stained wood to help dissuade the carpenter bees and to protect the wood from the elements. If you do stain your trellis, it is much easier to do so before you build the A-frame.

Gourds and cucumbers will happily grow along these trellises all summer. Growing these vining vegetables vertically saves a lot of room in the garden, makes harvesting easier, and keeps the fruit much neater, straighter and easier to see. You can also grow beans and peas on them. Just about any vining vegetable will love these A-frames and they are not blowing over in the winds! If you do try out the A-frames, let me know how they work for you.


in the garden....