How is your garden this year?

[Marsha Cassada]

I dug around my sweet potatoes yesterday to see if there were some ready for the Fair. Guess I should have dug sooner. I wonder how it will taste? I plan to cook one of the small ones today. It is Georgia Jet variety. First time I've grown them.

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

As I mentioned (perhaps in another thread), my square foot gardens were lost to over-application of herbicides by a landscaper. They were contracted by the lot owners not me.

Anyway, as a typical gardener I'm planning for next year.....and today I HIT THE SEED JACKPOT!!!!

I stopped at the dollar store on the way to feed the boys and spotted the clearance table. The cashier noticed me admiring the seeds and said "you know they're only like...5¢ a pack, right?" To which I squealed "reeeeaaallly?!" and grabbed 5 packs. When we rang them up, they were only 2¢ a pack!!! Turns out they were 90% off.

I started to leave, planning to come back another day, but just couldn't. So I raided the change holder in the dash of the truck, went back inside, and bought.........

******druuuummm rrrrooooolllll******

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY SIX (186) PACKS OF SEEDS FOR $6.56!!!!

They're all flowers except a pack of pumpkin, 1 pack of lettuce, 2 packs of gourmet blend radishes and one pack of green beans.

I love flowers, an now I have everything from alyssum to phlox to marigolds to four o'clocks to nasturtiums (which can be eaten if I remember correctly.) There are even old-fashioned mixes, cut flower mixes and sunflowers suitable for cutting.

So now I'm doing the happy flower lady dance!!!

 

[Ryan Johnson]

OMG !!! Julie that's the best bargain Ive heard of all year

Your garden will be brilliant !!!!

Well I have just ordered another 12m of mulch for delivery Saturday morning , weather is going to be 23-24 degrees Celsius.

Ill spend Saturday continuing to mulch then Sunday Im going to make a start on this years Vegie garden, aerating the soil and adding chicken manure ect. Hoping to plant it out the start of Oct. I started earlier last year but battled with there still being a lot of morning frosts and lost quite a few seedlings.

 

[AngC]

Hey AngC, I'm also in Arlington and am pretty impressed with your 8 pound onion! I have a big garden, too, and found a variety of onion that stores really well. The variety is called Copra and, stored in my unheated, darkened shop, lasts me until usually April every year. My corn ripened earlier than usual this year and we already processed it a couple of weeks ago. My winter squashes (butternut and ?) are loving this batch of rain!

I was looking at the Copra variety (since one of the seed houses I mail-order from sells that variety.) From my observations, the problem with growing the big ones is that... to get huge onions you have to apply heavy nitrogen applications and keep them very, very moist. That is not conducive to long storage, regardless of the variety. I've noticed that storage time on onions generally ranks from white, then red, then yellow. After onions, I get the best storage time on shallots... But on the other hand, I've tried a red cipollini variety that stores better than some of the yellow onions. I wish somebody sold a "surprise" mix of onion seed. That would be fun (I just love onions/family because they're something I can grow. Frequently the rest of what I try ends up in disaster-ville...)

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Well, I am excited to report that I received the Premium Award this year at the county fair for my vegetables. That award is for the exhibitor earning the most points. I took sweet potatoes, onions, apples, and green beans.

I took the giant sweet potatoes and some smaller ones, and our local extension agent thought I should use the smaller ones as they were more uniform. I also entered my sweet potato pie, made from some of the large potato, and got a blue ribbon on it. There were some gorgeous eggplant, peppers, pumpkins and melons.

 

[Ryan Johnson]

Marsha , How deep are your garden beds ? Especially the one that grew that Giant Sweet potato

I tried to grow sweet potatos and carrots last year but both failed badly and I was thinking that maybe my beds are not deep enough....

Moved 12m of mulch and probably have another 12m to go. Looks great and is giving me that little extra motivation to keep at it. Also because my plan is to spend more time with the horses rather than constantly in the garden over this summer....

 

[AngC]

I got 1 (ONE) cantaloupe!! ...breakfast tomorrow.

And today we did corn (we've never had any good corn before) but today we set up an assembly line and "freezered" up 30 of those little half-size freezer cartons (pint size I think.) !!!! Corn !!!!

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Sweet potatoes really like sandy loam. And they don't do as well if they get too much water. Our raised beds are about 18 inches deep. 4 are old tractor tires and one is an old rectangular metal hay feeder. We made the soil using sand, top soil, and compost.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I've been enjoying following everyone's garden successes this summer and thought I should share how mine did.

My garden did really well in some things and really poorly in others. Carrots didn't grow very big altho they were plentiful. Yellow beets were big but not abundant and the red beets (still in the ground) did about average. The peas grew but didn't pod heavily so I only put up a couple of meals worth. Lettuce did great but the hot summer led to rapid bolting

. I had loads of cauliflower early and lots of broccoli as well but only 3 cabbage plants survived to give me heads (about the size of basket balls so that was good) I had a problem early on with all the cabbage family plants this year. It was a common complaint in our area, a caterpillar/moth was killing seedling sized brassicas. I too planted corn this year and it looks like I'll eat a few. Corn doesn't really thrive in our area so I planted it up next to my house where the heat and sunlight could reflect off the white siding, it seems to have helped. I've got a few brussels sprout plants too but they don't seem to have produced as well as most years. Lots of potatoes but I only wanted a few for new potato dinners. I send my husband to the neighbours (they grow several acres of potatoes for market) to get enough for 5 or 6 plants...he came home with a 5 lb sack of seed potatoes lol. So yup lots of spuds. My zuchinni produced all of 3 fruit, the butternut squash 2 fruit and the cucumbers (4 plants) gave us some 20 cucumbers. Enough to share with my son/daughter in law, my daughter, my sons in laws a few other random people and still eat cucumbers every day all summer long. But the real winner in the production derby this year was my tomatoes. I have shared since June with all the people mentioned, eaten until I am a tiny bit tired of them and still frozen 6 large bags of ripe ones and have about 10 gallons of green ones that will ripen over time. I had soft ball sized tomatoes this summer, the biggest they've ever gotten for me. I'm very happy with them and will be making a tomato sauce using them and the onions that grew to tennis ball size (no 8lb onions here

) which is big for my garden and some fresh garlic a friend grows. That will probably get poured over the cabbage rolls I'll make with the cabbage I grew.

Mostly I would say my garden did well this year altho some things didn't do as well as I'd hoped. Pretty much standard ...always room for improvement.

 

[AngC]

...but only 3 cabbage plants survived to give me heads (about the size of basket balls so that was good) I had a problem early on with all the cabbage family plants this year. It was a common complaint in our area, a caterpillar/moth was killing seedling sized brassicas.

I too had problems with the brassicas this year. ...cabbage especially. We didn't have any bugs/moths/worms. They just didn't grow well; so it is interesting to hear your experience. I was micro-analyzing my watering techniques and ten billion other phantom problems.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

All my cabbage types did poorly also. Worms and spider mites.

Canned the sweet potatoes yesterday. We like them much better than pumpkin for pies and bread.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I'm a little disappointed in my brown cotton. I thought the bolls would be fluffy like white cotton. They are fun to display, though, with my primitives.

It is a large, attractive plant and the bolls are plentiful. I keep forgetting to take the camera out to the garden to photograph the plant. I'm trying to figure out where I can plant them next year, as they take up too much room in my raised beds.

 

[AngC]

I'm a little disappointed in my brown cotton. I thought the bolls would be fluffy like white cotton. They are fun to display, though, with my primitives.

It is a large, attractive plant and the bolls are plentiful. I keep forgetting to take the camera out to the garden to photograph the plant. I'm trying to figure out where I can plant them next year, as they take up too much room in my raised beds.

hmmmm... never heard of brown cotton. It looks like it could be a little fluffy if you "peeled" off that outer hull looking thing? (I'm assuming some of that in the photo is some sort of corn???)

Interesting, though. What do you do with it?

 

[AngC]

I finally finished planting (what is most likely a stupid idea) called Egyptian Walking Onion. The plant makes top-set bulb-lets that you can either eat or plant; and also makes underground bulbs, similar to a shallot. Plus, I had a few garlic's left over that I stuffed in the dirt. I'm not doing any other fall-planted onions this year. ...to much trouble.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I've seen some walking onions. I don't have a good spot for them, but like the idea.

The brown cotton has a longer fiber than white cotton. It is grown in some countries, but didn't become popular in the US because it is harder to process. The white cotton has more fibers and is commercially more viable. The cotton crop here is starting to mature. A field of cotton is a pretty sight.

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

I agree Marsha. However, a drowned field of cotton is NOT a pretty sight. I hope the fields here in NC will be recoverable after the rains the last two weeks. Also, what is that interesting looking box of tools in the background of your cottonnshot?

My plan for next year (outside of the bonanza of 180 packs of flower seeds) starts on the 16th and 17th of this month. The Backyard Farming for Profit conference I was scheduled to attend back in January has been scheduled for this month...and I'M IN. The first day is classroom and second day is hands-on at a working small acreage Farmer-to-Fork farm. They are including farming practices to make money on less than a half-acre, as well as marketing training.

I'll share whatever nifty ideas I get with y'all!!

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Backyard Farming for Profit conference! That sounds awesome!! Who sponsors it?

(The box behind the brown cotton is an old knife box filled with primitive kitchen tools and flatware. I collect pioneer primitives.)

 

[AngC]

I've seen some walking onions. I don't have a good spot for them, but like the idea.

The brown cotton has a longer fiber than white cotton. It is grown in some countries, but didn't become popular in the US because it is harder to process. The white cotton has more fibers and is commercially more viable. The cotton crop here is starting to mature. A field of cotton is a pretty sight.

I'm a bit dubious on the walking onions. The top-sets are small; (although, apparently they taste good (my husband ate a couple before I got them planted.)) They're just sucking up a lot of space that I'm going to have to weed at some time in the future. I wonder whether the bottom (below ground) will be a decent size.