2016 SFG in Brooks, Ga

Yolos, How long have you been gardening? You seem to have a rhythm for spring and fall planting down pat.

sanderson wrote:Yolos,  How long have you been gardening?  You seem to have a rhythm for spring and fall planting down pat.

My husband was the vegetable grower in our household.  He only grew tomatoes.  He loved tomatoes.  Ate them with his eggs in the morning, made tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch and then sliced as a side dish for dinner.   We never did any succession planting and never ever had any type of a veggie that was not planted in the summer. I had no idea that plants could be grown in cooler weather.  

After my husband died I moved to this new house and tried to start a garden.  It was a failure because of the poor clay soil (hard as a rock red Georgia clay) and the deer and rabbits that ate almost anything I planted.  I was online one day trying to find the safest wood stain to buy to build my grandson a 4' x 4' sandbox and I came across this forum.  That was in the fall of 2011.   I built a sand box for him and my first 4' x 4' garden bed for myself.  So that is when I started my gardening experience.  Because it was in the fall, I researched what could be grown at that time and found a world of information.  I wanted to try out the Mel's Mix to see how it worked before building more boxes.

I also visit other gardening forums to get additional information about various vegetables and how they can be grown in different climates.  I found the internet to be a great source of information (not always accurate but still a great resource).  

We put the dog house out next to the garden so we no longer have deer problems but once in a while some critter comes along to upset things but I can live with occasional visits from the wild life.  I have a pesky chipmunk hanging around now.

This gardening has been one long experiment.  It has become all consuming though.  I need drip irrigation so I have more time to just enjoy piddling around in the garden.  If I don't get drip irrigation installed by next spring, you all come down and blow my brains out.

How about if we all come down and help you install a drip system , instead. 

countrynaturals wrote:How about if we all come down and help you install a drip system , instead. 

Oh yea, come on down.

Yolos, Irrigation really helps. Be careful what you say. After the music fest at Jimmy's, we may just come to your house.

My Four O'clocks I planted last year from seed are flowering now.  The healthiest thing growing in my garden and real pretty.


My Fortex pole beans (which have started to flower) are already about 1 foot over the top of my 8 foot trellis.  I decided to put a top from my Fortex Pole Bean trellis (right side) over the top to my Lazy Housewife Pole Bean trellis (middle trellis) and then over to my Bosnian Pole Bean trellis (left side).  It looks pretty snazzy and I hope it will make it easier to harvest the beans.  Of course I will have to train the beans to go horizontal rather than vertical when they reach the overhead trellis.


The Fortex Beans are on a Cattle Panel and the other two Pole Beans and the overhead trellis are made of nylon netting.  I hope it will not shade the Okra in the middle box and the peppers in the right hand box.

My Alaska English Shell Peas are over the top of their 8 foot trellis.  They will be finished up any day now.  They just came down with Powdery Mildew yesterday.

Your photos are so interesting, Yolos. I can't wait to see the lazy housewife trellis in action! I've always wanted to do something like that but haven't yet. Have you used one for anything else?

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Your photos are so interesting, Yolos. I can't wait to see the lazy housewife trellis in action! I've always wanted to do something like that but haven't yet. Have you used one for anything else?

CC

I think this is my first time with an overhead trellis.  Last year I ran string from one trellis to the other across the tops.  It was a pain because I had to keep helping the vines twist around the strings.

Corn is coming along nicely.  This bed (4 x 8 ) was planted 5/9.  I did not use SFG spacing for various reasons.  The main reason is that it is in partial shade and I wanted wider spacing to make use of the limited sun.  I just hilled the soil up around the stalks, added soaker hose, fertilized with Blood Meal, and added wheat straw as mulch.  Now it is just a waiting game.


When I set up this garden spot, I left a 4 x 4 bed area for my grandson to dig in so he would stop digging in my beds.  He wanted to plant something there this year.  He decided on Corn.  So he has about 8 stalks of Silver Queen Corn and 8 stalks of Gem (because the seeds were a pretty color) planted in 1/2 of his bed.  He planted them way before my bed so his are taller.  For some reason, he wanted to plant my leftover leek seedlings in the other side of the bed.

CapeCoddess wrote:Your photos are so interesting, Yolos. I can't wait to see the lazy housewife trellis in action! I've always wanted to do something like that but haven't yet. Have you used one for anything else?

CC

Update on my horizontal bean trellis.  The horizontal trellis is at the top of three 6 to 8 foot bean trellises.  The idea was to have the beans grow vertically up the tall trellises (and instead of getting all tangled up at the top) I would then direct them horizontally across the horizontal trellis to make it easier to harvest.  Here is the set up.


Well, on the right hand side, the Fortex beans reached the top of their vertical trellis.  So I started them growing across the horizontal trellis.  They did not want to grow horizontal.  So every morning and afternoon I have to get up on my sturdy little step stool and weave them through the trellis.  They want to grow up, not over.  But I still think it is better to spend 5 minutes in the morning and afternoon weaving them in and out of the horizontal trellis.  If nothing else, it should look pretty.  This is a picture of the top of the trellis.  See the bean vines trying to grow straight up.  I missed one day in weaving them across the trellis and they grew a foot up instead of over.  But it was no trouble pulling them down and weaving them into the overhead trellis.

I love the overhead trellis. I am hoping to get my cukes to run on mine.

I love this little garden space.  It is right outside my screened in porch and it is the first thing I do in the morning.  Sit on the back porch with a coke and some cheese and just stare at the plants growing.  The two tallest plants are an heirloom tomato - New Big Dwarf.  I don't know what size dwarf plants usually grow, but so far this one is 4 feet tall.  I have never grown them before so I don't know what they taste like.  But this one weighed 8.1 oz and is actually bigger than the Brandy Boy I picked at the same time.  I picked it before it was 100% ripe because we got rain today and I did not want it to affect the taste so I am ripening it on the counter.


 The two middle pots are Baby Persian cucumbers.  They are parthenocarpic.  Look at all the flowers and every flower you see is a female and should develop into cucs without needing a male to pollinate them.  This is the third year I have grown them and they have become our favorite.  They were hit with Downy Mildew about 4 weeks ago.  I cut off at least 50 percent of the leaves and sprayed them with Daconil and then 10 days later cut off a few more diseased leaves and sprayed with copper fungicide.  So far, I don't see anymore diseased leaves.

Wow, I had a lot to catch up on with your garden yolos! 

Everything is looking really good.  That blood meal works wonders for s nitrogen boost.

Did you really, really need to post a photo of your Four o'Clocks?  Show off. 

This snake came to visit my garden a couple days ago.  I did not see it but my daughter got a picture.  She said it was not poisonous but I still have been looking where I am going now in the garden.  She said it was a King Snake which is supposed to be OK in the garden.  I had a rat snake visit last year.  I hate snakes.  See it coming out to the left side of the whiskey barrel.

Right next to the whiskey barrel is a Chipmunk tunnel.  Maybe it was after the Chipmunk.

Last summer, my next door neighbor called me over to see this same kind of snake.  Coming from Los Angeles, literally the only snakes I had seen were the ones behind glass in the reptile enclosure at the LA Zoo.  Because of this, I'd never seen a snake actually move with purpose.

Well, I was horrified to see that they can move quite quickly.  Another friend later told me that if a snake is after you, to run zig zag because they get confused (or something like that).

Is the chipmunk ok?

Tomato Harvest Time 060916

A sample of a few tomatoes harvested today.


My first ripe tomato - New Big Dwarf (the plant is dwarfish but not the tomato - 10.4 oz).  I will grow this again.  Small plant but good taste.


The first time I have grown Big Beef - not yet ripe enough to sample for taste.

Wow, I actually gasped a little when I saw this.  Congratulations on raising such beautiful fruits!

Garlic Harvest 060916 - 35 bulbs.  About 8 small, 8 medium and the rest large.


I planted a 4' x 8' bed of potatoes.  This partial harvest is 4 squares so there is still a lot out there to harvest after the tops die back.

nice, yolos! Wish my garlic made it . I think the critters ate it. Or it froze.

Yolos, When did you plant the garlic and the potatoes?

sanderson wrote:Yolos,  When did you plant the garlic and the potatoes?

Garlic - I planted 11/13/15 and harvested my first bulb two weeks ago.  I harvested the rest of the bunch yesterday 6/9.  The previous year I planted the garlic on 10/30.

Potatoes - I was working full time in the early spring this year and did not make notes when things were planted.  Last year I planted them on 3/9 and I remember thinking this year when I planted them that they were planted a week later than the previous year so about 3/15.

We had baked potatoes last night.  Everybody just raved about the Russet Norkotah potatoes.  Both my son-in-law and daughter said they were the best potatoes they had ever eaten and my son-in-law wanted a second baked potato.    You know you have done something right if people ask for a second helping.

Nice, Yolos!  GA is definitely a great place to garden.  My garlic won't be ready until end of July, and who knows when the taters & onions will die back.

Scorpio Rising wrote: nice, yolos!  Wish my garlic made it .  I think the critters ate it.  Or it froze.

I plant garlic everywhere, SFG box, perennial bed, hosta hedge, below the fruit trees, etc. I'm even using some for grid markers this year.  There has to be a place where the critters won't find it.


CC

Cucumbers have started coming in.  I ate our first one of the season yesterday.  It won't be long before I can make some nice cold Gazpacho (sp).  I counted 32 Baby Persian cucumbers in this pot and I have a second pot with about the same number.  My other three varieties of cucumbers are not parthenocarpic and I have only males and no females.  On my three varieties of winter squash I have loads of females and not a single male. 

OMG! Serious cuke envy here! Where did you get your Persian seeds? Do they get PM?

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:OMG!    Serious cuke envy here!  Where did you get your Persian seeds?  Do they get PM?

CC

Here - My local nursery sells Botanical Interests seeds so I get them locally.

https://www.botanicalinterests.com/product/cucumber-persian-baby-seeds/srch:persian



They are very expensive seeds though.  8 seeds for 3.49 at the local nursery. I get them because being parthenocarpic they will set fruit much earlier than others and also I can cover them with row cover (if I get around to it) to stop the pickleworms from invading.  So far they did not get PM but they usually end up dying early due to our heat and diseases.  Maybe this year (sprayed with fungicide) I can keep them growing longer than usual.  

The instructions say to pick them between 4 and 6 inches but I let mine grow much longer and they are just fine.