2011 Garden off to a good start!

Doesn't it feel good (after the hot soak and muscle rub kicks in)to do something like that yourself? So good for the self-esteem. And, it make the garden area look so good.

Proud of you!

So my dh told me on our anniversary that he had found me a gift he thought I'd like but that he had just ordered it so it hadn't come in yet. He went ahead and told me that it was a "little greenhouse" as he described it. So it came in the other day and we put it together today:



I was expecting a shelf unit covered in plastic and I was pretty psyched about that but this thing is basically a 4x4 raised bed with a insect screen and greenhouse plastic! Good job, dh!

So my question is this: What are the best crops for TT and which crops would you want closest to your back door? My main 3 beds are down at the bottom of my yard, some 50 feet from the house so I've already realized that having the lettuces and spinach down there is horribly inconvenient. (noted for the fall planting) The top part isn't super tall so I guess vining stuff probably wouldn't work, esp tomatoes, etc.. Thoughts?

I already have spots for most of my stuff so I might just give it more thought and not actually implement it til I'm ready for fall plantings.

What a great anniversary gift. Your DH did a fine job!

I don't know your area, but could you put in another crop of heat tolerant lettuces (I think BBG likes one of the Simpson types)

I am growing some New Zealand Spinach and Malabar Spinach and they are both warm weather crops. They don't bolt the same as Bloomsdale and other cool weather spinaches. I don't care for them raw, but they are great cooked.

Take a page from the hot climate of the Philippines and add shade cloth to the top of that marvelous gift so you can grow your salad fixings close to the house. It may take a bit more care and extra water, but worth the effort to have them close by. How tall is the covering. Could you get a determinate tomato in there?

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsquarefoot.forumotion.com%2Ft5518-lettuce-will-grow-in-the-philippines&ei=ji_aTcWYHsjUgAfmpJVY&usg=AFQjCNGv9pb6jxKZsYoqWtM4iry6QOW94A

And what a fall garden you can get in there with the plastic to extend your season. Good job DH.

Kay

genius idea for the potatoes! I had been trying to find something to grow them in (trashcan was my first thought). I spent saturday hauling cinderblock to make a box out of that, but it looks horrible. I think I am going to try your bag method. Thanks for posting that!

Happy belated anniversary GG! What a great gift that your husband gave you. What a guy!

Oh great idea on the shade cloth! I think I'll do that! The covering is only about 3-4 feet so a tomato would be pushing it, but I guess it can't hurt to try, right? It will definitely come in handy for a fall planting, I have plastic for my hoops on my regular beds but it's a pain to unfasten to uncover them.

Update on the great potato experiment:

The bags are holding up well and I've covered up the plants twice now. One of the bags has split down the side seams so I used a stapler to staple it back together. Both bags were made the same. I think it was just that my dh moved it a bunch of times when working on that section of the yard preparing it for new grass. It also might have been loaded with too many seed potatoes. So I'm making some more this week for some seed pots that Mason Garden gave me(thanks Renee!) and these I'm going to overlap the seams and reinforce them a little better just in case and make sure not to put too many in.

So I've been super busy out in the garden. I'm almost done with all the really hard stuff-maybe 2 projects away from being able to sit back on my patio with the fan on with a huge glass of iced tea watching my zucchini grow!

Here are my main beds as of yesterday:



And here are some of the container garden on my patio(I didn't want to put the bush types or herbs in the SFG to save room, then I ran out of room anyway so I also have some random peppers and such in leftover pots:

This is a zucchini and 2 ground cherries:



Potato bags and a strawberry bag:



Herbs:



More herbs on either side of this bench:



This is the grow camp experiment-I plan to implement more fully for a fall planting of lettuces and other greens, so until then, I'm protecting a couple of zucchini-One is in MM and the other is my "hydroponic experiment"-not really for any specific purpose-I just figured I'd try it since I was running a pond bubbler to the greenhouse anyway to aerate my worm castings compost tea:



Here are my questions- My tomatoes seem to doing okay-they are in the back left 2 squares-indeterminate. But mostly everything else seems a bit small to me, the back middle 2 are baby pumpkins that are barely reaching the trellis, the borage has flopped to the ground- the 2 end the broccolis are pretty big but no heads forming yet:

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This bed also has 2 tomatoes in the back left-the one in the wall o
water is doing well but doesn't reach tall enough yet to tie to the
trellis- my peas are finally starting to form-for some reason I thought
they would have been done by now- I had planned to put beans there when I
pulled the peas out-will I still be able to do that or is it too late
now? The middle is pepper-pepper-brussel sprout-the 3 more peppers-are the peppers going to have a growth spurt soon? They look healthy but seem so little still... The front row is 3 BS's, then a tiny eggplant-empty sq where I had just pulled a dead borage, then a snake gourd:



This is what I affectionately refer to as the "mistake bed"-In the book, Mel says to plant either 1 or 4 asparagus to a square-so I did 4 jersey giants per square-I now know that the front row was not a smart place to put them and that I should move them elsewhere before next spring. The 3 squares behind the asps are carrots, doing well I guess-most of the edges are sweet potatoes, except for a nasturtium in the back.- I had a couple of luffa gourd on the trellis but they died- not sure what I did to them-They grew really well at first but by the time I transplanted them, they had really started to wilt:



If you are still reading-thanks for holding in there!!

These are my melon and pumpkin ladders for which I stole the idea from Patti(thanks Patti!!) The first pic has a pump on each side(and sunflowers in the front), the second is a cantaloupe and a watermelon-they are starting to leaf up again but they still seem pretty tiny-they were the same as the luffa gourds, they started out as seedlings great but had really started to wilt before I got them in the ground-did I wait too long or start them too early? I would hate for everything that my ds picked out to be the stuff that fails! 3rd pic is 2 small pumpkins:







BTW-these are all planted in MM just not raised beds- I dug deep 1x2 trenches, lined with newspapers, put rocks in the bottom, then filled with MM

Sorry for the super long posts!

Jen

I noticed some holes in my ground cherry plants so I need to do something about that- Also- I want to be proactive about the SVB.

I have purchased small jugs of neem oil and BT and I have a big bag of DE.

How do I dilute this stuff and how and when do I apply them? And did I even get the right stuff?

B the W:

Almost forgot before but I have finally harvested something other than lettuce and spinach that I grew from seed!!!

little guy was sitting patiently on the mulch under the ground cherry plant when I was checking it for bugs:



And my kids were both in the house so I got to eat it myself and it was sweet and delicious!

Wow Jen your gardens are looking quite nice! Sorry about your losses so far, I think you and I are opposite right now...Your lettuce looks fantastic while mine are barely recognizable as lettuce. My tomatoes are doing great except for my Opalka it just sits there and does nothing :scratch: . I have heads on my broccoli too. I am going to post some photos after I get home tonight.

Again garden is looking great I would just give it some time and things should start popping before long.

GG - your pictures are gorgeous! Hurray on a beautiful garden!!

Gorgeous garden GG! Everything looks like it is coming along nicely, especially considering the heat here!

Thanks guys! But does everything look a little small to you or should I be expecting a growth spurt soon?

GG - My plants are small too (although the beans and watermelons that I sowed a couple of weeks ago grew very aggressively). I figured it was just the quick onset of stifling heat combined with no rain over the past two weeks. I've just started to water every day, hoping that everything will bounce back, although I believe my spinach is a lost cause.

GG your garden looks great. I love that heavy duty ladder/trellis. You ask if things are small, but remember, the plants have not been in the ground that long, and then your heat wave. I am sure things will suddenly take off and soon you will not recognize your garden.

Do you have pictures of the holes in the ground cherry leaves? and by the way, I am jealous of your first ground cherry.

MasonGarden, if you all are having a heat wave, just keep those spinach watered well, they may go on a bit before they bolt. Remember, you can always replant in late summer for a fall crop of spinach.

The holes are pretty small. When I turned the leaves over , there were some tiny dot sized bugs, so I think it's aphids. So I guess insecticidal soap?

soap spray works with aphids. I did not know aphids ate holes, but they can spread viruses.

good luck.