2012 Lower South gardens

I decided the lower south needed a place to showcase the 2012 season. We are well into our growing season and will hit really hot weather sooner than we like. I am on the extreme northern edge of the region and still have some time. Others of you are probably already anticipating or experiencing heat problems and have summer crops going full speed.

My garden consists of 10 4x4 table tops, a chairtop garden, various buckets and pots and some orange deck containers.

rosemary, cilantro, lettuce and radish in orange container, chives and mint



patio tomato with basil and patio cuke in pot of cillantro that reseed from last year. I'll soon have coriander



oragano, dill and parley in strawberry pot and blue potatos in orange container



tomato, pepper, and cuke seedling going to my daughter this weekend. She is in zone 6b and will just about be ready for them. Some of the tomatos are blooming.



last of the greenhouse seedlings. I'll take down the greenhouse next week.



pots of peppers and buckets of determanent tomatos. 4 little key lime plants in square terra cotta pots. Hope I can get them to live.



red norland potatos blooming in rubbermaid bin. planted 17 mar. you can also see my carrot week carrots coming up in the blue pot



carrots in blue pots, kaledescope carrots in big round pot, herbs in small square pot and lettuce moved from a spot where I needed space for tomatos. Think there is a few basil seedling reseeded from last year. Smells like it anyway.



red and green lettuce, radishes, purple mustard, bok choy, peppers and peas climbing the back trellis



carrots planted in Nov, new crop of kale and collards



bolting spinach, 2 eggplants and tomatos starting up the trellis.



strawberry bed started this spring. 1/2 june bearing and 1/2 everbearing Waiting for elephant garlic to bulb up so the strawberries can have the entire bed.



mustard and turnip greens, onions and sugar snap peas up the back trellis. pulled the bolting lettuce and the final plants of last spring's planting of chard today.



the garlic and shallot bed. also has a few onions from last year that I'm using until the new crop comes in.



my new cattle panel trellis between the garlic bed and the watermelon bed. tomatos in buckets ready to grow up the panel.



watermelon and cantaloupe bed. half planted waiting for a later planting to space them out. will be interesting to see what happen when the melons and tomatos meet at the top of the cattle panel



peppers, the new crop of chard and yellow beets. there are pole bean behind the chard waiting for a trellis. (today I hope)



grossly overplanted malibar spinach. will have to thin to 2 plants based on the size of Josh's picture. Last trellis to make and put up goes here.



Dinosaur kale, second crop of mustard and turnip greens, onions on the grid and tomatos starting up the trellis.



Yay, I'm getting some broccoli,



pumpkin planted in front of the broccoli which I am hoping will not shade the newly emerging pole beans on the back trellis too much until they can get tall.



Pole beans seem to be doing ok behind all that broccoli, and the lone cuke



tomatos sharing the other cattle panel with the melons



and the chairtop garden where I'm getting sugar snap peas and lettuce. This bed was planted in Jan



WHAT ARE THE REST OF YOU GROWING?

Kay

Wowzers Kay, you have been busy, you garden looks great! I hope you can keep the key limes alive too! Key lime pie is my FAV! Good luck with the heat too, I have never experienced that problem in zone 5A.

I just planted some peas, lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, and onions today in a different bed and I have some radishes, bunching onions, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and carrots up in another bed. All my summer crops have a while to wait yet.

Your garden looks fantastic!

Your garden is an inspiration. It gives hope to those of us up north who can't put in most of our crops just yet. Love your garden arrangement.

I planted my SFG and took this picture in March. As you can see, I started small so that I could make mistakes this year and hopefully be prepared to have a bigger garden next year. The boxes are 20" x 24", have a 3 gallon reservoir in the bottom and are on wheels so that I can move them around when I put up a trellis.

From left to right, the 1st box contains 1 tomato and 1 cherry tomato in the back and swiss chard and carrots in the front. The center box contains 1 green bell pepper and 1 red bell pepper in the back and mixed greens and spinach in the front. The third box contains 2 summer squash and 2 eggplant in the back and 3 cucumbers in the front. There is nothing in the other front square. The small planter contains parsley, chives (seed planted) and basil.

I decided to try blueberries in containers and have purchased bushes, containers and ingredients for more MM. I will have 2 strawberry plants in each of the blueberry containers for the fruit and as a ground cover.

Love, love, love the hoop trellises you have going! What a great way to do a trellis and I bet it will look amazing when you have some plants growing on them. For my garden I just followed the directions in the book, pretty much exactly, but my hubby and I relocate for his career every few years so I just LOVE seeing all the pictures and ideas for gardens. Maybe in out next home I will have a bit more level space to put a garden in and can use some of these ideas!

Hi all of you lower south gardeners. Here is a perfect thread for all of you to show off what SFG has taught you. I expect pictures, updates and comments from everybody. Problems if you have them and successes and inovations are welcome.

Kay

As a first year rookie everything has been a learning adventure. My journey started last fall when I began researching home food production. SFG seemed to be the most productive method per given area. The rookie in me thought Good Friday was my 'first start' date, so I geared all my plans to plant on that date. I started composting better stated as "started AT IT" big flop. Afraid of local yard grass for the 'greens'( pesticides, weed&feed and such)I resorted to rabbit food and coffee grounds. Let me just say the fall and winter rains drowned each of five 4ft by 4ft by 4ft round bales. Giving up ;for now; the ANSFG book put me into gear, suddenly I realized in this area something will grow almost year round.

I began in earnest prepairing the four 4ft by 8ft by 12in beds. I had seen SFG but master gardeners had convinced me 6in beds were not deep enough. I quickly started my "Tater Tires". Having made 3 tire towers using over 1 cubic yard of MM, I realized the cost of my yet to be constructed beds. The bigest mistake I have made was NOT using MM in the beds. I needed almost five yards of MM @ app $150.00 for the first batch I found a cheaper solution. It has a lot of aged bark as an ingredient; trouble is it is still composting using up all the nitrogen that was stated to be "in there". Not discovering this flaw has slowed to dwarfed the production I had expected. MM IS the backbone for rookie gardeners!!!!!

Now for the pictures: I have harvested three large bowls of romaine and buttercrunch lettice from bed1 (in the foreground others behind)

Bed2 looking west from the end; the tomatoes(and bed3) have suffered from nitrogen defeciency.

bed3 squash, zucchini, and cucumbers

bed4 green pole beans( kentucky wonder and bluelake) have not suffered from the lack of nitrogen peppers on the front row not so healthy

tater tires yet to be determined the tops are wilting back never did see them traditionally flower.

looking forward to seeing more gardens.

WOW! Actually that garden doesn't look all that bad considering you have soil/nutrient issues. Are you planning to replace the soil mix in your beds one at a time until you get them all properly MM or bit the bullet in before fall planting for all the beds. If you are forced to do it one bed at a time, consider using some liquid fertilizer. OR, buy some worm castings and give everything a few drinks of worm tea over the growing season until you can get your MM.

I am already thinking ahead to my fall garden and I'm way north of you.

Kay

I do hope to replace the mix w/MM but will most likely wait till the off season for that. I already have blood meal for when squares empty and fish emulusion till then. I have already put a 'shake and feed' nitrogen and calcium time release on all the beds.

I am planning two more beds now for sweet potatoes, peas, winter squash probally more kohlrabi and what ever the wife wants to try. We have to move two yard plants before the following two beds go in (will make 8 beds total).

I need to do more with seed; for the most part I have depended on transplants. Soooooooo much to learn to do so little time

What is happening in your garden/

Kay

Well I would post my pics but honestly, mine is looking pretty pathetic right now. 9 Tomato plants still hanging on but losing more leaves on a daily basis...super leggy but still producing. My cukes are hanging on by a thread but like the tomatoes, still giving me a few to harvest. Beans all done and in freezer. Squash gave me quite a bit but SVB took care of them.

I am now trying to figure out if it's just going to be too hot for me to sow more seeds and just hang til fall. Last summer wasn't successful at all for me with our heat so I don't know what to do yet. On the other hand, even with the decline going on now, I was a lot more successful than my first year of SFG.

By the way, awesome pics Kay! Hopefully one day I can have a garden like yours!

What little I know about Texas weather indicates to me you should not try much more than beans, southern peas (cowpeas), okra and eggplant for a while. Chard and collards can stand a lot of heat. I must admit, I would be forced to try a new tomato plant or two in a bucket in the shade to see if I could continue to get some maters or at least have a plant grown enough to start producing when the fall cool down finally come. And I am going to try starting some squash plants in cups to replace what I know will be SVB food. I usually can get some squash before they hit. They say butternut squash has too hard a stem to be infested, so I'm trying them this year. I just hope we don't have the weeks of over 100* and night time temps in the 90s like we did last year, nor the lack of rain.

Educate me. I think you can get a good growth in the fall and even overwinter a lot of stuff in a hoop house. If so, maybe taking a break during the summer is better on the stress level.

My garden looks good right now because I still have under 95* daytime temps and below 70 at night. Later this summer I'll have a raggedy looking one as well.

Kay

Thought instead of posting a bunch of pics, I'd do a video update of my first garden. All the noise you hear in the background are katydids. We have zillions of them, but they seem to be not doing a lot of damage in the garden...maybe the Neem oil has worked...

Up here in the northern edge of the region, the watermelons and cantaloupe are climbing up their trellis and blooming. Cukes are forming, beans are reaching out for support, early garlic harvested, squash starting to grow (planted mine late). Kale and chard are doing well. Mustard and turnip greens on their second cutting. Collards not doing well - yellow and bug eaten in spite of the tulle.

And a windborne blight has struck my tomatos. Found it a few days ago. Went chemical and treated them. Will see what survives and manages to produce. Only green tomatos so far, nothing near ripening. Went out and got 2 starts which I am going to plant in buckets away from the herd so maybe I can assure myself of some later maters.

What's kicking in your gardens? Anything surviving the heat? Got anything planned or are most of you riding out the dog days of summer waiting for Aug when you can start your fall garden. Anybody got pics?

Kay

Well here in Marietta Ga it has been hot. No winter to speak of. It is my first year at gardening and got a lot of info from the locals. LOL

The Farmers Almanac was pretty much right on when it came to last frost. I had my bed made just a small one for first year 4 x 4 x 6. Lesson one. 6 inches really does not do the trick for tall items. Next year i will ad an 8 and 10 inch high bed.

I started my MM and put it in the bed. I began talking to people at the markets, Home Depot and Lowes and got a different oppinion from each to when to plant. The one common theme was i was early another frost was on the way. It never showed so i was two weeks, or more, behind in planting.

I have several different tomato plants put in the ground at different times about 10 to 14 days apart. I hope to have tomatos through to the first frost. Most are still green, as of 7/1, but i have started to pull one or two from each plant. Large Beefeater and Celebraty down to Cherry's. No real problem with animals. Lost one to something that took a large bite out one. Lost a couple to worms. A bit of spray and that problem is under control. I have lost my large cukes. I was pulling cukes 10 to 12 inches long 5 inches round. Had to pull them up. Cucumber Beetles got them. My pickleing cukes were in a different part of the yard so they were spared.

Radishes are in their 4th planting. Bell peppers are on the vines. I am not sure if they are normal or not. The plants are only about a foot tall but they are loading up with bells. The yellow bells are not as fast growing but not an issue. Jalapeno Chyanne and Thi peppers are doing well. Peas are being picked every other day and average 3 inches long. Bush beans are just starting to put out. All three bushes are showing sign of beinghealthy. I am growing Okra for a friend. Do not know much about Okra but the plants look good. Not sure if i have Okra or flowers. LOL

Watermelons have tendrills spreading out 8 feet now. I am beginning to find fruit. Marked 6 melons yesterday three on each plant. The pumpkin is looking strong as well but no sigh of fruit as of yet. I have 4 different plants going right now. Three Jack O Lantern plants 12 to 25 lbs average pumpkins and one giant 85 to 100 lb pumpkin plant. The wife and grandson should be happy for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I also have carrots and onions going.

For my first year i am pretty happy with the way things are going. I have learned much. Next year i will spread things out a bit more. The most important thing i believe i have learned is buy your MM in the fall when it is on sale. I have a storage shed i put in that i will use to store my MM stuff. I found out that the price changes from $2 to $6 dollars for different items around here. I got HEN Manure in the fall for $3.75 this spring it was $7. Also picket up more trellis items. Again. In the fall low price in spring price doubled.

BUt i am enjoying myself and am getting ready to plant cool weather items next month. Lettuce and Spinach topping the list with garlic right behind.

Mike

Just talked to my son and he said the only thing still growing in his gardens are tomatos, peppers, chard (over harvested, but still alive), long beans (sorta), okra (flowers transforming into new okra) and eggplant (2 new fruits growing for now). I told him it is time to start collard and kale seed.

a mix of hot and sweet peppers.


What are you doing in your gardens in Aug?

Kay

I'm late getting my fall garden in, but here's whats growing.
lettuce and spinach planted in what's left of the chairtop gardens.


chairs are giving up the ghost, so I pitched them


broccoli


collards


kale from starts and seed and lettuce starts


summer hangons

butter beans finally filling out some pods


chard cleaned up and top dressed is making a comeback and some peppers are hanging on


tomatos


carrot week carrots


when should i harvesr the sweet potatos?


and just a peek at my summer entertainment