PNW: May 2013

Everyone here has gorgeous gardens, with lots of nice pictures to show off. Keep up the good work, & have Fun

sarah465 wrote:...I love this time of year! When everything can still go right

*lol* I hear you on that. My yard and garden always look their best in the Spring. Congrats on your first harvest! And hello fellow resident of "the couve".

boffer wrote:My first tomato of the year. It ripened nicely, and we ate it last weekend. My wife cut it up before I could get a picture of it fully ripe. I wouldn't believe me either but Gwen saw the tomato on the plant a few weeks ago in real life.

It's true y'all. I think boffer should be the one to kick off our PNW 2013 Tomato Tuesday thread.

gwennifer wrote:

sarah465 wrote:...I love this time of year! When everything can still go right

*lol* I hear you on that. My yard and garden always look their best in the Spring. Congrats on your first harvest! And hello fellow resident of "the couve".

I caught that too! Made me feel all happy. I meant to put it as the quote of the moment for the new season but I had this stupid all day headach and didn't get to it. Love that you wrote that Sarah!! All the yucky stuff going on in American news this week and you post that golden bit of hope. (pretending that this is fresh PNW mint tea)

Debs.....who saw a pretty green tomato in the greenhouse, it's a cherry, it's in a 1 gallon pot so it is probably a stress tomato, I wasn't even going to keep that plant, but it IS a tomato!!

Lavender Debs wrote:...I did not think that your corn was in SFG's, was I wrong or is this your 1st year? I'm asking because I wonder if one per square (no matter the square size) gets good pollination in the center (I would be willing to try that if it does). All I want is more corn...

You've got a mind like a steel trap! It was an 8x25 patch of ground with lots of 5 way compost dumped on it. But I made a modified story stick that I could lay down that gave me 1 foot row spacing and 1 foot seed spacing. I didn't have pollination problems in the center. But I couldn't keep up with the weeds towards the center. Without exaggeration, some of them grew taller than the corn! Weeding a box is a much less daunting task.

gwennifer wrote:

boffer wrote:My first tomato of the year. It ripened nicely, and we ate it last weekend. My wife cut it up before I could get a picture of it fully ripe. I wouldn't believe me either but Gwen saw the tomato on the plant a few weeks ago in real life.

It's true y'all. I think boffer should be the one to kick off our PNW 2013 Tomato Tuesday thread.

yes...i agree

p.s.......Boffer i sent you a pm

Lavender Debs wrote:

Lavender Debs, your efforts are always outstanding.

BTW in the picture above, at first glance, I thought you actually had painted "The Toy Box Sub-Urban Farm" on your fence like that.

we too are enjoying all the updates and pictures from everyone!

took a few pic's today

SFG box #2 is doing well.....a Three sisters.... green beans in the back.... not up yet.....*hooker* sweet corn....crookneck squash in the left front corner and Black beauty zucchini in the front right hand corner....



the corn, squash and zucchini we started in the green house....the green beans we just directed sown a few days ago.....

the corn we direct sown in the back garden are having problems again with germination.....*sigh*.....we may end up buying some corn starts ..... ....yikes....we covered the corn this time with netting hoping to keep critters out....

I know for sure rats were getting and scooping up the corn out of the green house while we were starting the three sisters garden plants in there...you could see the indent in the soil packs made from their tiny hands......and the seed was gone .....we put in live traps and caught 2 of them!!....moved the seeds to another location ...in our smaller green house shelf.....and they left them alone.....or we caught the only two rats on the block

now not sure if the netting kept the rats out of the back garden corn area....im sure it kept the birds out.....I think next year we are going to have to use starts only this time....even though corn doesn't like to be transplanted.....I think we will have a better chance getting some corn then leaving it to mother nature..... ...or hubby could build us a corn box like Boffers :drunken: all I know is we have to figure something out....corn is hubby's high light of gardening

on a bright side ....found this growing out of our topsey turvey .....I think its a sunflower???....how it got there....have no idea....



we planted super sugar snap peas this year ( instead of just plain sugar snap peas) and they are flowering ...didn't relize they wouldn't grow as tall as the others we have planted in the past couple of years....ooops....we even planted 2 1x4 boxes hoping to get a lot of peas this year.....note to self ...just because they say SUPER snap peas doesn't mean they will produce more.....



the Walla Walla onions started last fall from seeds are doing great and have surpassed the starts we purchased

should we leave the Walla's in these pots or transplant them?? ...now??...or this fall??....they took a very loooong time to get to this point.....



happy gardening
rose

Chris found zippers for the poly tent. I think this will work for a while, I'll update you as the season progresses. (BTW, the clothes pin.... actually an office butterfly clip... worked fine.

Deb that stick on zipper is AWESOME!!!

where did you find that?

Hugs
rose who loves it when farmer Deb has a video

FamilyGardening wrote:...that stick on zipper is AWESOME!!! Where did you find that?

Amazon carries them: Zipwall Heavy Duty Zipper Kit. There's also a lighter weight kit but it's only recommended for indoor use.

Here's another one: Peel N' Stick Tarp Zipper. Lowe's carries this one at my store.

I think this one came from Lowes.... I personally found it on the dresser.

Hey Deb,

This was taken when the sun was shining last week. Pruning you asked? I KNOW NOTHING! (ala Sgt. Schultz!)

That is beautiful. I better get out and do a little snipping before I get attached to any blossoms. Thanks. Tell me more.

Lavender Debs wrote:That is beautiful. I better get out and do a little snipping before I get attached to any blossoms. Thanks. Tell me more.

That's what I'm saying, I don't know anything or do anything. I got four or five per plant of the biggest bell peppers that I've ever grown in the greenhouse last year. Would I get more per plant if I pruned?

I try not to get too excited about last year's greenhouse production because, after all, weather wise it was a very good second half of the summer. The real test will be a repeat of 2010 weather.

I admit to being envious of some of the hot growing weather around the country, but then I look at the pest and disease issues that come with it, and I'm not so sure!

I've been eating cukes for a couple weeks. I just realized tonight that I only planted three. I was really glad to be done planting, but I think I'm going to start a few more tomorrow.

OK then, I clipped the tops off of about half of mine just to see what happens. The cherry pepper seems to be getting bushy on its own so I left it alone.


Jimmy Nardello

Jimmy who?

I thought maybe it was the photographer, but it sure looked like your hand!

I hadn't heard of that type of pepper!

Look here

Yah, I had to google it to find out it was a pepper!

so excited at what hubby found today first beans to come up....thought it looked pretty cool on how its forming/growing out of the bean.... planted seeds on 5-13-13....took 9 days to germinate



French Gold Pole Filet Beans

Happy gardening
rose

LittleGardener wrote:I spend lots of time here, just silently enjoying everyone's gardens, envious of greenhouses, etc. you already have. Too I wonder if you know of other... Forums where people like me can share, at whatever stage without being made to feel out of place, & overwhelmed at what one may want, but does not yet have. Do you know of such forums?

So far, this is the best one I have found! Family friendly, no flaming, and lots of PICS!!! I see lots of stuff that I would love to have, but I have to work within my budget and circumstances. Being fairly handy with a hammer and thumb (er, nail :drunken: ) I sometimes attempt some of the smaller projects I see and like. Mostly, I just smile and enjoy the successes of others and commiserate with their woes.

GG

Love it when Mother Nature does the watering for me. Seems like this is good weather for the cold weather crops - not enough GDD's for the hot weather stuff. How are everyone's lettuces and spinach doing?

we are not able to keep up with eating the lettuce....its doing great and we are able to give a bunch away

spinach on the other hand....blah....having a hard time growing it again this year.....there are a few leaves here and there but not much....

happy gardening
rose

gwennifer wrote:
Love it when Mother Nature does the watering for me. Seems like this is good weather for the cold weather crops.. How are everyone's lettuces and spinach doing?

Good idea having this Temp chart here. Thanks!
(tho not all of us even have lettuce+spinach going.) Should I post in here, or
is a new thread "Share gardening-adventures" better?
See, family said "Let's build a Green-house & you(little me) do it.
We'll give you the plans; wait til March" (March+April now past), I said to heck with that, I wanna garden...so at our favorite farm-stand plants were crying to be adopted, which (sans a garden-spot no less) I did:
on kitchen-counter, sink, windowsills, by the french-doors, on the porch, where ever, are now still in their pots:
3 Pole-beans (I wanted Bush beans, instead)
3 butternut squash
6 Broccoli
3 (long/English) cucumbers
2 curly parsley
3 cherry tomatoes (2 Heirloom: SugarLump +YellowPear, & 1 SweetMillion)
3 (personal-size) Watermelons
-------------------------------------aside the above 23,
also 23 Flowering plants most already planted.
Soo, now to get them (out in the cold) happily planted. A wonderful 'artistic' lady at Lowe's helped me find the parts, to inexpensively get this project started. - Boffer said in the 2000sq.ft. thread "$4 per square foot, that's $64 for a 4x4 box ready to plant." Well, either I wait until I have all those ingredients, or I start with what I can amass, & go from there. I decided to do the latter so for $33 a 5x7 ft. spot I noticed in that "Construction Block" thread. - Then for half that much more, it will turn into a HoopHouse as well. - Do you like it?
The current garden spot is in the SE-corner with a 3-5 ft. chain-link-fence on each side.
The S-fence also has those metal vertical strips. Since last year three compost-piles in various stages are growing...
(gave up on bought tumblor-gizmo :scratch: for now).
The west is interrupted by a mostly-completed TALL shed, against which food can grow Trellis-style on E+W-sides.
So how close? together would you plant these above, & other, critters.
---
The real west-boundary (100 ft. total), will in the autumn sport:
2 apples, cherry, fig/plum, pear, & filberts, & blueberries & raspberries,
a very experienced NW-nursery person is educating me in.
Plus a neighbor (who I've been helping food-wise), has agreed to dig holes for these plants for a small fee.

What do you think? Suggestions welcome