2014 SFG in Brooks, GA

A few of the early spring planted beds are producing now. 

The brassicas bed planted on 2/28/14 and covered in tulle to keep out those pesky worms.  I planted (from purchased transplants) 6 Pacman Broccoli - 5 of the 6 planted formed button heads.  6 Premium Crop Broccoli - all producing beautiful heads that were picked right after the picture was taken.  4 kale and 4 Brussel Sprouts.  I will be taking out the broccoli to make way for summer yellow squash.  I need to keep the squash under the tulle to prevent the SVB's from destroying them.




On the right side, 4 squares of Butter Crunch lettuce (all bolting already), 4 squares of romaine lettuce, 4 squares of winterbor kale, 4 squares of Green Arrow garden peas (shelling) which are flowering and just started producing pea pods.  In the background is the 4 x 8 strawberry bed I started in 2012.  It has been producing for about 1-2 weeks.  Yum Yum.



Another 4 x 4 bed with 5 squares shallots, 3 squares of garlic, 4 squares onions and 4 squares of Wando sweet peas (shelling) which are flowering and again just started producing pea pods.

And more peas.  I made a mistake and soaked two full packs of peas so I had to plant them somewhere.


And more peas in barrels.  The barrel at the bottom was planted with transplanted sugar snap peas.  We have been nibbling on the snap peas for about 2 weeks.  The other two barrels of peas were from seed and are flowering and just starting to set pea pods.

A couple more pictures of just planted summer veggies.

Tomatoes transplanted 5/3/14.  I used soaker hoses on this bed and mulched a wee bit but need to add a whole lot more mulch...I planted 12 plants (11 different varieties) in a 4 x 12 bed.


Corn bed - 4 x 4 of Early Sunglow, 4 x 4 of Silver King, 4 x 4 of Silver Queen.  Last year I did not get a single ear due to tassels forming and dropping pollen before the silks were out.  I learned this was due to improper watering.  I had planted 2 per square last year and decided to plant 1 plant every 10 inches, with 4 rows spaced 12 inches apart.  I guess you can't take the row gardener all the way out of me yet. You really can't see any corn from this picture, but they are sprouting.


Rattlesnake beans.  I am planting 4 squares every week to see what planting time works best.  To this date I have plant 4 squares on 4/21, 4 squares on 4/26, and 4 squares on 5/4.  I will definitely have to do some thinning.  I have so many seeds I just had to plant a lot to make sure of good coverage.  They over germinated.

And another test of 8 different varieties of beans and southern peas all planted 4/26.  I have a different variety planted in each of 8 different 2 x 2 beds.  We shall see what grows the best, tastes the best, and is the least problem to grow.

ditto

looks like palace gardens to me

And my Beauregard Sweet Potatoes planted 18 inches apart from purchased slips on 4/26.


And lastly, my BIG FAILURE - Artichokes lovingly planted from seed and nursed thru the hot 2013 summer.  6 plants in a 4 x 8 bed are now toast.  It was just too cold for them this winter with the horrid temperatures we had.  I guess I did not put enough mulch on them.  I put about 2 feet of pine straw mulch on them but I guess that was not good enough.

I now have to figure out what to do with that space in the future.  I am thinking pumpkins and watermellons this summer and asparagus in the early spring.

jimmy cee wrote:looks like palace gardens to me

+1 Yep

What a beautiful garden, yolos.

Wow, nice work Yolos.  As the expression goes, "I'm scared of you!"

sanderson wrote:

jimmy cee wrote:looks like palace gardens to me

+1  Yep

Yep, what a palace,  +1

Yolos, it's gorgeous!!!!  Can't wait till mine looks like that!

Thanks everyone.  It feels like a work of art to me and I get so much pleasure just walking thru the garden after a long day at work.

Yolos, your garden is beautiful.

No sweet potatoes for me this year.  All my beds, containers and tubs are full.  Grew them last year in 2 concrete mixing tubs that are full of garlic this year.

Permanently tying up 2 beds with strawberries last fall has left me short this year.  But ten  4x4s, 10 buckets of tomatoes, six buckets of peppers and flower pots of carrots and herbs is really excessive for one person.  I'm just addicted and funds ran shorter this year.

Kay

Your garden is a work of art.  Talk about clean and organized.  I love it.  If I were younger I'd get busy and expand like you have.  Wow!

Harvested some Green Arrow and Wando Shelling Sweet Peas tonight.  By the time I shell them it won't be much more than a taste but boy are they sweet.  Planted on 3/2/14 and harvested today 5/19/14.  That's about 78 days from seed sown.  DTM per the package is 68 days.

Yum...  Looks wonderful, Yolos...  Enjoy!

Diseases are already here.          

I took a couple cucumber and tomato leaves into the county extension office this morning so they could confirm my diagnosis.  Yep, the cucumbers have already been hit by downy mildew.  I asked him why does this disease hit me every year even tough I practice rotation, mulching, no over head watering, good air circulation etc.  He said it was nothing wrong I was doing but just the way it is in Fayette County.  These are airborne diseases.  The last couple of weeks we have had heavy dews and many overcast days.  The dew takes a long time to dry off and this promotes fungal growth.  The air has been humid and very little sunshine.  Crud.  He said to use Daconil to keep the fungus from spreading but it won't cure the plant only keep it from spreading.  This year I will try copper fungicide alternating with neem oil.  If that does not work this year I am going to pull out the guns next year and use Daconil.  I will have to keep removing the infected leaves to help keep it from spreading.

I also took in a tomato leaf that has a dark fungal growth that is on a couple of my plants.  He could not identify it exactly but it was some type of fungus.  So I will also treat the tomatoes with copper fungicide alternating with neem oil.

Darn, darn, darn.

HELP I am being overrun by Garden Shelling Peas.  I was a bit ditsy when I decided to soak my peas this spring.  I just dumped two whole packs of peas in separate bowls of water to presoak.  Unfortunately I only needed about 1/3 that many peas.  But I went ahead and found a place to plant all of them..  Because we had a milder spring than normal, I have peas coming out my ears.

The packs of peas said they would get 24 - 30" tall.  Well they are 7 feet tall now.  MM must be super charged this year.


This will be my third picking of the peas.  Last night I got 3 cups of shelled peas.  I should get about 6 cups of peas out of the peas picked tonight.  Is there any easy way to shell these.  Special machine or something.  I think I will grow more sugar snap peas this fall so I don't have to spend so much time shelling.

Oh, to have your problem!!    Congrats on your haul.

That's great, Yolos! 

Yeah, a lot of work, but wait till this winter when you can enjoy them in all sorts of stuff while sighing that you can't play in the garden... lol.

AtlantaMarie wrote:That's great, Yolos! 

Yeah, a lot of work, but wait till this winter when you can enjoy them in all sorts of stuff while sighing that you can't play in the garden... lol.

Excellent point AM!     Yolos, you just may be peaing all winter!   

GG

Goosegirl wrote:

AtlantaMarie wrote:That's great, Yolos! 

Yeah, a lot of work, but wait till this winter when you can enjoy them in all sorts of stuff while sighing that you can't play in the garden... lol.

Excellent point AM!     Yolos, you just may be peaing all winter!   

GG

LOL ya'll.  Just have to report some statistics here.  It takes 25 minutes to shell one cup of peas.  I shelled 4 cups of peas last night.  I still have at least one more cup to go from the ones I picked yesterday.  I am going to pick another mess tonight but I am going to give them to my boss (who is a vegetarian and appreciates anything I give him).  A couple of years ago I started complaining to him that I did not have enough time to do my gardening.  He was afraid I would retire so he gave me Fridays off and no cut in pay.

Personally, I find shelling peas relaxing.  Maybe it's just because that is all we grew from childhood until I found the snow/snap peas.  Mom and I would sit and chat while we shelled peas.  The bounty was amazing.  We always canned or froze 50 pints.

Has anyone tried blanching and freezing unshelled peas?  One could shell them then at the time of consumption.  Just an idea.......

I grow snap and snow peas instead.  My mom used to have us pull the membrane off the pea shells so we could eat them too.  Waste not want not etc.  We were so excited when snow peas came available to home gardeners.

I saw a video last night where the guy shelled the peas and then used the pea hulls to boil and the stock is used for pea soup.

Two Squash (or pumpkin) volunteers in my holding bin for compost materials.  I put a large whole pumpkin in the bin last fall so I don't know if this is a pumpkin or squash.  I have never grown pumpkin before so I don't know what it is supposed to look like.  I have a gazillion male flowers but no female flowers so I will have to wait a while to find out what the plant really is.  But it is big and beautiful.
 
Behind the squash is some corn that looks real healthy also.