What I learned this year

I just priced it out and it's now $9 per trellis. Dang that inflation!
  but I buy in bulk -
Three 10 ft conduits at 2.81 a piece = two 5s, two 6s, two 4s = 2 trellises = one 5' X 4' & one 6'x 4'
2 pvc elbow connectors, Barbed = 1.21 ea
 netting  15 ft at $7= three 4' & one 3'.

CapeCoddess wrote:I just priced it out and it's now $9 per trellis. Dang that inflation!
  but I buy in bulk -
Three 10 ft conduits at 2.81 a piece = two 5s, two 6s, two 4s = 2 trellises = one 5' X 4' & one 6'x 4'
2 pvc elbow connectors, Barbed = 1.21 ea
 netting  15 ft at $7= three 4' & one 3'.

It's just not fair.  Wow are we getting ripped off up here.  

CapeCoddess wrote:I just priced it out and it's now $9 per trellis. Dang that inflation!
  but I buy in bulk -
Three 10 ft conduits at 2.81 a piece = two 5s, two 6s, two 4s = 2 trellises = one 5' X 4' & one 6'x 4'
2 pvc elbow connectors, Barbed = 1.21 ea
 netting  15 ft at $7= three 4' & one 3'.

Well I had no idea they could be made that inexpensively.  Are those mentioned above 4' wide or 4' tall. I just don't think that even 5' tall would be tall enough.  I'm figuring needing this height based on the fact that I have a determinate plant right now who's main stem is over 6' tall. ( the others are more like 5')  Maybe because of the climate down here.  I'm just thinking the indeterminates will be even taller.  Although I guess at if it's 7$ for 4' x 15' I could have two at 7.5' tall.  That wouldn't be a bad price.  See if I could make 4 of 4' x 7.5' for like $50 , that would be great. I was just figuring $100.  You do need to factor in rebar 4' (x8) and then 16 "u" clips to secure them to the bed as well. At 7.5' tall, I would need ten 10' conduits, which would also increase the cost.  How tall do your indeterminates main stem usually get?

What I'm still trying to learn is to PAY ATTENTION! One of my melons "went off the reservation" and got on plain dirt instead of the wood chips it was born on. Now it's rotten on one side.  If I had been checking/turning/moving all of those guys every few days, I would not have lost this baby.

You might want to carve that melon to get rid of any rotten sections.  Some of it may still be edible.

Please give Sienna a hug for me!

donnainzone5 wrote:You might want to carve that melon to get rid of any rotten sections.  Some of it may still be edible.

Please give Sienna a hug for me!

Will do -- on both counts. Sienna is the sweetest kitty we've ever had and she loves the garden.

I think we need a Sienna fix with a photo in the Garden Kitty thread.

I learned that late cukes, peppers, etc. are smaller than the ones that mature before it gets cold. I left them out too long, waiting for them to get bigger. The cukes got sour and the pattypan rotted on the vine. Next year I'll pick sooner, even if the fruits are only half the size they should be.

I learned that plants -- like animals -- can take the cold much better than they take the heat. OTOH, our hot weather is much more extreme than our cold weather, but now I know I can push the envelope way more in the winter than I can in the summer in our climate.

I agree. CA winter weather is mild; summer is brutal.

I have learned so many things as time goes on, but here are three that I learned this past year that will make an impact on how I garden moving forward:
1. I can plant tomatoes WAY earlier than my last frost date, if I start them in those wall-o-waters to protect them early.  This has several advantages.  I get them established earlier so I can get larger fruited tomatoes than I could normally expect in my zone, which gets hot fast and stays hot longer.  I can put my tomato starts out in mid-February and get a nice crop of tomatoes by about June.   The wall-o-waters also do a terrific job protecting my babies from the high winds of the spring (it's not an aberration, EVERY spring is super windy!), and they SAVED my crop last year from a horrible hail storm that took out the roof of our house!!!  Two WOWs (out of 9) were destroyed in that hail storm but I didn't lose a single tomato plant! (Caveat: I don't bother starting cherry or other small tomatoes early - they'll happily grow all summer long so I can get my tomato fix and stagger my plant out)
2. Tomato plants really DO respond well if given more room and appropriate support.  I made a PVC watering grid especially for tomato plants last year, with each square being 2 x 2 instead of 1 sf, so I only had 8 plants in my 4 x 8 bed instead of the 10-12 I would have squeezed in there in years past.  I also bit the bullet and bought Texas Tomato Cages, which are SUPER EXPENSIVE but, for me, worth every penny.  I have tried so many other staking methods and none of them compared to the TTC.  I got a major bounty of fruit from every plant in that bed, and they were delicious and beautiful.  I stuck some other tomatoes in other beds where I had some space, and they did not produce as well - they had both a smaller space and much weaker support that gave out once the plants got big, so I can't exactly tell if one factor (space or support) is MORE important, but my conclusion is  I'll be ordering another set of TTC this year so I can have even MORE wonderful tomatoes.
3. This last one I haven't learned personally, but I'm going to try it based on a friend's garden experience this year.  I live in an area that squash bugs and SVBs LOVE.  I have never been able to grow what I would consider even a 'good' crop of any sort of squash.  EVER.  In about 10+ years of trying.  I consider it a personal failure.  Well, I was talking to this lady about gardening, and she had just started to garden this summer.  She was worried because she got a late start this year and didn't plant anything until late August.  The only thing producing for her was squash.  An abundance of squash, more than her family could eat!  I was astounded . . . how could this gardening neophyte have an abundance of my one great failure???  Folks, I seriously pondered this question for DAYS.  I have formulated this theory: by the time she planted in late August, the squash bugs and SVBs were GONE.  So, this year I'm going to do my regular garden all spring/summer and then WAIT.  After I get back from vacation and the kids are back in school and I've usually lost my excitement for the garden, I'm going to plant some squash.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll have outwaited those @#$%^&* bugs and I'll get me some squash too.
So that's what I've learned in 2017.
Karla

Great post, Karla.

Karla, Delaying planting may be the key. Let the critters finish their cycle before planting their food.

Karla, delaying definately works! The New England folks off Cape can do it, but my season is too cool and windy compared to theirs so last year I grew squash for the first time under the hoop tunnel with netting, from the ANSFG book. AND I GOT SOME! A first for me!

Good luck! I'll bet it works perfectly for you.

CC

kamigh, you nailed it!

Early spring is a bad joke! The days are still short and there will still be cold nights. My garden hasn't done a thing, even with over a month of beautiful, warm, sunshiny days.    Next year I'll wait until March no matter what it looks like outside. 

countrynaturals wrote:Early spring is a bad joke! The days are still short and there will still be cold nights. My garden hasn't done a thing, even with over a month of beautiful, warm, sunshiny days.    Next year I'll wait until March no matter what it looks like outside. 

Yep.  I lived this last Spring.  I use “Spring” loosely...20 degree nights, stupid cookie cutter cloches on the spinach.  Then they literally bolted as soon as a few true leaves formed  .  Lost all Romanesco broccoli (or cauli, depends who you talk to).  And the SVBs found my SFG...I am gonna try Karla’s tactic and outwait them.

Scorpio Rising wrote:

countrynaturals wrote:Early spring is a bad joke! The days are still short and there will still be cold nights. My garden hasn't done a thing, even with over a month of beautiful, warm, sunshiny days.    Next year I'll wait until March no matter what it looks like outside. 

Yep.  I lived this last Spring.  I use “Spring” loosely...20 degree nights, stupid cookie cutter cloches on the spinach.  Then they literally bolted as soon as a few true leaves formed  .  Lost all Romanesco broccoli (or cauli, depends who you talk to).  And the SVBs found my SFG...I am gonna try Karla’s tactic and outwait them.

So now there are 3 of us in this Learn-it-all-the-hard-way club.  

countrynaturals wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote:

countrynaturals wrote:Early spring is a bad joke! The days are still short and there will still be cold nights. My garden hasn't done a thing, even with over a month of beautiful, warm, sunshiny days.    Next year I'll wait until March no matter what it looks like outside. 

Yep.  I lived this last Spring.  I use “Spring” loosely...20 degree nights, stupid cookie cutter cloches on the spinach.  Then they literally bolted as soon as a few true leaves formed  .  Lost all Romanesco broccoli (or cauli, depends who you talk to).  And the SVBs found my SFG...I am gonna try Karla’s tactic and outwait them.

So now there are 3 of us in this Learn-it-all-the-hard-way club.  

Oh my dear!  I am a card-carrying member of that club!  LOL!

I just learned a sad lesson the hard way. I have a big double box that used to be for horse feed. Last year I planted sweet potatoes in it, but the deer ate them, so there's no point planting anything else in there. I've been using it to make dirt.   The idea works fine, and I was thrilled with the worm action, but then the weather dried out and so did the boxes. When I pulled out the last of the soil in one side, I found a dead worm. Stupid me never thought to keep it moist for the worms. Now I feel terrible.

I learned that every year is different. My first 2 years, I had beautiful pest-free kale and peas. I just naturally assumed it would be the same this year, so I wasn't paying attention. Both crops were decimated by pests when I wasn't looking. Now I'm starting over with kale. It's too late for the peas, so I'm replacing them with beans.

My theory is that it was such an unusually wet winter and spring that we're having a bumper year for bugs. During the drought and the first year after, we enjoyed virtually pest-free gardening. I'll keep a journal and see what happens next year.

The rain may have contributed. Are you all set for the rain?

sanderson wrote:The rain may have contributed.  Are you all set for the rain?

All set and the rain is here. The temps have also dropped 20 degrees. It will be like this for another 8 days. Our only concern is that it will grow us another crop of grass and weeds around the house. We've already paid $500 to have it all whacked, which normally lasts until next year. We don't need that expense again.

All this rain is also a concern for fire season. We aren't the only ones who had already prepared and could now have those preps undermined by Mother Nature. We love this last gasp of spring, but it could prove dangerous.

Oh, no!

Take mugshots of seedlings before they leave home, so they can be identified later on if they get lost in the garden.