2011 Garden Pics

I wonder if fairy tale eggplant are as thirsty? I love them but haven't had success growing them so far.

Dahlia

All eggplants are thirsty. Heavy feeders too. worse than tomatoes.

A thing of beauty Carolyn !

Great to see you around again. Always love your garden pics. I know you must be super busy but do try to hang out with us lots again this year. The new crop of SFG'ners will learn so much from your endeavors.

Cheers

shhhhhh....this is the corn.....shhhhhh

Thanks everybody....
staf74....I don't remember you ....have we met yet? I have a bad memory when it comes to names and faces.


yall dont pay no mind to those rock pebbles in the sfg beds.....it will be ok. It got mixed into the compost.

last one for now.

in this pic,,,, the rosemary and vinca that was huge in one of the first few pics are young in this pic. Same year. I promise.

Carolyn, so good to see you back!
Great pictures, thank you so much for sharing. That purple cauliflower was beautiful.
Tomatoes look like they did well for you this year. Hope it was profitable.
Take care and keep us posted.

You have a beautiful garden. Thanks for sharing the great pictures.

Stunning pictures. Gardening heaven. Wow.
I am curious, is everything nutritionally supported by compost?
If so, your compost operation must be tremendous. Any pictures of that?

I'm a newbie...you're an inspiration. Thank you so much !

staf74....I don't remember you ....have we met yet? I have a bad memory when it comes to names and faces.

I've commented on a couple of your threads before. I have drooled over your greenhouse and admired you from afar hehe

compost= there is a secret about rabbit and goat manure. by nature it does not have to be composted. It is safe to add directly to your garden soil and plant right away. Also safe enough to use it as a top dressing on long season veggie plants.
The only time I actually compost is when I want to compost leaves and chicken manure.
and I use The Trash Can method. In the fall I use a shredder mulcher to chop the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower stalks and add them back into the beds and let it compost in the soil over winter and early spring. All is compost ==I just take short cuts.
And I like to water in Fish Emulsion every now and then. Sometimes I add Cotton Seed meal to the bed to give it a boost of organic nitrogen which can also be used in the compost trash can to speed things up.

This is a 2ft x 8ft table top garden 12 inches deep. I like these for carrots. I actually grew squash in this one during spring and early summer. Then I cleaned it up and added bone mean and cotton seed meal and some compost.........thats it.
I haven't done anything else with it since then. Except grow turnip greens and a few red cabbage.

The carrot squares get a little compost= or just rabbit manure= some cotton seed meal, and lots of bone meal which is good for root crops. More root , less green tops.

picked a couple days ago and still have at least 40 more to pull. I pull them up when I think they are the size i want.

some of the carrots actually grew deeper than the 10 inches of soil they were in and grew out to the side at the bottom and looked like L carrots.

Here is another trick. If I don't have enough rabbit manure on hand, I buy a bag of commerical compost manure and mix my rabbit and or goat manure in with it and then refresh my sqaure. It's pretty simple.

I grew potatoes too but I can't find the pictures==or maybe i didnt save the pictures....Anyway= I added leaves, chopped pine needles, some compost, bone meal and cotton seed meal to the raised block bed and planted potatoes. wala===had alot of taters.

Here it is......April 11th.

Russet and Red Potatoes.

I cheat on heavy feeding veggie plants. I am not going to walk away from a beautiful plant when I know that its organic nutrient supply is running out. You betcha bottom boots I will give it a dose of commercial fertilizer to carry it to the end of its production.
I'd be a lyer if I said I don't and also miss leading.

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious!!! Such an incredibly beautiful garden to aspire to...but not until after I master the first wee one this Spring...Summer...and Fall!!!

I was using a Compost Tumbler for a long time but It's too big for me and my liking and I switched to trash can composter .... My sister wants to use my compost tumbler and I think I should talk her out of that idea.
The trash can just made things easier==cause i already collected leaves and manure and other used container soils in the plastic trash cans---so why not make it a composter.

Carolyn,

I was using a Compost Tumbler for a long time

Did you get good compost out of the tumblers? How fast on average did they breakdown material?

I use both hot and cold heaps but on soil and turn the old fashioned way.

FamilyGardening wrote:wow

love the pics!

how did/does that purple cauliflower taste?....does it turn green after cooking?....it looks so pretty....can you eat it raw with dip?......my kids would flip ......im thinking of planting a few in the garden this spring

hugs

rose

If you put the purple cauli or purple broccoli in a lidded glass heat proof dish with an couple of egg cups of water and microwave it till still crunchy it tends to keep its colour , if you microwave it fro longer til quite soft it tends to lose colour where it is in the water .

Carolyn,
Thanks for the astounding garden pictures .. I'm not envious of your climate HONEST !
Thanks for being honest about feeding your plants , feeding your plants like you do turns a fantastic crop into an amazing crop when you have the basics in place .

David

urrr. i came in earlier....tried to post and it said i was suspicious and blocked.....i freaked out of course....tried to do a few other things on the internet and realized that flash player had updated and crashed....so i had to drag out the desk top....Now i am anxious to post and see i am still blocked.