Show me your gardening Progress

Donoroto said:
Depends. With a needle you can be sewing grass. Makes a skirt. :rolleyes:

Cabvage worms: I have had excellent results using BT (bacillus thurigensis), a completely nontoxic (to humans) bacteria that interrupts the worm's digestive cycle. Not sure Home depot sells it, but visit a garden center. It comes as both a dust or a liquid, both are effective.
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Home Depot does indeed have it, according to Bing.

I'll pass this on to the missus. She's the chemist and botanist. I'm just the dirt mover/processor. It's my job to produce compost and soil from this horrible clay that she can grow stuff in, and apply whatever pesticides she thinks is gonna keep the bugs and critters at bay. We tried a slightly larger garden a little farther from the house a few years ago, but the deer, squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks knew when stuff was ripe before we did, as well as the cabbage worms. We'd go out to pick what we thought was ready only to find out it wasn't there anymore. We tried some spray that smelled like 2 year old cat piss, which made the deer snort a little, but didn't faze them when the sweet potatoes got big enough for them to find. They ate EVERY SINGLE LEAF off the sweet potatoes.

My rampage with Sevin seems to have the cabbage worms on the run at the moment. But, it's mid growing season, so I fully expect them to come back with backups and with a vengeance. I'm just hoping we can get some greens in before they do. I tried Malathion last year, and the cabbage worms seemed to enjoy that stuff. Didn't seem to do anything to them. All it did was stink real bad, not something I want that close to my back door.

Strangely enough, we've had ZERO tomato worms or potato beetles. Now that I've said that .........
 
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They aren’t very big, but they’re sweet and relatively straight. I’m so glad to have gardening space, and a climate conducive to growing things.
 
things that grow and taste good are what make gardening great (when it works out!) :)
My chillis are struggling to get started this year (just starting to blossom) and the spring onions are waaaaaay behind, but the 'chard and lettuce have been giving us some greens and the strawberries are :cool:.
 
Getting some green beans and ’maters and cukes and eggplant. Had fresh beans and eggplant for dinner tonight with the missus’ youngest and DIL. Very proud of the DIL. She’s currently waiting on being picked up for field commission to E1 Ensign from 1st Class enlisted. Already passed all requirements, just waiting for a slot in OCS. It’s good see “that” generation doing well and growing up instead of waiting for the next handout.
 
Very interesting start this year for me.
Everything seed wize that I planted took forever to germinate.
Some things are struggling and others doing great.
My carrots never did germinate so I think they were just bird food.
I'm finally getting some spinach and soon I'll have peas.
Cucumbers are finally up as is the zucchini and some leeks.
Time will tell
 
Trialben said:
Harvested some Tumeric today and thought I'd dry it out in my dehydrator View attachment 25839
Gunna process this into some powder once it dries.

This way it'll last for longer than just storing it in a box.
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I should grow some, but I just don't like it.
That dehydrater is really working out for you Ben!
 
Trialben said:
Harvested some Tumeric today and thought I'd dry it out in my dehydrator View attachment 25839
Gunna process this into some powder once it dries.

This way it'll last for longer than just storing it in a box.
Click to expand...
Give that 20 minutes in Alabama, and it’ll be rehydrated. It’s currently 98F (37C) with a feels like temp of 112F (44.4C). I.E. HAF! If I sweat sitting still, most other humans melt. I just stop hurting from arthritis, especially after a applying appropriate lubricant (beer). Pretty sure we’re at that magic point where temperature and humidity are the same, which is usually a really bad thing. It’s hucking fot and humid! Even for a Suthun boy like me. Nary a wisp of a breeze. Me thinks Dog Days might be a little early this year, despite the wonderfully mild spring we had.
 
RoadRoach said:
Give that 20 minutes in Alabama, and it’ll be rehydrated. It’s currently 98F (37C) with a feels like temp of 112F (44.4C). I.E. HAF! If I sweat sitting still, most other humans melt. I just stop hurting from arthritis, especially after a applying appropriate lubricant (beer). Pretty sure we’re at that magic point where temperature and humidity are the same, which is usually a really bad thing. It’s hucking fot and humid! Even for a Suthun boy like me. Nary a wisp of a breeze. Me thinks Dog Days might be a little early this year, despite the wonderfully mild spring we had.
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Hard to like that, so I’ll just say hang in there.
The beauty of living within 60 miles of the Pacific Ocean, it almost always provides a cooling afternoon breeze. We’re supposed to be near 100F Tuesday and Wednesday, but with overnight lows 40-45F cooler. Will be seeking shade during daylight hours.
And on the subject of gardening, things are going great. We have a big crop of sweet onions, about 2/3 of our garlic crop is pulled and drying in the garage. Carrots are growing straighter, and we still have plenty of lettuce. Last night we harvested one of our eight potato plants, and our pair of tomato plants both have flowers and maturing fruit. Three different varieties of pepper are flowered and fruited. Centennial hops are climbing their training strings.
I have planted another round of seeds for spinach, carrots, arugula and Mesclun mix, hoping for late summer thru early fall harvest.
 
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Too hot for lettuce here now, but we had some pretty good heads this year. Our second rotation of broccoli is just now starting to bolt, so we should have a few clusters soon. Kale is still producing. A few red cabbages about the size of softballs now. Eggplants (2 plants) are putting out about 4 per week now. Our tomatoes grew nearly 8 feet tall before breaking over and making a tangled mess that's hard to find the tomatoes in. I've never seen tomatoes grow like that. The vines are HUGE. I put a 4 foot high trellis in when I planted them thinking that would be sufficient. Nope, not nearly. Just now getting some larger tomatoes and have been eating cherry and grape tomatoes for a few weeks now. We should be getting a few lemon cucumbers in a day or two and have plenty regular cukes already. Dug up the potatoes last week. Got about 10 pounds from 8 plants, so not too bad. Our little patch isn't big enough to cultivate deep enough for potatoes. We tried the growing bag thing last year, and only got a handful of marble sized spuds. I think we weren't watering those bags enough. Got several baseball sized spuds this year. Green beans (about 20 plants) are producing enough for a couple meals a week now. Blackeyes should start blooming this week. Carrots are still just tops. Sprouts are just a little bigger than my thumb now. ALMOST ready. Both bell pepper plants died. No idea why. Debating on replacing them where I dug up the spuds. Peppers are typically OK with the heat as long as it doesn't get too dry. The banana pepper ain't looking too good either, especially in the recent dry weather. The hot chili pepper is as fine a pepper plant as I have ever seen, despite me stepping on it (on accident) when it was less than half knee high. It's waist high to me now, and absolutely LOADED with hot peppers. I only grow peppers if someone asks me to. I simply don't care for peppers, hot or not. Our yellow onions wound up being too close to the sprouts and didn't get enough sun to grow properly. There might be a few onions in it, but not what we hoped for.

Got a few empty spots in the garden and raised beds now that I need to utilize, but this is the worst time of year to try to grow anything because of the heat, dry weather, and insects. Young plants don't stand a chance. So it's gotta be something bug resistant, and worthy of my time to grow it. We don't grow enough produce to do much freezing or canning, other than tomatoes and cucumbers. Our little patch just isn't big enough for that. But the missus put away at least 50 jars of various pickle recipes last year, and probably 20 jars of spaghetti sauce and as many jars of salsa. We've tried several squash varieties, but bloom-end rot takes them out. We both like squash, but I guess it's just not meant to be.
 
RoadRoach said:
Too hot for lettuce here now, but we had some pretty good heads this year. Our second rotation of broccoli is just now starting to bolt, so we should have a few clusters soon. Kale is still producing. A few red cabbages about the size of softballs now. Eggplants (2 plants) are putting out about 4 per week now. Our tomatoes grew nearly 8 feet tall before breaking over and making a tangled mess that's hard to find the tomatoes in. I've never seen tomatoes grow like that. The vines are HUGE. I put a 4 foot high trellis in when I planted them thinking that would be sufficient. Nope, not nearly. Just now getting some larger tomatoes and have been eating cherry and grape tomatoes for a few weeks now. We should be getting a few lemon cucumbers in a day or two and have plenty regular cukes already. Dug up the potatoes last week. Got about 10 pounds from 8 plants, so not too bad. Our little patch isn't big enough to cultivate deep enough for potatoes. We tried the growing bag thing last year, and only got a handful of marble sized spuds. I think we weren't watering those bags enough. Got several baseball sized spuds this year. Green beans (about 20 plants) are producing enough for a couple meals a week now. Blackeyes should start blooming this week. Carrots are still just tops. Sprouts are just a little bigger than my thumb now. ALMOST ready. Both bell pepper plants died. No idea why. Debating on replacing them where I dug up the spuds. Peppers are typically OK with the heat as long as it doesn't get too dry. The banana pepper ain't looking too good either, especially in the recent dry weather. The hot chili pepper is as fine a pepper plant as I have ever seen, despite me stepping on it (on accident) when it was less than half knee high. It's waist high to me now, and absolutely LOADED with hot peppers. I only grow peppers if someone asks me to. I simply don't care for peppers, hot or not. Our yellow onions wound up being too close to the sprouts and didn't get enough sun to grow properly. There might be a few onions in it, but not what we hoped for.

Got a few empty spots in the garden and raised beds now that I need to utilize, but this is the worst time of year to try to grow anything because of the heat, dry weather, and insects. Young plants don't stand a chance. So it's gotta be something bug resistant, and worthy of my time to grow it. We don't grow enough produce to do much freezing or canning, other than tomatoes and cucumbers. Our little patch just isn't big enough for that. But the missus put away at least 50 jars of various pickle recipes last year, and probably 20 jars of spaghetti sauce and as many jars of salsa. We've tried several squash varieties, but bloom-end rot takes them out. We both like squash, but I guess it's just not meant to be.
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Ever tried growing spuds in car tires stacked ontop of eachother fill them with dirt as you go?

I grew one potatoe once I rekon ten or more tires high. It didn't throw to many potatoes though I think similar to you not enough water.
But I was astonished how high it grew :)!

Hard to kill chillies I think you mighta had some nematodes check the roots when you pull them out they'll have large cankerous pea sized knots in the roots.

Sounds like you've got a lot going on in the garden.
 
Trialben said:
Ever tried growing spuds in car tires stacked ontop of eachother fill them with dirt as you go?

I grew one potatoe once I rekon ten or more tires high. It didn't throw to many potatoes though I think similar to you not enough water.
But I was astonished how high it grew :)!

Hard to kill chillies I think you mighta had some nematodes check the roots when you pull them out they'll have large cankerous pea sized knots in the roots.

Sounds like you've got a lot going on in the garden.
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I thought ‘todes too, but other than being completely dead, I really didn’t see anything that explains why it was dead. Normally, nematodes will also eat the bark/cambium layer at ground level. Wasn’t eaten, just dead. Weird. They were nearly 4 feet tall, then dead. Probably didn’t help when I broke a large branch off the plant, either. If ‘todes, why is everything else okay? ‘Todes aren’t very discriminatory when it comes to gardens. It’s less than 2 feet to tomato plants that grew 8 feet tall before they broke under their own weight. ‘Todes LOVE tomato plants.

They were so hydrated and crisp just two weeks ago, I pushed it a little too hard trying to get to the tomatoes it snapped right off. May have introduced some kinda bacteria or fungus. Gonna grab a couple more and try again. I put too much expensive fertilizer in the ground to let go to waste. Never mind the work I put into preparation of the soil.
 
Trialben said:
Check this post out from a few years ago RoadRoach
https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/threads/show-me-your-gardening-progress.9780/#post-95592

You Didn't pour your trub on them by any chance?
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Nope. I put spent grain in the compost heap, but trub generally gets washed down the kitchen drain if i don’t put it in a mason jar to jack up the next brew. If not, nope, it doesn’t go anywhere that a dog can get to it. Lotsa dogs in the’hood, and Makaila (my granddaughter) would never forgive me if my hobby harmed one. The compost hadn’t had anything put in it for 6 months,either. I have 2 heaps, one active, and the other ready to use. I put two loads in the garden this year and it’s the best garden we’ve had yet, barring the deceased bell peppers (capsicum) and invasion of radioactive insects from hell. We used a black light ‘torch’ to find the hornworms at night.
 
Donoroto said:
No pics yet, but I got the first of what will likely be thousands of zucchini today. And a radish. Woo. Hoo.

No pests yet, but that'll come.
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Think we got the hornworms and cabbage worms under control with less preferred methods (persistent Sevin applications). Got some new critters on the rhubarb, but the red wasps seem to be willing to help me have a rhubarb/ apple pie this fall. I’m normally intolerant of the bugs from hell, but if they’re eating bugs that are eating my goodies, and leaving me alone otherwise, I won’t immediately condemn them to the depths they come from. Watched 3 wasps grab a ’pillar and fly away. Operative word being ’away’. They get a pass if they’re hauling off another bug I want less than wasps. But only one pass, unless they have another pest in their clutches. Did I mention how much I don’t like wasps?
 
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