What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[turbo]

We grow cherry tomatoes, too. This year's variety is called Sweet 100, IIR. It's nice to go out and just pop a few tomatoes in your mouth while you're weeding, tying up vines, etc. We're going to bag and freeze a bunch of them this year because we love them in stir-fry dishes and the ones from the store taste only marginally better than the packaging they come in. As an experiment, we have planted our tomatoes closely together in wide rows this year (like a hedge) instead of a foot or two apart like usual. Another thing we're going to do this year is freeze our string beans unwashed and whole in small batches, so they freeze very quickly to preserve the flavor and texture (slow freezing=big ice crystals=soft vegetables). As we take them out of the freezer next winter, we'll wash them and snap or cut them to size.

 

[Astronuc]

The strawberries are ripening. The blueberries are just starting to form.

And the raspberries and cultivated blackberries are just starting to flower.

We also have some wild blackberries at the back of the property. They tend to be smaller, and a bit tart. They are also the brambles with tiny sharp thorns on the runners.

The lettuce heads are huge, and the garlic seems to be doing well.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The algae is blooming here.

 

[turbo]

Our apple trees seem to have been well-pollented this year. I'm going to try to spray them regularly with Canola oil and water to suffocate the bugs without killing beneficial insects. Maybe we'll get some good apples this year.

 

[turbo]

Here is our garden as seen just an hour ago. I just finished spending most of today hoeing and raking to control weeds. We bought our pepper plants and tomato plants from greenhouses (no room to start them here, and their maturation rates are too slow to allow full harvest from sown seeds). Recently, the rainfall has been spectacularly variable and the nights have often been so cold that the soil temperature cannot get to the point where seeds can germinate effectively. The garden is doing OK, though, in part because I have extended last year's experiment of hoeing up wide raised beds and planting densely in those beds (plants can always be thinned). We had an atypical monsoon season last summer, and lots of neighbors lost a lot of produce, but our vegetables seemed to survive pretty well in their raised beds. I can always supply extra water in a drought, but it is impossible to remove water from the soil when you get a couple of weeks of torrential rains almost daily.

 

[Astronuc]

Very nice Turbo!

We just had a couple evenings of rain which will help the berries growing. I planted hot peppers a couple of weeks ago, and the rain is very welcome. My wife's lettuce plants are huge, but they are not as sweet now as they were earlier in the season.

It is rather cool this evening 56°F (13.3°C).

 

[turbo]

I'm hoping that we transition into our normal summer pattern, when the soil can warm up and the plants can take up nutrients quickly and my daily tending can fall back to weeding and keeping the moisture content optimal. When we bought this place a couple of years back, the previous owner touted this "garden" spot pretty heavily. It was all clay and rocks and he had over-limed it and routinely flogged the plants with Miracle-Gro to get any vegetables out of it. Over the last couple of years, I have tilled in at least a ton of organic materials (peat moss and composted cow manure, mostly, with admixtures of other organic fertilizers, elemental sulfur, etc) to try to make this crap resemble soil. It's coming around, but I anticipate a few more years of work before this plot will yield the vegetables that the garden-plot at my parents' place would produce. Still, last year's produce is keeping us in food out of our two chest-freezers, and I expect this year will be better. It's really nice to go to the freezers to pick out some food for future meals instead of paying some supermarket for some imported stuff full of pesticides and e Coli or other problems.

 

[Astronuc]

I do agree that it nice to pick fresh produce from one's garden and not from the supermarket. Our strawberries and tomatos are much better (sweeter) than anything from the store.

 

[turbo]

I do agree that it nice to pick fresh produce from one's garden and not from the supermarket. Our strawberries and tomatos are much better (sweeter) than anything from the store.

And we are learning ways to freeze food that preserves their flavor and texture as much as possible, so the food will still be better than store-bought, even in the dead of winter. Our cellar is cold and dry enough to allow us to store winter squash at least until February (when we ran out last year) so we've planted extra this year, and I will trellis them when they start to vine, to try to maximize the yield.

 

[Art]

Anybody know when and how you should prune grapevines? I planted a couple in my cold greenhouse last year and they are growing like mad.

 

[turbo]

You might want to Google search for a primer on this. I let mine grow wild with no pruning and they seem to produce just fine, even though I have to climb ladders to pick them from vines that have climbed into the trees. My neighbor trellises his vines and prunes them quite aggressively. Grapes like a lot of sun, and since we are so far north, he keeps the trees cut back so they won't shade the grapes, and he prunes the vines so that each one only has four "arms" - two about half-way up the trellis, and two at the top. Luckily, we got some nice sunny days in the fall and freezing weather held off until my grapes ripened and got sweet enough to eat. Needless to say, his grapes sweeten off faster than mine and they end up with a higher sugar content at harvest.

 

[Art]

Thanks Turbo

I had already looked at google but didn't find any easy to follow directions in the first few links I clicked on. Most seemed to presume a lot of prior knowledge whereas I'm a complete newbie when it comes to grapes.

Do you know when your neighbour prunes his? Straight after harvesting or after all the leaves have died?

Btw what would be a typical yield per vine?

 

[turbo]

I should have known that you'd Google, sorry about that. The best time to prune them is when the plants are dormant - during late winter to early spring, in the same time-frame when apple trees are pruned. I'm not sure what kind of yield to expect - last year is the first time we harvested grapes and the vines are huge tangle. I have not asked my neighbor about yield, but if I recall, there were probably 8-10 bunches on each of the leaders off the main vine, so 30-40 bunches or maybe 60-80#/vine might not be out of line.

This is all pretty rough, understand. I'm working to get my garden spot optimized and improve the yields of my wild berry patches, so I haven't spent any time learning about tending the grapes. I just watch them and taste them until they're ready. I may cut down the shading trees and build trellises some day, but that's pretty low on my priority list for now. The grapes would be perfect for wine-making because the purple skins are quite astringent, even though the green flesh is sweet. I juiced a bunch of them and froze the juice, and have juiced some of our frozen wild blackberries to combine with the grape juice - they are VERY good together and that mix goes well with some cider, with or without a little seltzer to punch it up.

 

[Astronuc]

Our blueberries are ripening and the bushes are laden. The blackberries and raspberries recently fruited, but are still green, and we still have flowers. My blackberries probably have over 3 dozen new canes. This year I surrounded them with mesh so the dear don't eat them.

Strawberry season is over, but there are a few late ones.

The garlic is doing well, and the first crop of lettuce is harversted.

Tomatos and hot peppers are coming along slowly.

And something - I think deer - keeps eating the rhubarb leaves. I'll have to place some netting around them.

Probably should have called the thread - The Farm Report.

 

[turbo]

Here is a picture of the garden from yesterday. I amended the soil with a whole truck-load of peat moss last fall and 400# of composted cow manure this year. Unfortunately, I misjudged the acidity of the peat moss and ended up with a low enough pH that some plants (peppers, tomatoes) initially did not thrive. I added lime and tilled that in, and now have 6.5 pH so the plants can more easily absorb nutrients, and they're looking lots better. I have 3 varieties of hot peppers this year, including lipsticks, jalapenos, and LOTS of habaneros - the salsas and canned hot peppers we put up last year are still holding out, except that wonderful batch of hot green tomato salsa, that I liked to put on about everything.

Just like last year, I hoed the soil up into wide beds so I have room to run the Horse between rows without wasting too much space. An added benefit is that if we get lots of rain, the plants won't be damaged by standing water. We had a couple of weeks of monsoon-like storms last summer that badly damaged my neighbor's garden and mine stayed in good shape.

Blackberries and raspberries have fruited and the blossoms are off. My apple trees seem to be doing well and are relatively free of pests. After every significant rainfall, I spray them with canola oil to smother bugs and their eggs, and it seems to work so far. Most all of the apples are free from signs of insect infestation. I hope this works well. Several people are keeping in touch with me about this, hoping to improve yields without insecticides, and I hope to help them make the switch.

 

[Astronuc]

Nice little spread Turbo.

I have to remember what hot peppers I planted - certainly habaneros, something like Hot Portugal or what. I am hoping some turn out superhot.

 

[turbo]

Thanks, Astronuc. I've pretty much got the garden spot up to snuff, now. The last owner simply put stuff in the muddy/clay soil and flogged them with lime and Miracle Gro. No wonder his garden looked like hell. This is our third year in this garden, and my wife remarks on how much easier it is to weed, now that the organics content is up where it ought to be. I can't get down on my knees to hand-weed because of the arthritis and missing cartilage in my knees, so she weeds around the plants and I weed every thing else (between rows and on the sides of the raised beds) with a scuffle hoe. If you don't have one of these in your arsenal, you should get one - you'll be glad you did.

Our really hot habaneros are Red Carribeans, and we're using a lot more of the canned ones than we had expected. They really light up a sandwich and are great for chile, spaghetti sauces, stir-fries, etc. They have a sneaky kind of heat with a little delay before you notice that your scalp is sweating profusely. I'm hoping for a bumper crop this year, so I won't have to ration them. I'm also going to keep an eye on people who are cleaning out their gardens this fall, so I can scrounge any green tomatoes they might want to dispose of. The green tomato salsa we made last year is fantastic on cheeseburgers, quesadilas, and about any kind of sandwich.

 

[Astronuc]

It's blueberry and raspberry season in the backyard. Normally it begins late June, but this year due to cooler nights, the season started this week.

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5716/blueberries1005890bw3.jpg

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5408/raspberries1005895qo8.jpg

 

[turbo]

Nice, Astonuc. My wife got a small bucket of roots and canes of raspberries from a co-worker last year and I planted them down back. They are doing well, though the canes are quite heavy for raspberries, and the berries are larger than the wild ones, with a flavor that is nowhere near as intense. The wild berries seem to be on track for a good year - especially the blackberries, since they flowered during a warm spell and seem to have fruited nicely, with good pollination. The great thing about wild blackberries is that they mature over a very long period, unlike strawberries, raspberries, and to a slightly lesser extent blueberries. If you get a stretch of bad weather or inconvenient circumstances when those berries ripen off, tough luck. At least the blackberries give you a good long time to pick them and scope out the upcoming hot spots. While they are ripening (a period of several weeks at least) I can easily pick a gallon a day in a few hours without getting out of earshot of my house.

This year, I planted a couple of clumps each of peppermint and spearmint near the western tree-line where the grapes grow. There are times (especially in the long cold winters) when I want a nice hot tea with no caffeine, and peppermint is tops, but the price for the good stuff is ridiculous. Hopefully, I can manage to develop a healthy patch of each that matures nicely with lots of aromatic oils.

 

[Astronuc]

I have brambles (creepers) with small and very seedy blackberries at the top of our property. The blackberries are very tangy.

I need to have an open deer season in my backyard, because they are now eating plants that they are not supposed to eat. They ate my wife's lillies. They ate the first year raspberry canes, and even the rhubarb, which is supposed to be toxic (oxalic acid).

We put mesh around the blackberries and as a result, we have about 4 dozen new canes. Otherwise the deer would have eaten them.

 

[Evo]

Here is a picture of the garden from yesterday. I amended the soil with a whole truck-load of peat moss last fall and 400# of composted cow manure this year. Unfortunately, I misjudged the acidity of the peat moss and ended up with a low enough pH that some plants (peppers, tomatoes) initially did not thrive. I added lime and tilled that in, and now have 6.5 pH so the plants can more easily absorb nutrients, and they're looking lots better. I have 3 varieties of hot peppers this year, including lipsticks, jalapenos, and LOTS of habaneros - the salsas and canned hot peppers we put up last year are still holding out, except that wonderful batch of hot green tomato salsa, that I liked to put on about everything.

Just like last year, I hoed the soil up into wide beds so I have room to run the Horse between rows without wasting too much space. An added benefit is that if we get lots of rain, the plants won't be damaged by standing water. We had a couple of weeks of monsoon-like storms last summer that badly damaged my neighbor's garden and mine stayed in good shape.

Blackberries and raspberries have fruited and the blossoms are off. My apple trees seem to be doing well and are relatively free of pests. After every significant rainfall, I spray them with canola oil to smother bugs and their eggs, and it seems to work so far. Most all of the apples are free from signs of insect infestation. I hope this works well. Several people are keeping in touch with me about this, hoping to improve yields without insecticides, and I hope to help them make the switch.

Very nice turbo!

Is my place in the basement ready?

 

[turbo]

I have brambles (creepers) with small and very seedy blackberries at the top of our property. The blackberries are very tangy.

I need to have an open deer season in my backyard, because they are now eating plants that they are not supposed to eat. They ate my wife's lillies. They ate the first year raspberry canes, and even the rhubarb, which is supposed to be toxic (oxalic acid).

We put mesh around the blackberries and as a result, we have about 4 dozen new canes. Otherwise the deer would have eaten them.

One word: Silencer.

Edit - Two words: Silencer, venison.

Edit2 - Silencer, venison garnished with blackberry sauce.

 

[turbo]

Since my wife went on vacation last weekend, we have made a concerted effort to get the garden weed-free. I have been running multiple nutrient/pH tests and have been amending the soil with organic nutrients to suit. So after a couple of days with showers (sometimes punishing, but no hail, thankfully!) here is our garden:

We have a variety of hot peppers that seems to want to grow the fruit vertically, and they are doing well.

And the Swiss chard is taking off like crazy.

Along the herb garden, we have planted bee-balm to encourage the presence of pollinators, and it is about to flower, and is already showing color and throwing scent to attract the pollinators. This is a VERY sexy (to pollinators) plant!

Last but not least, lots of our apples are getting a blush on them. I have been spraying the trees with canola oil to suffocate bugs and their eggs and larvae and hope to get a nice harvest of high-quality fruit with no pesticide. This is not an easy thing when you are growing apples with large commercial orchards 5-20 miles away that are using lots of pesticides to get their crops out as cheaply as possible. It will come back to bite them, as the bugs get resistant to the chemicals, and hopefully, I can gain the upper hand with ecologically-neutral tactics.

 

[Evo]

I have no garden this year thanks to the freak frosts and cold, wet temperatures though June. I lost all of my pears, peaches and plums, my neighbor lost all of their apples. Everything else in everyone's garden is stunted and suffering from mold.

Some of the apple and pear trees around here look like they won't survive, some have died and these were BIG trees, just such a shame.

Your garden is beautiful turbo!

 

[turbo]

Your garden is beautiful turbo!

I wish I could move you into the basement and put you into service weeding, berry-picking, and gathering fire-wood. Unfortunately, I calculate that probability as slightly lower than the chance that I would let my wife move a Chippendale's model into the basement with the promise to regularly detail the car, the truck, my Harley (include the JD 318 tractor, the Polaris ATP, etc?), and "other stuff"(?).

 

[Evo]

I wish I could move you into the basement and put you into service weeding, berry-picking, and gathering fire-wood. Unfortunately, I calculate that probability as slightly lower than the chance that I would let my wife move a Chippendale's model into the basement with the promise to regularly detail the car, the truck, my Harley (include the JD 318 tractor, the Polaris ATP, etc?), and "other stuff"(?).

 

[turbo]

Perhaps we could arrange a local position for you as chambermaid/waitress at a snowmobile/fishing/ATV-oriented enterprise with occasional berry-picking/weeding/wood-splitting duties... You might work into the role much like the Monty Python banker who moves into lion-taming through chartered accountancy.

 

[Evo]

Perhaps we could arrange a local position for you as chambermaid/waitress at a snowmobile/fishing/ATV-oriented enterprise with occasional berry-picking/weeding/wood-splitting duties... You might work into the role much like the Monty Python banker who moves into lion-taming through chartered accountancy.

That would do.

Have you seen the tv show "men in trees"? I just saw it last night and what a great show, she blew the entire town's power out trying to blow dry her hair. The show was hilarious.

 

[Astronuc]

I have some just like that. I need to find my list.

I'll get some pics tomorrow.

 

[Math Is Hard]

That would do.

Have you seen the tv show "men in trees"? I just saw it last night and what a great show, she blew the entire town's power out trying to blow dry her hair. The show was hilarious.

I like that show. It reminds me a little bit of Northern Exposure, which I used to watch religiously. :!)

 

[NeoDevin]

Heh, just found this online, check it out.

http://toppertwo.tripod.com/pop_bottle_pots.htm

I made a couple, I planted some mint (don't know how well it will do, might be too wet) in one, and I'm trying to root a strawberry runner in the other. I think the strawberry should do better in one of these than in a regular pot. My only concern is that it might not be big enough for a strawberry plant. Oh well, only one way to find out.

Edit: I'm also eventually going to try to grow some hot peppers in one too, and see how well that will work.

 

[Astronuc]

My Hot Chili peppers

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/2646/hotpeppers1005902lb4.jpg


To the right are the habanero plants, and to the left are Thai hot in back, and in the fore just out of sight are Cayenne.

 

[turbo]

My Hot Chili peppers

To the right are the habanero plants, and to the left are Thai hot in back, and in the fore just out of sight are Cayenne.

So the ones standing up are Thai hots? My wife bought enough plants for a couple rows of habaneros/jalapenos, but then she bought a couple of flats of two other varieties - one is called Super Chili, and the other is the ones that stand straight up, and we don't have an ID on those.

 

[Astronuc]

The larger peppers standing are labeled as Hot Chili - which doesn't say much. The Thais are the shorter plants with dense foliage and flowers. They will be standing too apparently.

Here are some pics of the Thai plants. The Thais are the ones with the smaller leaves. In front (bottom of pic) are Cayenne, and to right are Hot Chili.

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/8636/thai1005906wd3.jpg

http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/6918/thai1005905rs7.jpg


I'll need to get a closeup of the Thai peppers once they get going. They are supposed to be red when ripe.

 

[Astronuc]

My two biggest blueberry plants have ripened fruit, and the berries on four others will ripen in the next two weeks or so.

The raspberries have been ripening durin the last two weeks, and I've collected about a gallon of raspberries.

The blackberries are just now ripening. Several are rather large - ~ 1 inch (2.5 cm)

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/5022/blackberries1005914rq9.jpg


The hot peppers are doing well, but a deer got its neck over the mesh and ate the tops of my cayenne pepper plants.


Someone I've known for a while recently retired and bought a farm/orchard. He grows cherries, apricots and peaches, which he sells at a local farmer's market. Two weeks ago I bought some fresh cherries and apricots. Yesterday, I bought some fresh apricots and peaches.

Breakfast this morning was oatmeal with fresh raspberries, blueberries and apricots.