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Weedinhoe's 2016 & Beyond Garden

314K views 4K replies 79 participants last post by  Weedinhoe 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hello! I am a Georgia veggie gardener and, weather permitting, try to have something going in the garden all year long. I don't have enough space to put up masses of any one thing because I grow a lot of different stuff so the aim is to put up what I can and eat seasonally and fresh.

When I retired five years ago I decided to convert the whole garden to 4'x18' raised beds using 2x8's and lengths of 1/2" PVC pipe around the bed perimeters as stakes to hold the sides and end pieces upright. That will allow me to disassemble and move the beds to another location quickly should the need arise. It's also handy in that I can just remove the end pieces, run the tiller through the beds and then replace the end pieces.

Since I am located on a road and the garden is visible from the road, the plan is to move the beds to the back of the property behind the woods if the SHTF. There's a creek back there for water and a pond uphill from which I can siphon water through hoses.

Here are some shots of my garden.

This pic is from last year but is pretty much what the garden looks like right now:


This is the south side of the garden as viewed from the top of the garden:


And this is a view from the other side:


And finally, this is a view from the bottom of the garden:
 
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#1,970 ·
Here's the final hoop and cover thing:





The project was a bust. I had left 6" from the soil to the cover on each side but it wasn't enough for air flow. I also stuck an outdoor thermometer under there and it's a good thing. Two hours later I checked and it was 120 degrees under there! Off the cover came in a heartbeat! However, the set up can probably be used with plastic in the late fall/winter for protection of smallish things like lettuces, radishes and newly seeded this and thats.

On the other hand the tomato effort worked. 5th Gear helped me get the 50% shade cloth stretched along the sunny side of the tomatoes but at 1:00 the sun was hot and still right over head so nothing got shaded. 3:00 wasn't much better. The cloth was wide enough that we were able to raise it so that it hung down to the tops of the buckets, not the ground. That gave some excess, allowing us to drape that over the top of the sunny side cages a little. It was enough to throw a little shade the other side but not enough. Got figure something for over the top. Maybe old bed sheets I have in the shed.



This is the view from the shady side:



Right now the cloth is attached to the cages with clothespins but that will have to change as the plants get bigger and start growing through the cage sides. Wind usually blows from the sunny side and so will push the cloth against the cages.

This will have to do for now. I still might do a version of something I did years ago with lightweight white row cover only use the shade cloth this time. It was 2012 in the sweet days before bacterial wilt and nematodes. We were going though a hellacious summer with streaks of upper 90's-low 100's. You do what you gotta do! Funny what you can do with sticks and old cheap tennis balls. :lol:



 
#1,971 ·
Turning from infrastructure back to plants, the only thing being grown indoors now (except for a few miscellaneous herb/flower starts) are 5th Gear’s lettuces. Little Gem and Little Caesar romaines. They were out on the porch table until this heat started so they are now happy doing their thing inside in a nice cool, bug-free environment. Good in salads and possibly another plant for winter indoor growing.



Outdoors the rhubarb experiment continues. They’re hanging in there but not thriving. We’ll see if they make it through the hot summer. They get shade after 3:30.



The sweet potato row is progressing and those little slips are bushing out. I re-mulched yesterday.



They’re starting to run and one of those was able to reach the first wire so I helped it since sweets can’t climb on their own.



The bush beans have recovered and have really pushed up in the last several days. This morning I want to run baling twine down both sides of each row while they’re young. It really helps with the picking later as the twine keeps the plants from flopping over. Nice upright plants to pick from!



And finally, the first daylily has popped open, a nice 5” wide one. I give you ‘Caprician Fiesta’…

 
#1,972 ·
The peas are almost done; for sure one of the two beds is toast so plants have been pulled and trellis dismantled. There might be one or two more pickings on the good bed. The total harvest will be way short of the usual as that one bed just didn't thrive and I can't blame nematodes. The only nodules on the roots were nitrogen fixers, which don't rub off like nematode nodules do.

It's been very hot with a hot breeze so daily watering has been necessary even with all the mulch, particularly the tomato buckets. It's cooler today as a front has arrived bringing nice weather for the next week. I can hear the garden breathing a huge sigh of relief!

5th Gear has been working her way through excess veggies in the freezer from last year, making various veggie soups. She's tried some new ones including one with a southwest flair and that's a keeper.

During the hot afternoons this past week I've been starting plans for the fall garden. That included making a list of what we want to grow (not much different than last fall) and, after consulting the almanac, roughing out some planting and seed start dates.

Next will be figuring out bed rotation if necessary. I've been cheating a little by devoting a full growing year to plant families in a bed. For example, if legumes grew in a bed in the spring./summer, I will also plant fall legumes in that bed if necessary since I believe pest buildup over a just few months will be negligible. To do a complete rotation every six months just isn't feasible. So far no harm, no foul. Next to come will be a complete seed inventory.

There's always something to do!
 
#1,973 ·
And this is why our grandparents didn't worry about TV. There's always something going on and the person who can't find nothing to do, never did nothing! As my Aunt Lorraine of blessed memory used to say. Remember, our grands spent three seasons of the year getting ready for winter. Life was not geared so towards convenience back then.

Your garden looks great! Rhubarb grows up here like a weed. There's almost no need to buy any to plant, it's so plentiful. In fact I have a volunteer plant that showed up beneath my lilac tree, possibly from my neighbor's plant. I don't eat much of that but it's still nice to have.
 
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#1,974 ·
Rhubarb grows up here like a weed. There's almost no need to buy any to plant, it's so plentiful. In fact I have a volunteer plant that showed up beneath my lilac tree, possibly from my neighbor's plant. I don't eat much of that but it's still nice to have.
I have to say, Rhubarb is one vegetable I don't believe I have ever tried. Or, if I have, I do not remember it.
 
#1,975 ·
I dearly love rhubarb sauce on toast and rhubarb-strawberry pies my grandmother used to make from scratch. Oh, those were so good and she'd include a few jars of the rhubarb she put up in the Christmas box she'd send us. We'd dole that out carefully at breakfast to make it last!

The last grocery around here that carried rhubarb is now gone as of a few months ago, bought out by another chain that will be moving in. Even so, they didn't carry it for long and if you blinked, you missed the boat.

Hmmm, there's a big produce stand up in north GA on the way to Cherokee, NC. I wonder if they have or will have any. It would almost be worth a trip up to the casino in Cherokee (about a four hour drive) and wearing the required mask there if I could score some rhubarb along the way.
 
#1,977 ·
Oh man, it's deliciously cool out there this morning! The heat streak is over, at least for now. Mid 80's for the next ten days! No mid to upper 90's. Woo HOO! I can hear the garden breathing a sigh of relief. Now, if we can just get some rain. This was a pretty dry front that came through. No rain expected until mid week.

Time for a garden update. This is the north side of the garden. Muscadine grapes along the fence at the top. Those are purple coneflowers and daisies in the foreground.



This is the south side:



Thinking about the tomato shade cloth, I realized that with it hanging flat against the cages, it will prevent branches from the tomatoes from pushing out of the cages. The tomatoes need elbow room. So the idea came yesterday to fashion some "outriggers" to hold the cloth away from the cages. Just some poles with old tennis balls on to to protect the cloth, 8" outside the pallets. The wind was a bear yesterday, blowing all day and often gusting to 15-17 mph. It blew the shade cloth right against the cages and pushed the outrigger poles inward a bit. I need to fix that today but I think that in general the concept will work.





These are the tomatoes up by the house. This was taken at 4:15 and the shade is creeping in. That's ok as they've had sun all day and are now getting some relief. Perfect.



On the bottom end there are two kinds of eggplant, some dill and a bucket of zinnias.



Today we will dig the first few hills of Yukon Gold potatoes as those plants have died back and we will get to see what mysteries lie beneath! The rest of the plants aren't too far behind. The Red Pontiacs have shown just a few signs of slowing down but are still looking good. No digging those yet.
 
#1,978 ·
How sturdy is your cloth? Does it have grommets?

I think I'd be wanting to move the stakes out a couple feet and tie off to them hence the grommets question. Otherwise I'd be digging out some molding I have left over from remodeling and stapling it along the edges, then drill through that to give myself a sturdy place to tie.

Pretty fun watching somebody fight for shade though. I have parts of yard that don't see two full hours of sun a day.
 
#1,980 ·
How sturdy is your cloth? Does it have grommets?

I think I'd be wanting to move the stakes out a couple feet and tie off to them hence the grommets question. Otherwise I'd be digging out some molding I have left over from remodeling and stapling it along the edges, then drill through that to give myself a sturdy place to tie.
The cloth seems pretty sturdy, made of woven material that might be some kind of plastic. Lots of air flow through it. No, it doesn't have grommets. I see on their website that they do make the same with grommets but Santa brought the cloth (actually four packs) without. The package did include what they call "shark clips" which allow attachment of the cloth to a run of wire. I thought I only had one package of cloth but found three more behind some stuff in the garden shed.

 
#1,981 ·
The potatoes were planted 80 days ago. Yesterday morning we dug the first two Yukon Gold potato hills since two of eleven plants had just kind of kicked the bucket in two days. They have a 60-80 DTM so maybe it’s time to dig. We found fire ants in those two but still got some potatoes, about 3.5 lbs. Not a lot but better than nothing. Disappointing though as this is a spot where they did wonderfully three years ago. Two hills down, nine more to go, maybe iun another week since the plants are still ok.





On the other hand, the Red Pontiacs (80-100 DTM) are still looking good and not ready to dig yet.



About all of the Seneca Sunrise corn stalks are tasseling now and ear shoots have emerged. I would say the plants range from 4’ tall now.



So far I’ve found only one plant silking down near the bottom of the plant but that’s where the ear shoots are.



Meanwhile, yesterday I got the Silver Queen corn hilled and mulched. The plants are looking really good. There’s been no anti-wind string run around the bed yet but I’m watching the forecasts for any sign of bad storms. They're bound to happen but it's been a pretty dry entry into summer so far.



And finally, “stringed beans”. Two years ago I got tired of trying to pick beans from plants that had flopped towards the middle of the 4’ wide bed. And plants flopping to the outside of the bed were a pain to mow around. That’s when I started running baling twine down the inside and outside of the bush bean rows to hold them up. It sure is a big help and easy to pick! The plants aren’t quite big enough yet to need string support but it was a nice cool day and perfect for getting the job done ahead of time.

 
#1,984 ·
Slithers! Although they inhabit the woods down behind the house, fortunately I've yet to see one in the garden.

Now, are you saying that you're attaching cattle panels sideways to the t posts a foot off the ground? 5' to the top is within picking range. I have some 2x4" mesh welded wire cut in half horizontally to make 2' tall lengths that I tie to the bottom of the posts and then hang the 4' field fencing above that for added height,. And then come picking time I'm always vowing not to do that the next year when I can't reach the top beans! Not this year. :)

I've been thinking about cattle panels but I already have lengths of field fence cut to the length of the beds for upright stuff. But if that won't support that trombone squash I'm growing on that fencing this year, the alternative for next year (and/or other projects) is cattle panels. If you have to cut yours to size, do you use bolt cutters?
 
#1,986 ·
During last evening's garden stroll I noticed that all of a sudden things are taking off. There's that period when new plants grow slowly and you start wondering why. Then all of a sudden they seem to "catch" and move into their first growth spurt. And so it is with some stuff in the garden.

Squash plants are starting to grow faster. The cukes are now about 12" tall and in about a week they'll lay over and start running. The sweet potatoes and Blue Lake pole beans are vining. Last night I helped about six more sweet potato runners weave through the lowest part of their fence trellis. I told 5th Gear last night that this is the time of year in the garden when I hold my breath, waiting for the first bad thing to happen. This is that pre-disease, pre-insect pressure time. The "golden hour", so to speak, and it makes one wonder when the bubble will burst.

The cucurbits have now grown enough stem that I will start my next anti-squash vine borer experiment, which is the painting of stems with a thick kaolin clay slurry. The theory is that it will disguise the stems or at least protect them from the SVB larvae emerging from the soil. Of course, they can always crawl higher and above the application but then they or their damage will be more easily noticed and treated. Periodic apps of Bt dust above the clay would help with that. Hmmm, I just had a thought about including some bT dust into the slurry mix in case they try to gnaw their way through the clay.

Anyway, it's all something to putter with. "Inquiring minds want to know!"
 
#1,988 ·
Last evening I took the kaolin clay slurry I made to the garden and applied it to the stems of the Tahitian melon squash and to the straightneck yellow squash, making sure I got it painted on all the way to the bottom.The zucchini and spaghetti squash stems weren't long enough to really do yet. The slurry is the consistency of a soft putty but very paintable.





By the time I was done for the evening, the slurry had hardened up nicely. There's also some diatomasceous earth dusted around the stems. And ion the process of painting the straightneck, I discovered there's the first baby squash on the way. (y)
 
#1,991 ·
Yesterday I got the pea vines pulled out and found a few surprises. First, there was one small volunteer potato plant growing in there too. Attached to the roots were three little 1.5" taties. Must have missed one as potatoes grew in that bed last spring.



Then there were a bunch of purple coneflower plants hiding in the middle. I pulled out the little ones.



After the potatoes were pulled last spring I had grown the coneflowers from seed and planted them down the middle of that bed. Guess I didn't get all the roots dug out when I removed them this spring to plant peas. I will pot up the larger orphans and think about where to replant them when they're a bit bigger or give them away.



The corn tassels are starting to release their pollen. It's amazing how more silks keep appearing overnight where there were none the day before.



Another amazing thing is to see how fast the sweet potato vines grow in one day. I need to take some daily measurements just to see how fast. Every day I'm helping more get onto the trellis and directing those who are already climbing. They seem to want to grow horizontally towards the south. I'm directing them upwards but will probably give in to their desires!

 
#1,992 ·
RAIN, RAIN RAIN! We got 3.0" yesterday that came down in four separate downpours, enough to block the tv signal a few times. It's been at least three weeks since we got any on this property so this is a God-send as trees were starting to drop leaves. This morning there's not one puddle or standing water anywhere. The earth greedily sucked it up as fast as it came down. There's a chance of more hit-or-miss showers for the next few days.

I expect the garden will just explode with growth. All the hand watering in the world can't compete with good old natural rain. Now is the time to keep an eagle eye out for any kind of funk that thinks it can raise its ugly head. Wet leaves, cloudy days and the right temps make for perfect funk conditions.

Two days ago I pulled the Lorz Italian garlic as the tops looked ready and I could feel clove division around the bulbs. I laid them out on a big window screen I had bought at a yard sale for $1 and put the set-up on the side of the pole shed that usually stays dry. Well, you know the rain HAD to come from the other direction yesterday and soaked them good. This is about half of the garlic on the screen:



So this morning I rigged up a line of baling twine right down the middle of the pole shed up near the ceiling and clipped the garlic to it. Once it dries out a while I'll get those few dirty papers off the outside and trim the roots a bit before bundling them and hanging them in the shed to cure some more. That worked really well the last time.



Being new stock there were only 28 bulbs and most of those will be held back for fall replanting. There's still 3/4 of the planted garlic out in the garden but they're not ready to dig yet. That would be some Russian Inferno, Siberian, some mixed bulbs and five plants from one beautiful bulb I got in Walmart's grocery section and couldn't pass up buying. :)

It's too wet to play in the garden but there are some indoor things I can do. There are saved seeds to clean and put into envelopes. I've already assigned beds in general for next spring by figuring rotation and coding the beds as to plant families like legumes, etc. The fall garden planning is almost finished and needs just a few final touches like a good doublecheck to make sure anything planted in the fall that runs late into spring won't interfere with spring stuff that needs to go into those particular beds early, like peas. It's a good think I love jigsaw puzzles...

There's always something to do!
 
#1,993 ·
Always something to do and clothes pins are ever-handy! That's a very cool idea actually. And I know what you mean about getting your garlic rained on. I usually leave mine out on the deck for a few days to cure. Done that, been there. It happens.

I've cut a couple of scapes from mine so it'll likely be ready in another few weeks. I love fresh garlic!
 
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#1,995 ·
You grow blueberries? I’ve ordered some and have been reading about how to do it here. My reading says they like a hugely acidic environment, as in 4.5-5.5, and do better in a soil-less container medium than they do in the ground. If memory serves it’s a bog species so the pH makes sense. How do you grow yours?
 
#1,997 ·
The first couple I planted in a bed at the top of the garden really struggled for several years before dying. Last year I bought two more on sale and planted them outside the other end of the garden but not in an established bed. I will admit not checking soil pH in either location but the recent plants have really thrived and look very good. They are fertilized now and then with Miracle Grow acid formulation. I'll be buying two more at that same sale this fall.

They are 'Blue Suede', a southern highbush variety. We picked the first ones yesterday, 10 oz. There are still some more left to ripen but we got the majority.
 
#1,999 ·
There isn't much around that like walnut trees. Walnut trees emit a substance into the soil that kills everything around them. I think it's called juglone.

The variety I'm getting is called Chandler. Stark had it on sale with a reasonable shipping fee. And don't ask me why I bought a Meyer lemon! Other than lemonade. Citrus doesn't grow up here because of our subzero winters. You know that tree will be overwintering indoors!
 
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#2,002 ·
OK, we got 3" of rain yesterday. First rain in three weeks and it came down hard four separate times. How did the kaolin painted on the squash stems hold up? I went and checked this morning.

Unfortunately most of it was washed off except for where it was in a crease or depression on the stem or in a leaf axil. I thought that might happen but I was hoping it wouldn't. Heavy sigh, having hoped it would have been thick enough and hardened enough to not wash off.

I had a little success with SVB's last year by keeping the base of the plant powdered down with Sevin and making sure to reapply after a rain. I'm thinking I might try that on the yellow squash and use only DE on the zuke and see if there's any difference in deterrance.
 
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