Been January since anyone posted about their gardens. I did some prep work in mine yesterday. Its a bit of a mud hole in there right now but I leveled it off. This is the first time I’ve had my own garden and I am going to try cucumber, tomato, and rhubarb.
If you have limited room in your garden as I do Rhubarb can be planted anywhere in your yard as somewhat of a shrub so it doesn’t take up valuable garden space. I have two patches in my yard. They look good.
Full sun for the win.
I planted some spinach and lettuce in a few large pots yesterday–we’ll see what happens. I’ll need it to dry out a bit before I till things up.
If you have limited room in your garden as I do Rhubarb can be planted anywhere in your yard as somewhat of a shrub so it doesn’t take up valuable garden space. I have two patches in my yard.
I do have somewhat limited space. I have a 5 x 10 raised garden bed. The rhubarb was the wife’s idea.
Do the rabbits do a number on the rhubarb at all? The rabbits have been pretty savage here this winter. I am seeing the evidence of their damage now on all kinds of shrubbery.
i personally have had no issues with rabbits at rubarb. if your putting cukes at ground level……you need to protect them with something. the rabbits love them green shoots!!!!!1
Pretty sure I read somewhere that rhubarb is poisonous to rabbits and they know it and will leave it alone. Don’t know if true but they have touched mine yet.
I saw the heads of 14 shoots of asparagus coming up before it dumped snow on us Sunday. Snow should be gone enough when I get home to see if they are all still there.
I wish rabbits would eat my rhubarb. I hate it (but the wife and kids like it).
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
If you have limited room in your garden as I do Rhubarb can be planted anywhere in your yard as somewhat of a shrub so it doesn’t take up valuable garden space. I have two patches in my yard.I do have somewhat limited space. I have a 5 x 10 raised garden bed. The rhubarb was the wife’s idea.
Do the rabbits do a number on the rhubarb at all? The rabbits have been pretty savage here this winter. I am seeing the evidence of their damage now on all kinds of shrubbery.
Eliminate them
Eliminate them
Send your german sheperd over. My yellow lab is slacking on pest control lately. 
U of M Extension says it is OK to plant potatoes now. First year with potatoes for me, waiting on soil test results before putting potatoes in the ground in case I need to makes some changes.
U of M Extension says it is OK to plant potatoes now. First year with potatoes for me, waiting on soil test results before putting potatoes in the ground in case I need to makes some changes.
awe……..your supposed to plant them on good friday!!!!!!! 
Send your german sheperd over. My yellow lab is slacking on pest control lately.
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She just plays with them, the 2 cats kill them. At a pretty impressive rate as well.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
If you have limited room in your garden as I do Rhubarb can be planted anywhere in your yard as somewhat of a shrub so it doesn’t take up valuable garden space. I have two patches in my yard.I do have somewhat limited space. I have a 5 x 10 raised garden bed. The rhubarb was the wife’s idea.
Do the rabbits do a number on the rhubarb at all? The rabbits have been pretty savage here this winter. I am seeing the evidence of their damage now on all kinds of shrubbery.
Nothing has ever messed with my rhubarb in 30 years. It’s only enemy has been shade.
First winter onions of spring. 
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garden is tilled…….now to decide if i want to play whens it gonna rain, if i should even start putting seeds in!!!!! 
garden is tilled…….now to decide if i want to play whens it gonna rain, if i should even start putting seeds in!!!!!
Planted ours right after Mothers Day a few years back after a string of upper 80s days. Thought we were in the clear. Dropped to under 30 degrees one night right before Memorial Day and killed everything. We said never again planting before Memorial Day…
Yea there is that. I watch pretty close to the weather. Some cool weather plants are ok. I gotta get my tomatoes in the ground there getting to darn big for what there in. I see a frost potential I cover them
I planted some tomatoes, cucumber, and pepper in mine last night. This is my first season trying a garden at the house I moved to last May. Guess we’ll see how it goes. Weather looks to be in the 70’s here for the foreseeable future and down into the 50’s at night.
The rain held off so I got dill, onions, lettuce, spinach and radishes in the ground.
Off and running
Picked the first asparagus of the year. By next weekend it will be coming fast
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WOWZER, checked mine on Friday afternoon and didn’t see anything poking out yet
Put my tomatoes in the garden today, they really needed out of those starter packs.
Ma and I hit the Amish gardens near St.Charles a week ago today. I bought most of my garden stock there, then transplant the tomatoes from the small cells to larger pots to give the roots more room until I get them in the garden. All of those plants were nice from the garden shop but have grown a lot since then.
All of my garden stock has been outside in protected areas since they came home but even here it’s too early to put them in the ground. I’m waiting another week maybe. Besides, the rain has the garden a mess right now and I won’t put the seed or plants in really wet dirt.
My garlic is up nicely and my onions are in. I put sweet potato plants in last Friday. Yesterday I planted 32 everbearing strawberry plants in a raised bed along the side of the garage. I have 8 standard tomatoes and 4 hybrid Romas to go in along with 6 peppers and the seed. The raised bed where the berry plants went may be loose enough yet to get my lettuce seed in, but the soil temp is still too cool to get carrots in. I’m trying an alternative planting method for the pole beans, maybe today, that will allow me to plant without putting the seed in wet ground. Maybe use it with the 3 variety of cukes too when the ground gets a tad warmer.
WOWZER, checked mine on Friday afternoon and didn’t see anything poking out yet
Mine started coming about a week ago on the upper end of pool 4 area.
Anyone buying plants look under the leaves for aphids. I went to 5 places, two of which were nurseries, and they all had infested broccoli and 2 had them on pepper plants.
Put my tomatoes in the garden today…
You’re much braver than I am.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>glenn57 wrote:</div>
Put my tomatoes in the garden today…You’re much braver than I am.
I agree. My tomatoes were just up potted on Sat. Started from seed on 4/15. Hot peppers (habanero, thai, serrano, jalapeno) started the same day are still too small to need a bigger pot yet. I dug a 20′ trench and planted a dozen two year old asparagus crowns about ten days ago. The only green things in my garden besides weeds are some 4-6″ skinny asparagus I started from seed in the house last year and some tiny radish that I direct seeded last weekend. I seeded some sugar snap peas and English peas the same day and nothing yet.
I have three dozen tomato and two dozen peppers. Since I have so many, it would be difficult to cover them all. Probably going to wait until Memorial Day for the tomato and 4wks for the peppers before putting them outside. Still seeing nights in the low 50’s upper 40’s in the extended forecast. I’ll probably wait until lows are no less than mid to upper 50’s. Two years ago we had a frost around Memorial Day that set them back after being in the ground a couple weeks. Two transplants I bought at Fleet Farm a few days after the frost were way ahead of the rest a couple weeks later and they were the same size when they went in the ground.
i agree may be a tad early, but i got most the tomato plants from my brother….he started them in mid march……and they where looking pretty unhealthy.
just looking out the patio door now they already look better.
We tried our hand at gardening last year for the last year since the house we bought came with one. Tomatoes and beans did well, got a few cukes but then they died. Green peppers and cauliflower failed, one other I can’t remember.
Wife got a wild hair and want to try and start a tomatoes etc. from seed inside this year. Got a whole setup, tray with started cups, heating pad (cooler basement), two small grow lights… the plants aren’t going great lol. We did plant some potted greens from seed last month, bring them inside at night and cold days etc. Those seem to be doing great.
Any advice for someone with minimal veggie experience looking to learn? I bet if I jumped on youtube I’d find how to’s for dummies.
You can search the YouTubes for about anything, but I’ve found that some methods are good for that particular channel’s zone, but maybe not upper Midwest. MI Gardener is pretty good and about the closest to our zone. I’ve ordered some seeds and fertilizer from there. A few other ones are Epic Gardening (southern CA), Living Traditions Homestead (MO Ozarks), The Rusted Garden Homestead (MD) and The Millennial Gardener (NC).
IDO knows all so feel free to ask questions here.
One tip for using grow lights is the cheap ones need to be 1-2″ away from the plants unless you bought a super expensive set up. They stretch to the light and become “leggy” if you don’t and can fall over. The plants get stockier if they’re close to the light.
I have mine on a timer for 16hrs of light each day. After I put them in larger pots I run a fan on the timer so they move around a little. It strengthens the stem but you’ll have to make sure they don’t dry up. I bottom water them, meaning the cups are in a tray. Add about 1/2″ of water to the tray when needed, which depends on humidity, plant size, temp. After 10-15min, dump out any water still in the tray because it pulled in enough moisture. Don’t let them sit in water.
I just picked another large bag of asparagus, maybe four pounds. Got my Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato in the tub today too. Maybe will get the hot peppers dug in too.
I was going to get the lettuce, beans and cukes planted but we had another 1/2″ of rain last night and the garden is now wet. We need to shift some of this rain northward.
Let the healthy eating begin!
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