2023 gardens

No boxelders here. The caddisfly hatch here seems to be mostly done. I’m still battling the damn asparagus beetles. Neem oil didn’t seem to make a difference but I’ll keep at it. I don’t really want to use anything stronger. I normally only see bumblebees around the garden but have seen a good number of honeybees this year. With over 100 asparagus plants out there I’m thinking there will still be plenty in a year or two when I can start picking. Still a bunch of healthy looking ones.

Last week I added 12 determinate tomato plants, eight Roma and four Celebrity. FF was doing clearance so all 12 were a little over $2. Sad looking and rootbound, but after about a week in the ground they’re 3x the size now. That brings the total up to 48 tomato plants. The rest are indeterminates and most of them are 4-5′ tall now.

Just showed my daughter two beefsteak tomato plants yesterday morning that had about 40 quarter sized tomatos on each plant this morning checked the rain gauge and seen a bunch of deer tracks in the garden and now those 2 plants are bare. Even ate the damn flowers. Saturday night they took down one of my sweetcorn patches so bad I plowed it up and replanted it. What a waste.

I’ve got cucumbers coming in pretty well. Tomatoes, not so much. Honestly I’m glad there’s anything growing in there considering this is my first attempt at a garden.

I just picked a mess of Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes and a nice cuke. The tomatoes never made it past the hand. I have several nice green peppers and the hot pepper plants I have had to stake because they’re so heavy with peppers…. first time ever to do that. In fact, this is the best pepper year I have ever had. The leaf lettuce has been outstanding. The regular tomatoes are not bad but started awful slow. Tons of green ones on there but we haven’t seen one to dine on yet.

Here’s my herb garden. They seem to love it here.

i picked some green beans, kalarabi, carrots green and jalepeno peppers a bit ago!!!!!!!

I had a handful of radishes before the rest bolted and about a dozen each green peas and sugar snap peas so far. They’re good snacking while gardening. I didn’t realize you only get 8-10 pods off each five foot chute, so I’ll definitely be planting another round in a week or two. Next year, I’ll plant a lot more. The only peppers I have are a lot of Tic Tac sized Thai chilis. Serrano have started to flower but no blooms on the jalapeno or habanero yet.

Potato plants are looking pretty solid.

Pumpkins seem to really take off the first or second week of July and the green leaves on them look like elephant ears right now.

Planted a packet of corn seed in early June that’s looking good. Planted another about a week ago just to stagger the harvest period and they’re starting to poke through.

Can’t remember who mentioned it, but much like that comment, our strawberry plants basically shut off. Amazing the volume of strawberries you get for a few weeks and then it just stops.

The last week or so we’ve also gathered up probably a few pounds of raspberries growing wild on the edge of our property.

Bunnies have broken the truce. The pellet gun is locked and loaded by the door now. The only thing I plant outside of the chicken wire fence are basil, dill and cucumber because they’re not supposed to be tasty to the long eared rats. I still put a temporary piece of rabbit fence around my young cukes but the little turd either got through it or went through an opening on the pallet compost bin next to the bed that I didn’t cover. Ate most of the leaves off of 3 of 5 plants. The growing tips are intact, so maybe they’ll keep going. Pretty close to being too late to start more.

Picture looks a little blurry to me but sure its from a bunny. Bunny bites on the stems are always a clean cut 45* angle.

Sweetcorn finally silking.

Pumpkins finally stretching out.

JEREMY wrote:

Picture looks a little blurry to me but sure its from a bunny. Bunny bites on the stems are always a clean cut 45* angle.

I checked the rest and almost all of them are 45* clean cuts. Before I put the temp rabbit fence up I kept seeing a tiny one about the size of a baseball in that bed when I’d water. It would go between the pallet board and chicken wire behind it and just bounce off it over an over until I shooed it out through the compost bin. Basically I taught the little turd where the door is come to think of it. Little guy was about 10′ away from it when I found the damage last night.

I know what I would do to it. Catch and let it go by my dads garden when hes not home.

Just kidding. My daughters found a full bunny nest last year and wouldnt let me kill them. Relocated them to my dads and he was not impressed.

JEREMY wrote:

Pumpkins finally stretching out.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve had trouble with them in past years haven’t you?

glenn57 wrote:

June 22, 2023 at 7:53 pm#2209714
Been doing some fly control!! set that out Sunday afternoon.
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You werent kidding. They work so good its disgusting.

Going to feed them to the snapping turtles. Coincidentally, snapping turtles were the reason I fenced in my tomatoes in the first place. First warm rainy evening each year they come up from the pond and dig nests wherever they please.

I just started more burpless cucumber seeds in two 6gal grow bags. INSIDE the chicken wire fence this time. I double seeded four in each bag, but will probably thin to 2-3 plants per bag. I’m hoping the roots being warmer than in ground beds will give them a boost like it does for my hot peppers. They’re 65 days to maturity but that’s after they’re transplanted. I hope I have enough time.

Dan wrote:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve had trouble with them in past years haven’t you?

Last year I had trouble with germination. Bad seeds I dont know. After replanting all was good. This year im sure its a water issue. With kids little league 4 nights a week and something every weekend it seems havent had as much time to get out there to water. Baseball ends Thursday so hopefully can start taking better care of stuff.

Yeah I’ve had nights where I felt I just soaked the garden and the next night it’s like I wasn’t even there.

What do you do for keeping all the weeds away in between rows?

Im kinda anal when it comes to planting so they are all measured so I can drive the 6 foot tiller down the rows and cross ways. Obviously they have grown past the point now so Its a hands on operation from here on out.

Think the hot dry weather this year helped with that. Pretty sure when I would till it the new seeds would burn up.

We picked our first tomatoes of the year last night. Had 9 that were ready, tons of green and red bell peppers, jalapeños out the kazoo probably 75 of them already, ghost peppers are about ready tons of zucchini, and lettuce.

Bearcat89 wrote:

We picked our first tomatoes of the year last night. Had 9 that were ready, tons of green and red bell peppers, jalapeños out the kazoo probably 75 of them already, ghost peppers are about ready tons of zucchini, and lettuce.

When did you plant? We put our started plants in week after Memorial Day and have some cherry tomatoes that are close, but the peppers, cukes and big tomatoes have a ways to go yet.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
We picked our first tomatoes of the year last night. Had 9 that were ready, tons of green and red bell peppers, jalapeños out the kazoo probably 75 of them already, ghost peppers are about ready tons of zucchini, and lettuce.

When did you plant? We put our started plants in week after Memorial Day and have some cherry tomatoes that are close, but the peppers, cukes and big tomatoes have a ways to go yet.

1 week before memorial day if I remember correctly. Went against the Golden rule to wait until after memorial

Didn’t know that was a golden rule! usually I have everything in the ground by then. Sometimes I win sometimes I loose, mostly I do win

Looking back on this thread I planted on May 17th

We have picked over a dozen of green peppers and have over 30 next in line. Start mine from seed indoor 3/13 planted outside 6/1. Probably picked first ones 7/1

Best year ever for the green and hot peppers. My green peppers are huge. Three of my hot peppers, all different varieties, are loaded with peppers. Cherry tomatoes are taking off big time as are the cukes.

been picking stuff to….but been to busy to really post picture…….heck even take any.