2024 gardens

Trying to figure out why my in ground tomatoes are pale and spindly compared to the grow bags. You can see how well the peppers and tomatoes are doing in the bags but the rows in the middle are pale. They do have tomatoes on them and the bagged ones just started to flower, so that’s a good sign. I’m just used to them having more and darker foliage by now. I think it might just be too cool at night still and too wet in the ground.

I don’t plan on trellising or caging the bagged tomatoes just to see how that works out. Farmers don’t, but they surely scale up the number of plants to account for that. I think I have at least 40 tomato plants out there now, so I can afford to experiment a bit.

Planning to clear cut the lettuces in here tomorrow. Going to Mom’s for the 4th for a few days and some big salads will be a hit. That should give the carrots, onions, basil and dill room to spread out a bit. There are actually four basil plants in the right bed, but you can barely just see one of them on the left side because of all the lettuce. The snap peas are toast and are getting cut down too.

i have 4-5 mater plants the same way…..they look about toast and the ones next to them are as healthy as a horse!!!! frustrating as all get out!!

Pickling cucumbers in the front and yard long beans in the back. Same paleness my tomatoes are seeing in the same rows and smaller than I’d expect in the 5wks since I sowed the seeds. I amended these rows with organic fertilizer, cheap garden soil, and composted horse manure back in Mar. I’m wondering if there’s some herbicide remnants in that compost. It’s in my raised beds and everything in there grew like crazy, so I don’t think that’s it.

These are dual purpose cucumbers sowed into the same compost. They look about what I’d expect after 5wks.

I started my peppers inside on 3/23 and tomatoes on 4/10. Tomatoes went in the ground 5/25 and were very root bound. Peppers went into the bags on 6/2. I started another tray of tomatoes on 4/28 and that’s what ended up in the bags. They were in 2″ plug trays for over 4wks and look better than the 1st batch. Always something changing from year to year and with all the other variables it’s tough to know what causes what. Just keep growing I guess.

In your last cucumber picture the creeping charlie looks to be doing good.

JEREMY wrote:

In your last cucumber picture the creeping charlie looks to be doing good.

I’m going towards nothing but raised beds on top of weed fabric in the next couple of years. I have a good 6″ layer of woodchips down and I still have horsetail, henbit, creeping Charlie and grape vines everywhere. I cut a 55gal drum in half and have horsetail coming up through 2′ of potting mix even though I put down an 8″ layer of woodchips first.

all those raisedgardens look great……but i could never go that route…..my garden needs/wants are to big to do raised beds. it cost me a fortune to get what i’d like!!!

I’ll have to buy once and cry once to fill them, but at least I’ll get all the raised beds for free. I earn bonus points for sales that I can cash in online for all kinds of products. All my grills, smokers, griddles, grinders, sausage stuffers, canning gear, etc., were ordered that way. The two beds I have now came from there. They’d be about $300 each at a store. It took $180 to fill them, but the same program gives us a $200 debit card annually if sales are increased over last year, so even that was free.

First and hopefully not the last

Dug some early potatoes Monday. They didn’t do quite as well as last year, but still a decent crop. And the first japanese beetle of the year was spotted this morning. UGH!!

just went through the garden……judging by the leaves on my kalarabi……garden needs water.

Bob……seen your from Wausau…..that Kraft plant still going there?? i worked on there silo many moons ago. my brother lives near by Missoni. went out last year and helped cull the deer herd!!!

Kraft plant is still running as far as I know. I haven’t been by there in a year or so though. Yeah Mosinee isn’t far. I know south of town there are lots of deer along the eau Plaine Flowage and the Wisconsin river.

Dug the rest of the early potatoes. They could have maybe been left a little longer but I wanted to plant some bush beans before it got too late. About a full 5 gallons.

Bob Schultz wrote:

Kraft plant is still running as far as I know. I haven’t been by there in a year or so though. Yeah Mosinee isn’t far. I know south of town there are lots of deer along the eau Plaine Flowage and the Wisconsin river.

brother fishes them alot! He’s right there

My pepper plants seem to be doing a little better. Only have 1 out of 4 pumpkin plants take. Not sure why. Otherwise everything else is looking good. Have some grass around my corn but leaving it. Had an entire row of corn not germinate so replanted that last week. New stuff is poking through.
DT

yea it seems its been a tuff start to the garden season, mainly with all the water at one time. some of my sickly looking plants are looking like there coming around……….finally.

You guys have some impressive gardens! Way too ambitious for me!

The 5″ rain gauge was full when I got home on Sat. Sounds like about 5″ in 3hrs on Fri. Glad to say my house stayed dry inside and the garden is fine. Hard to believe with a temporary creek running through my yard that we have no flood damage. I think when the levee next to the dam breached, it all drained it off pretty quickly. The millpond is basically empty now. You can scroll to the top of this page to see what it looked like before. Here’s a pic from yesterday.

Sweetcorn is finally growing good bad part is its 70% through its life cycle so its starting to tassle and its only about 2 feet tall. If it gets cobs they will be about 10 inches off the ground. What a waste of money.

I just picked a half dozen ears this morning for tonight. Our leaser’s crew is starting on the first planting tomorrow morning. It’s about 4 acres and usually sells out at the local store as fast as they can unload it

I usually only sell 100 dozen or so. Enough to pay for my seeds and supplies for the year. This year just hoping to get some to eat at this point. Planted weeks earlier then normal but apparently sitting in a sponge all year screwed it up. My second planting is smaller but looks good at this point. Fingers crossed cause thats the patch the deer like to destroy.

Deer are back to taste testing my green tomatoes again. Picked 3 zucchini and 2 cucumbers last night gonna make me a salad. Damn squirrels taste tested about 75 pears yesterday. Dont know why they cant just pick one and eat it instead of taking a bite out of everyone.

JEREMY wrote:

Dont know why they cant just pick one and eat it instead of taking a bite out of everyone.

Cuz they are looking for a ripe one.
We had a pear tree when I was young. People would come by, see the fruit, pick it, take a bite and if not ripe, throw it on the ground. Really pissed my dad off. “Why can’t they just wait ’til they’re ripe?”

Netguy wrote:

We had a pear tree when I was young. People would come by, see the fruit, pick it, take a bite and if not ripe, throw it on the ground. Really pissed my dad off. “Why can’t they just wait ’til they’re ripe?”

People can be weird. My neighbor called me a few summers ago when I was at work and asked me if I gave someone permission to pick pears and apples cause a car parked on the side of the street and a guy walked in the yard and started picking them. He said when the guy seen him taking his picture he left.

Tilled again today. 3rd time since all the rain started and the first time the dirt wasn’t sticking to the tiller and my boots (think Herman Munster shoes).
Second planting of corn is poking through. Will plant seconds of peas and beans tomorrow morning.