Gardens are rockin now….

I built an elevated garden this Spring. Nothing too big, just trying to get some stuff for salsa and some other experiments.

We planted bell peppers, various tomatoes, jalapenos, okra (had to try), cilantro (think this was a mistake) and strawberries (for fun).
Well, we learned that my wife planted the tomatoes too dang close to each other. They look very good, but they are crowded.
Jalapenos look great and have picked quite a few already.
The peppers? Well, that is perplexing. They are only 12″ tall (planted as starters) and there is one pepper on there about the size of a baseball.
I think next year we will ditch the cilantro because I think its just easier to buy that stuff. It was ready long ago and now its 3 feet tall and no good. We honestly don’t know what we are doing. LOL

I had a good harvest of blueberries and my raspberries are just starting to go gangbusters. Those will continue through the first heavy frost.
I noticed someone else said their peppers were small. Good to know it isn’t just us.

I don’t know what the deal with peppers is. My parents start most everything from seed, and I get what they grow. They never have luck with peppers, and mine always do really well. Gotta be a soil thing, but I have had luck at my last home that had really sandy soil, and they do well at my current home, with heavy clay.

Peppers can be fickle. For years I had great green pepper yields, but with the garden soil amended so everything else does super the peppers are terrible. I just finished picking the beans and cukes again and had a 5 quart pail of each. My three pepper plants are about 15″ tall, covered with flowers yet but no peppers to be found.

I’m skipping peppers and just buy them at the farmer’s market. They’re too cheap to mess with and since that’s where I’ll have to go to get any why plant them. I have the same thoughts on onions. My opnions always do super good with many weight two pounds but they don’t keep a week without re-shooting while drying. I can buy a bag of nice onions for a buck as I need them and these tend to keep much better.

We had a garden a couple years ago in a different location and the peppers did awesome then. Much sandier soil there with some black dirt mixed in.
One thing is I hauled in a yard of black dirt and then I was watering regularly and fertilizing once a week. Everything else looks great, but the bell peppers.
Anyways, I am far from a gardener but its fun to do.
I will just stick to raspberries. I cannot screw them up.

First tomato is ready to go! Will be picked soon.

J.

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I’m pretty down in the dumps. What I thought was over watering because of the near 6″ of rain we got last weekend and all the rain and humidity this summer in my area, turned out to be early blite in my tomato plants. Sucks. I had the best looking garden I have ever had. Tomatoes were going gang busters. Now I don’t even know if I can can this years crop. Not to mention the spores stay in the dirt for next year. I was recommended to either skip a year of the garden or move the garden to a different spot. Since I live in town with only an acre lot the later is not possible.

Here’s what it looks like. Apparently the blite kills the leaves, then the branches, leaving what fruit that is already on the plant to get sun scalded. Plus some are getting tiny gross looking pimples. I am just sick.

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Some more.

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When I was a kid my dad had a small garden back by the alley. We would always go down to the river and bring home fish to cut up and put in the soil. There was a fence separating his garden from the neighbors. His tomatoes dwarfed Bob’s. They always had friendly competition ribbed each other. One year Bob planted cantaloupe . Bob would water his plants every evening after dinner. One day dad bought a big cantaloupe and placed in Bob’s garden, then we sat on the deck and waited for him to come out.He saw that cantaloupe and started yelling for his wife, it was pretty funny.

belletaine wrote:

When I was a kid my dad had a small garden back by the alley. We would always go down to the river and bring home fish to cut up and put in the soil. There was a fence separating his garden from the neighbors. His tomatoes dwarfed Bob’s. They always had friendly competition ribbed each other. One year Bob planted cantaloupe . Bob would water his plants every evening after dinner. One day dad bought a big cantaloupe and placed in Bob’s garden, then we sat on the deck and waited for him to come out.He saw that cantaloupe and started yelling for his wife, it was pretty funny.

I planted watermelons in my neighbors garden this Spring. I put them away from everything else in rows going the opposite direction. I told all the other neighbors including his wife but him. Well they were growing great and about to flower and one night I saw him in the garden. He was weeding!!! Ugh lol

Things were going great till this weekend when some deer decided to mow down my pepper plants!!!

My potato plants froze off when they were a foot tall but came back in a big way. Still, I wondered how they’d produce after getting nipped that bad. Ma and I went to the cabin last Monday and she said I should try turning a couple hills to see if we had any new spuds to take instead of buying at the store. 2 hills gave up almost 7 pounds of potatoes. I guess I can put my worries about yields away.

The tomatoes are really starting to throw out nice fruits now too. I just brought in a couple of pound-and-a-halfers. And the cukes are still going nuts. I don’t even want to comment on the squash…..those plants are from he// I swear. Supposed to be bush type plants but these have vines thirty feet long now and squash all over.