Thinning the Garden

I was weeding my vegetable garden last night and did some thinning. I’m always nervous about thinning my carrots… seems like such a waste to pull some out and what if I pull out the really good carrots and leave behind the mediocre ones?? Such an odd task.

At least thinning the leaf lettuce results in small clumps of stuff I can eat! The carrots smell good but are way too tiny to eat.

This year we planted the usual – carrots, lettuce, green beans, tomatoes, cucumber, green peppers, and spicy peppers. We did cherry and roma tomatoes and I’m looking forward to eating them the most!

I’m jealous.
I got way to busy this year and was unable to put in the veggie garden.
Thinning the carrots was my favorite Duty. I would feed them to the dogs and they love them. Really didn’t matter how small they were. But once I showed them where the carrots were I would catch them digging them out of the ground later on in the season so I didn’t get many to eat myself. Now I am looking at a garden Full Of Weeds no good!
I do have some pretty nice cut flowers going though

HMMM, I never thin them when there small. I try extra hard to plant them thin. always use a small hole spice container!!!!! my thinning is as they get bigger is to harvest. do the same with kalarabi!

Great time of year right now. I pulled some of the spinach that was wanting to head with seed and we had that for dinner. Carrots go in the ground and I don’t mess with them until just before the ground freezes. One row of leaf lettuce will keep us in salad for the summer. I love beet greens with the baby beets on them so I have a couple rows of them The onion plants are a foot tall now. Beans….I had to re-plant and fence due to rabbits. The new seeding is up and several rabbits have been relocated, via the dumpster….lead poisoning. The squash are starting to run now and the cukes are along a wall doing their thing. The spuds are close to three feet tall and full of flowers so not much to do with them. I have four each of two standard tomatoes, four each of two “roma” type tomatoes, a cherry tomatoes potted along with a 20 gallon tub with three heritage tomatoes, one red and two yellow. All of the tomatoes have flowers and/or tomatoes on them. The four bell peppers are better than any of the last four years and my one Jalapeno rounds out the garden, save for the herbs and they’re growing like weeds too.

I started new shitaki mushroom totems this spring and I will be pulling the plastic wrap off about mid October and may see a flush of late eaters this fall. The winecaps that I pegged into the ground should be showing in another month or so and they’ll tide us over until the Shitakis get ramped up.

Carole does the flower stuff, I do the edibles. We love the gardens even if they get challenging at times.

Im still nervously waiting for my beans and cukes to sprout! Its been two weeks so I have a bad feeling. I might only be growing Tomatoes this year.

Lettuce was a three-peat here. Heck of a time getting it to go. Its up a growing like a weed now though.

Different years offer different challenges. The last few years have been real poor for me and peppers. This year they look great and are in flower now.

suzuki wrote:

Im still nervously waiting for my beans and cukes to sprout! Its been two weeks so I have a bad feeling. I might only be growing Tomatoes this year.

its not to late to replant!!!!!!!!

Hail did some damage this weekend, and a deer decided to chew some things on Monday evening. It’s been a challenging start, but I still have high hopes.

glenn57 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
Im still nervously waiting for my beans and cukes to sprout! Its been two weeks so I have a bad feeling. I might only be growing Tomatoes this year.

its not to late to replant!!!!!!!!

Been thinking that but I keep holding out. How in the world could every one of a hundred seeds not spark?

glenn57 wrote:

HMMM, I never thin them when there small. I try extra hard to plant them thin.

I could probably try harder to plant them thinner. Then I’d have less work as they sprout.

The recent hail took a toll on our plants too. They looked pretty sad after the storms but seem to be perking back up. It helps that it’s been sunny too. We had several clowdy days in a row, and while I and my fair skin enjoyed that, the garden did not.

As long as the plant stem still has the first split in it they’ll come back from rabbits and hail. Keep them well watered during the heat if it doesn’t rain and they’ll come back. Root crops can take a serious beating and stll recover.

Finding and planting squash and cucumber plants in pots will hurry things along. Even bean plants in pots will help out…..peas not so much.

For planting tiny seed try mixing the seed with some coarse sand and use a salt shaker, as Glenn suggested, to plant them. The sand will let you know where you have been.

suzuki wrote:

Been thinking that but I keep holding out. How in the world could every one of a hundred seeds not spark?

The large amount of rain could have washed them out. I’ve had that happen with my carrots before. Or else they could just be bad seeds.

I don’t even start my vining plants (squash and zucchini) until mid to late June so as to avoid squash vine borers.

As for beans, you can plant them as late as mid-July and still get a good late season crop. My second planting of beans is usually mid to late July.

I agree with lhprop. I planted most my seeds mother’s day weekend/ fishing opener. We had 3 inches of rain and it got pretty cool at the same time. It’s my belief the seeds rotted in the ground.

I’ve never thinned carrots out. I guess I never thought about it. I think,depending on the variety crowdin promotes sweetness. At least mine turn out that way. Stunted but oh so good!
I’ve actually dug out carrots in the spring that were left in the ground.
Still sweet and tasty.

well I guess I told a little white lie. I did some thinning out of some carrots and kalarabi. did some weeding and by pulling weeds from within the rows I lost a few carrots and kalarabi’s.

glenn57 wrote:

did some weeding and by pulling weeds from within the rows I lost a few carrots and kalarabi’s

Oops! I hate when that happens!

I cheated and bought some rather large started peppers and cukes.
Garden instantly looks awesome!

Funny thing is I couldnt locate a single bean seed. Nothing dug them up and they couldnt have washed away. Its a mystery. I need to check on here next year when it comes time to purchase seeds.
For years I had the best seed place available near me but they went out of business.

Off subject but has anyone inoculated the soil with Trichoderma (green mold) to control blight and and other fungi and also insects?
The little research sounds promising. I guess it also breks down the soil so the nutrients can be more consumable for the plant creating a healthier plant with more yeild.