Did you rotate the location where you planted them? That can help because they make use different nutrients and it helps prevent disease.
do the foil pans work? I have tried CD's hanging around but still see squirrels stealing stuff every now and then
When the foliage starts to die, they're ready to be dug up. They will last in the ground a while longer, so there's no rush to get them out. You can dig them up sooner if you want, but they just won't be as big. Don't forget to mound them. If any part of the potato is exposed above the soil, it will be green. I finally got everything in my garden. 20 Bonny Best (heirloom) tomatoes 5 Super Beefsteak 7 Monster bell peppers 3 jalapenos 40 row feet of blue lake bush beans 60 row feet of beans cantare 80 row feet of early wonder beets 40 row feet of carrots (Kuroda long) 2 Brussels sprouts 4 buttercup squash I'll post some pics when I get a chance.
Some plants were in similar locations, but some in different locations. I only have two raised beds, so not a ton of space. I tilled the soil up pretty well and mixed in some compost and potting soil and planted the plants in some potting soil. I was gone for two weeks and it was dry, but had a person water every 2-3 days. I watered with miracle grow once or twice, maybe compared to 5 times last year. I don't know. I don't get a lot of sun, so I can see why my peppers haven't taken off, but lettuce and kale should do well. Frustrating, but will try to bounce back next year with a good crop. Kale still has a chance to become decent.
Have you run a pH/soil test? If not, do so now to see where the deficiencies may be. You probably won't be able to salvage it for this year, but you can start amending the soil and building it for next year. If you have and there aren't any deficiencies, it could be just bad timing weather-wise on your part. Kind of odd that nothing's growing.
Ours are working well. We have seen bunnies in our yard (and get deer all the time), but nothing is missing from our garden as a result. I posted the pic a few pages ago from what we're doing - we tied the pans on strings so they are flopping around.
The goddamn squirrels ate every single one of my strawberries. Will be soaking the conibear traps in vinegar water to clean them this weekend. And what's with the foil/flashy squirrel deterrent method? Interesting
We've also sprinkled some of our dog hair around the perimeter of our garden. From what my in-laws said, it's a deterrent as well.
Have you tried just watering more frequently? It seems every time I start having large-scale problems it always comes down to water consumption.
Thanks to my instructions on how to use a conibear to kill tree rats, he did well the last time. This time should be no different.
Here are the pics This is my first till. April 27 Spoiler May 16. Beans, beets, carrots, and potatoes planted. Lettuce was planted a few weeks earlier. Spoiler Last year, I put timbers in to make a semi-raised bed for my squash. As you can see, it's kind of small and the grass grew up all around it. Spoiler This year, I dug up the grass and put weed block down because having grass back there was worthless. I also extended the timbers all the way to the fence and raised them up one higher. Instead of 2 squash plants, I now have 4. Spoiler Spoiler
Here are the tomatoes and peppers I started from seed. I started with a shitload more, but it was my first time using a heated seed mat and I left it on too long and fried some of them. I still ended up with 4 dozen good tomatoes and 1 1/2 dozen peppers/jalapenos. I gave about 20 tomatoes and 6 peppers to my dad. Spoiler
Last year, my tomatoes got smashed by early blight. Try as I may, I wasn't able to salvage much and only got about 50 pints of salsa and 20 quarts of tomato sauce. As you can see, the tomatoes are all looking pretty rough. Spoiler To remedy this, I toasted all of the plants in the fall and then treated with a copper fungicide this spring. I also put down weed block to prevent the fungus from being able to spread to the plants. Hopefully it works because we're down to our last 10 pints of salsa and last 5 quarts of skettti sauce. Spoiler Here's where we're at as of today. Everything is coming up nicely. I realized that I made a mistake in direct sowing my b. sprouts last year, so I started them a few weeks before my tomatoes and put them in the ground the day I tilled. Spoiler
Minnesota (St Paul suburbs). Our growing season starts a little later, but we've got some of the most fertile soil on the planet. My parents are about an hour south of Minneapolis/St Paul and my dad has had a garden in the same spot since 1987. Before that, my grandparents owned the place and my grandpa had the exact same garden since the 60's. Never once have they fertilized or amended the soil and my dad still out produces me every year. All he does is throw the remaining greens on the dirt and till them in every year. It's fucking incredible.
So i seem to get blight on my maters every year They still produce, but what should i be doing different?
It's most likely early blight. If it was late blight, your crop would be wiped out. Early blight is a fungus and you need to kill it or stop it from propagating. The first thing you have to do is take all of the infected plant material out of your garden immediately and either burn it or seal it in a plastic bag and throw it out. This also means not tilling any of the leaves or stalks in at the end of the season. Once you've gotten rid of the infected plants, you need to treat the soil. I use a copper fungicide powder made by Bonide. I also double up and put the week block down to prevent leaf/soil contact. Some people use mulch, but I prefer the week block because I don't want to be tilling mulch into my soil. Another thin you can do is take every precaution to prevent the leaves of the seedlings from touching the soil. This is how it spreads. Also, increasing the spacing between plants will help prevent leaf-to-leaf transmission.
Great info, thanks. Your garden looks amazing man. Do you mind sharing your salsa recipe (and what types of tomatoes, peppers, etc. you use)?
Thanks. Not so humble brag, but my salsa gets rave reviews from everyone who tries it. It's multitudes better than anything you'll get in a store. There are no set amounts and all of the ingredients are added by eyeball. The first step is to stew the tomatoes, peel them, and chop them up. After that's done, the tomatoes, green peppers, celery, onions, and tomato paste are all mixed into one big bowl until I get the desired consistency. Adding the tomato paste is the key to thickening it and not getting runny salsa. I add the celery because it stretches the recipe a little bit and it stays firm and crunchy even after canning it. It's nice to have the contrasting textures. After I get the desired consistency I add my jalapenos to each individual jar. That way I can have differing levels of heat. If you mix the jalapenos in the big bowl with everything else, the seeds tend to migrate toward the bottom so you have some random jars that are 2-3x hotter than all of the rest. It's a fun guessing game, but not when you have a 3 year old kid. After that's done, I add canning salt, lime juice, and cilantro to each individual jar to make sure it's evenly distributed. Boil it in a water bath (I believe it's 80 min, but I'd have to double check the times) and let cool. As for tomato and pepper varieties, it's up to you. I prefer meatier tomato varieties because you get less juice and have to use less tomato paste to thicken it up. As for green peppers, they're all pretty much the same. I haven't seen any distinguishable difference in flavor between the different varieties I've tried over the years. With that in mind, my quest right now is to find the best producer giving the highest yield per plant, but they all seem to be somewhat similar in that regard as well. I'm sure a pepper connoisseur would rip me to shreds over that stance, but what evs. Come at me pepper bros.
Had a massive storm come through tonight and flatten my garden. Hopefully most of it pops back up. Should be picking 3-4 zucchini tomorrow too.
Extracted the first honey for the year today. We ended up with about 7 gallons worth of honey. We have some light honey and some dark honey. You can see the difference in the light and dark honey in the pics below.
Put 4 blueberry bushes in the ground Saturday. Had to dig up about 25 square feet of sod that about killed me. Blackberry trellis going in this weekend hopefully.
I have a few questions for you gardening guru's I'm a novice. I have a bit of an ant problem and don't know if that's an issue. I have an orange tree about a year old and in the base of the tree is a fire ant colony. I've tried using poison that kills the queen but to no effect so far. I also have a garden plot with strawberries, peppers and squash and the peppers are starting to flower, ants (not fire, they're smaller) are crawling up the peppers into the flowers. Is this harmful? Thanks for any responses.
Are you going to sell the honey? I like honey, but the honey in that picture would last me a lifetime.
Yeah, we sell it. I still keep a lot and use it in place of sugar when I cook. Last year we got about 20 gallons and sold or gave away as gifts for most of it.
So jealous- I want to be able to "make" my own honey like that. I think asshole is going to hook me up once he gets his Kickstarter bees up and running, right?
Depends on how his bees do the first year. My hives are new this year and I may only get honey off of 3 of them. Got to leave them enough for the winter.
We've been getting a ton of zucchini and there's probably 8-10 to pick tomorrow. The cantaloupe and watermelon have spread out a lot, we've got several cantaloupes growing, we've got peppers and tomatoes growing, and the corn's about ready to start. So far, it's going pretty well. And some of my bees on clover and mint near the garden.
Ants can actually be very helpful in a garden as pollinators, especially if you don't have many bees around. They go from flower to flower sexing up your plants for you. If thats all they're doing then you are okay. Just pay attention to whether you have a leaf cutting/eating variety. In that case, engage chemical warfare.
That's as good as I got. He scooted off when I came back a couple minutes later. He was under a shit ton of leaves. He's tiny, maybe like 6". I'm in south Louisiana. You can make out his head a bit as he's looking right at the camera
might just be a rat snake...probably just a water snake...head doesn't look big enough for a cotton mouth http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/resource/snakes-louisiana
Anyone have advice on pickling peppers? I have so many fucking peppers, I have to put them up or start throwing them away. I don't even remember what the 2 kind all the way to the left are, I'll have to see if I can find the tag near the base.
Anybody know what could cause cucumbers to turn yellow? Just randomly started happening in the last week. Ones that were almost fully grown turned yellow and ones started growing yellow. They are growing fine but are as yellow as a banana.
Over ripe, too much water...? I've never grown them, but that's what I've heard. Or they identify as squash. Call me Squash