2023 Gardening Thread

[eradicator]

Sure was glad I decided to wait until next week to put the tomatoes and peppers in the ground. Had a little bit of hail that prolly would have hurt the small transplants.

[SaltwaterSlick]

Yea, guess it's a good thing we had to restart our nightshades... They're still probably 10 days away from being big enough to go into the outdoor bags...
We didn't get any hail fortunately. Wife had put out a few transplants in bags a couple days ago and they all seemed OK... They were mostly squash/zucchini, but there were some eggplants...

I'll be out covering stuff up tomorrow... Supposed to get to frost conditions Sunday night...

[Muskles]

Gonna have to start heavy fertilizer. I was down at the garden yesterday and found this in the add on part of the garden. I have no idea how it got there. Thought I had found some rare old coin. Got it cleaned up a bit, and it's just a 2005 West Virginia state quarter. Maybe with enough fertilizer, I can turn it into a money tree.

[John Paul]

Well the tomatoes are in along with peppers, onions, garlic and Squash and Zucchini seeds as we forgot to get those started. oops. Also 115 red oak seedlings and 35 water oak along with 50 burr oaks. Gonna be time to get those trees outside and on irrigation soon.

[Mitchell8]

Finally planted mine mostly cucumbers to pickle

[SaltwaterSlick]

Forgot to post these, but these are from Sunday Morning when we had the frost (30 degrees)... This is my wife's 4Runner. It was left outside Saturday night... The car was covered on all top surfaces with a heavy frost.




We covered the berries... This is the in-ground plot. Youngest grandson helping "Poppa" with making the rounds on Sunday afternoon...




This is where our peppers and tomatoes will go (at least most of them)... Got the bags in and water system in place. You can see the other berry plot in the background. Have not taken the covers off them yet. I ordered more bags today to complete the main bag garden plot... When finished, looks like we'll have 154 bags...




The peppers and tomatoes are coming along nicely... I've been pushing them pretty hard (with liquid fertilizer) to speed things up a bit. If I'm lucky, I'll get 'em in the ground by Easter... Late but still doable. These pics are just the peppers. Tomatoes are out in the greenhouse... Forgot to take pics of them, but they're about like the peppers, and 2 trays as well.





Started some okra so I could get a head start on harvest... Germination temperature for Okra seeds is 95 degrees and they won't germinate in cold ground. Started the seeds when the ground was still probably in the 50's. If you plant okra too early, and it gets a rain, the seeds will just rot and never germinate... This is a way to get a jump on maturity date... They are doing really well. Probably put them in the ground next week.



So far, so good... Thank You Jesus for blessing us to this point!

[eradicator]

Everything is in as of today except for cucumber seed. I'll get everything mulched tomorrow. No turning back now and fingers crossed

[Texas Grown]

I do love the pics of container plant-n yall!


Okra still breaking ground. Been all on it's own since put-n seeds in.

[Killer]

Where did you get that much netting saltwater?

[SaltwaterSlick]

Where else, Amazon! I bought a 50' X 50' piece and a 25' X 100'... Used t-posts for uprights and had some old hydraulic tubing joints that were 20 feet long that I wired together, then wired them to the top of the t-posts. I was actually surprised how easily and fast the netting went up. It's 3/4" mesh, plenty big enough to allow free passage of pollinators (bees n most butterflies), but keeps out sparrows, mocking birds and crows!! (I hope!!)... So far, so good... I had the t-posts. Both pieces of netting was about $100 total... If you do a search on Amazon for "bird netting", there are a LOT of different options on mesh size material and physical sizes to choose from. I did that job alone and it took me about 30 minutes to install the netting on the frames. IF I'd have had a couple other people to help spread the netting, it could have been done in probably 15 minutes. Took longer to tie it down around the ground edges than it did to actually drape it over the plot...

[SaltwaterSlick]

I do love the pics of container plant-n yall!


Okra still breaking ground. Been all on it's own since put-n seeds in.

Michael, I tell you this bag gardening is SO much easier than doing it in the ground!! Row crops is all we are planting in the ground... If for nothing else, weed control is orders of magnitude easier in a bag garden!! With the drip emitter watering system, it's even easier... I'll have 154 bags when we're all done and I can water them all at the same time!! while watering the berries. A separate circuit with drip tape for the in-ground plots will water both those plots at once... With the water soluble fertilizers, we can fertilize just by watering normally by hooking the injector system into the watering system... It was all trial and error (with a LOT of errors) last year, but this year has gone much smoother.

[Muskles]

Been excited about watching my taters break the ground for the past couple weeks. We covered the maters for the frost, but figured the taters would be ok. Well, the taters bit the dust from the freeze. Google says they should come back within 14 days, so I'm hopeful. Planted turnips today. Broccoli, cabbage, and onions still look good. Maters don't look good, but also don't look dead. Only had 6 in the garden, so we can replant if we need to.

[SaltwaterSlick]

Been excited about watching my taters break the ground for the past couple weeks. We covered the maters for the frost, but figured the taters would be ok. Well, the taters bit the dust from the freeze. Google says they should come back within 14 days, so I'm hopeful. Planted turnips today. Broccoli, cabbage, and onions still look good. Maters don't look good, but also don't look dead. Only had 6 in the garden, so we can replant if we need to.

If you can keep your taters from getting rained on until they put on new tops, that will help. If they get soaked now, they'll likely just rot in the ground... If it looks like rain, cover 'em if you can!

[Muskles]

If you can keep your taters from getting rained on until they put on new tops, that will help. If they get soaked now, they'll likely just rot in the ground... If it looks like rain, cover 'em if you can!

Thank you! I'll try to figure something out. Calling for rain Friday.

[czechgrubworm]

watering system/drip

Michael, I tell you this bag gardening is SO much easier than doing it in the ground!! Row crops is all we are planting in the ground... If for nothing else, weed control is orders of magnitude easier in a bag garden!! With the drip emitter watering system, it's even easier... I'll have 154 bags when we're all done and I can water them all at the same time!! while watering the berries. A separate circuit with drip tape for the in-ground plots will water both those plots at once... With the water soluble fertilizers, we can fertilize just by watering normally by hooking the injector system into the watering system... It was all trial and error (with a LOT of errors) last year, but this year has gone much smoother.

Would and could you please share this watering system. I live alone and between work, garden and flowers, watering is very very time consuming. I'd love to do something that could take that burden and I as a female could build and implement myself. If you would like to email me the information, that would be okay too. angiepatak@gmail.com Thank you in advance for your time.