Gardening 2007, woot woot.

May 23rd/24th-

Actually frosted/froze at my place last night, our "frost free date" is ~5/15 eek. It was cold and rainy yesterday evening so I went out and put the hot boxes back onto the tomatoes, everything else is relatively hardy. This morning both boxes had a nice ice skin on them. Oh well, pretty sure I'm okay.

The new asparagus set (Jersey Giant) is busting out all over after only a week in the ground, it says you can cut them the first year but I'm going to let it go. All my corn has sprouted and seems okay, same with the acorns and melons. Most of our 2nd year berry bushes are going solid and our first round of greens has basically been consumed. Radishes are almost ready to eat. Cuces are going good as are my peas.

Anyone have little red beetle creatures on lilies...?? I'm picking them off and squishing them but wonder if there's anything I can do to them that won't hurt my beautiful flowers...

Help?

bump for help w/the pesky red lily beetle thingys...? Anybody got anything??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ripzalot

any ideas on what is wrong with this plant? is there anything i can do?

its been slowly yellowing over the last couple weeks. seems to be getting worse. i thought maybe overwatering, so i haven't watered it in several days. but it still seems to be going down. ideas?

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Looks like the pot you are using has drainage holes so overwatering is probably not the problem (as long as the soil has good composition so that drainage is reasonable)-- but always best to put a layer of rock at the bottom of pots to help with drainage. Your tree may need fertilization or have soil that is the wrong PH. I know in Minnesota typically water is slightly basic alot of plants prefer acidic soil so watering a pot can sometimes take adjusting PH of the water to help the plant.

I love container gardening. Balcony gardens can be as awesome as regular gardens...and EZier to maintain

Sprite

Update on my balcony garden... As usual, I planted all my stuff a lot later than I should have so now that's it's really hot and sunny in Van and feels like summer my plants seem tiny and puny to me :redface: Oh well, I'm sure they'll catch up quick...

my herb corner: (rosemary, mint, chives, tarragon, mint again and spinach)
http://photos-098.ak.facebook.com/ph...69098_7228.jpg

row of bell & hot thai peppers & tomatoes. In the back, I planted 3 planters of pole beans that will hopefully soon sprout and once they grow, they should create a nice green canopy on the side of the balcony...
http://photos-099.ak.facebook.com/ph...169099_623.jpg

the "Super Fantastic" variety of tomato is living up to its name and growing much faster than the others. The cucumbers started to sprout in the planter behind it this morning:
http://photos-103.ak.facebook.com/ph...69103_2302.jpg

I was going to try planting normal tomatoes in an "upside-down" type planter but I came across a variety of tomatoes developed for hanging planters that is supposed to grow downwards:
http://photos-100.ak.facebook.com/ph...69100_4018.jpg

Big bowls of lettuce & spinach coming real soon:
http://photos-102.ak.facebook.com/ph...69102_5067.jpg
http://photos-096.ak.facebook.com/ph...169096_830.jpg

My only "decorative" plant outside. I kinda have to take care of it 'cause Shirk gave it to me last year when he was trying to win my heart :D
http://photos-095.ak.facebook.com/ph...69095_7563.jpg

ate the first strawberry out of the garden this AM (mmmmm) and fucking Sue got past the new corn fence to trample ~10 of my foot high corn plants...fucker.

Lilies in full bloom...

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1183926861

This one almost choked out by the lupine...

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1183926844

A classic story of garden related miscommunication.

My, then, wife is bending down pulling weeds while I'm working around and about. She's kneeling over this suspect not knowing for sure whether it's a weed or not asks me, "would you pull this?"

I walk over, see she's all dirty head to feet, look at the thing, am a little confused and say, "Umm, why don't YOU pull it?"







okay, ya had to be there

8 tomato plants just busting up w/ green fruits. A couple wads of flat leaf parsely, couple wads of cilantro. 32+ basil plants. 1 cucumber, 2 squash, 5 dill plants
35+ sunflowers. And a ton of flowers, both in the veggie bed and in boxes around the deck.

pics? that would be uncharacteristic.

Ate the first tomato of the year yesterday. It was good. We have six tomato plants and they have a couple hundred greens on right now, it's about to get ugly. Cuce's have started to go off, pulling about 3-10 per day. Have a small okra forest and ~3 big broc's.

Corn has tassled out largely and is chest high to overhead. Peas are basically done.

Watermelon and cantalope have set fruit.

All of the greens and cilantro are bolting.

Wife's heading out of town for 3.5wks on Friday so I'm about to fall REALLY BEHIND on the eating from the garden.

spinach that was eaten last night:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171000764-M.jpg

hot thai pepper looking nice:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/170999391-M.jpg

bell peppers coming along:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171001339-M.jpg

http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171009210-M.jpg

cucumbers:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171001836-M.jpg

lettuce:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171003834-M.jpg

tomatoes:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171008477-M.jpg

"Tumbler" tomato plant that grows sideways and downward for hanging baskets... (yes, I was a little late on the watering :redface: ):
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171000254-M.jpg

green beans (pole) creeping up the strings to make me a nice canopy:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/171002223-M.jpg

Pix of my potz. Parsley, green unjuns, zucchis, catnip, basil, forget the other thing there... Never had time to grab the tomatos, more cukes, peppers, etc. :frown:

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/5740/garden1lx1.jpg

Im getting some yellowing/browning on some zucchini and cuke plants--is it too much water or not enough?? Im watering these damn things usually once a day. :confused:

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/3189/cukebo2.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Natedogg

Im getting some yellowing/browning on some zucchini and cuke plants--is it too much water or not enough?? Im watering these damn things usually once a day. :confused:

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Maybe nitrogen deficiency? Have you fertilized lately? It's possible you're watering too much and flushing some of the nutrients out.

Here are a couple recent photos.

Pardelinum lily
http://home.comcast.net/~steamboat_j...inum070507.jpg

Passionflower (a friend's, not mine, what a cool flower though!)
http://home.comcast.net/~steamboat_j...ower070407.jpg

I'm having mixed luck with my tomato plants. Some are going great guns, others look like they haven't really done much since I planted them.

I had always wanted some bamboo, so I grabbed this at a nursery. When I potted it, it was in bad bad shape...about 6 weeks later, it is starting to come around...

6/1/07
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/IMG_0147.jpg

7/9/07
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/IMG_1462.jpg

bamboo is super resilient, nice work bringing that baby back!

god bless California!
http://tinyurl.com/27az9c

I love my garden even though it's in the beginning stages, we only moved here 2 months ago!

Picked >30 tomatoes yesterday plus probably 15 the day before. Canned up 2 pints plus a half pint of gooseberry jam yesterday. After about 2 weeks of occasional picking I have a good old mess of okra in the freezer. Cucumbers are slowing down so I replanted some for the fall, still picking ~5 of those. Planted another round of okra where the lettuce stuff came out of. Next round of strawberries is starting to ripen. Part of the corn is nearly done, nother week. Watermelons area most done too. Pretty good haul right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The AD

Maybe nitrogen deficiency? Have you fertilized lately? It's possible you're watering too much and flushing some of the nutrients out.

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That seemed to do the trick! Thanks!

The damn zucchinis are not producing ANY fruit. Is this a pollination problem? Lots of flowers have come and gone...

nice gardening y'all!

my ongoing harvest....nothing better than homegrown! :cool:

cherry tomatos

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7797/IMG_1524.jpg

strawberries

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/1003/IMG_1489.jpg

flowers (i forget type)

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4862/IMG_1527.jpg

marigolds

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8250/IMG_1526.jpg

a visitor

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8799/IMG_1542.jpg

Taken earlier today

http://home.comcast.net/~steamboat_j...lily073007.jpg

Update on my garden:

thai pepper finally turned red (it took more than 3 weeks :rolleyes: ):
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182509575-M.jpg
with more to come:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182509772-M.jpg

my pole green beans provide a nice canopy :)
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182508962-M.jpg
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182509982-M.jpg
1st harvest :)
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182510521-M.jpg

cucumber plant:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182509271-M.jpg
almost ready for harvest:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182508827-M.jpg

tomatoes are coming along nicely ("patio" type)
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182509429-M.jpg

and now for the I need help section:

Problem #1
I planted 2 "tumbler" tomatoes in hanging baskets. This type of tomato is designed to be planted in hanging baskets as it grows out and then down...
As far as I know, both plants have been treated the same (planted at same time, same soil, same watering etc...). But this is how they look now:
the good one:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182506250-M.jpg

the gimpy one:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182505692-M.jpg

Any ideas as to why the gimpy one is about 1/10 the size of the other?


Problem #2
I planted a "super fantastic" tomato. The plant itself grew very well: it's now nice and big (top a bit above the railing) and looks healthy. However, the tomatoes growing on it are strange (small & wrinkly) and the first few ones started rotting from the inside before they had even turned red...
"wrinkly" specimens:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182507461-M.jpg
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/182507293-M.jpg

Any ideas?

bump for suggestions about my tomato issues? Any ideas?

also, here's a photo of the entire garden:
http://shirk.smugmug.com/photos/183477201-M.jpg

Tahoe garden this year is the best ever. Got 5 tomato plants w/one cherry over 6' tall! A buncha pepper plants; jalapeno, serrano, anaheim, fresno, poblano & bell are all yielding, nothing outta the habaneros though.

Having a problem with the squirrels eating my tomatos though. They seem to wait until they turn red/ripe but have eaten a couple green ones too. We heard they don't like marigolds so we have a bunch of those surrounding the garden but doesn't seem to have scared 'em off much. Don't know though, could be much worse without 'em. Any suggestions to scare off the rodents before succumb to the urge to go Elmer Fudd on 'em?

Things are definitely slowing down...

Cucumber plant succumbed to powdery mildew (at least I got a decent crop this year before the mildew set in: didn't even get a single cucumber last year)

Green beans not producing anymore

tomatoes and peppers still going strong though:
"tumbler" tomatoes:
http://www.shirk.smugmug.com/photos/196715885-M.jpg

thai peppers:
http://www.shirk.smugmug.com/photos/196717046-M.jpg

bell peppers:
http://www.shirk.smugmug.com/photos/196714725-M.jpg

two weeks ago I was all excited for some frosts to come and kill some stuff off out of the garden so we could take a break. Instead it warmed back up and we're still getting cuces, peppers and so many fucking tomatoes I don't even know what to do, all the tomato plants are actually blooming again too :nonono2:

I can't complain I guess :) fresh tomatoes in October. We also harvested all the apples yesterday and I made some more HOT! sauce. Yay for the garden.

Spring with the kids will be fun.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/a...P7110128-1.jpg

cool, maybe someday I'll wall in a little section of the world away from winter ...
In the meantime, I've discovered the wonders of phytohaemagglutinin. :nonono2:
Pick your green beans very green or cook them well.

Nasty dude!

how about peas? I love raw sweet peas/snap peas.

You're asking advice from the dude who just poisoned himself? :rolleyes:
I dunno. The sweet, immature green beans were fine. The snowpeas were too.
But if the bean has started to turn colors, lose its sweetness, get slightly bitter or tough - well, there's a reason kids don't like veggies.

I have a tomato situation.
In light of how damn cold it is now in Denver, I don't think the tomatoes will last much longer. I picked half of them, and sacrificed the other half on the vine to tempt fate for the rest of the week. What are you all doing with a crapload of green tomatoes? Fried green tomatoes, tomato fritters, green tomato soup which doesn't sound too good - but what are some other good ideas?
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...es10-14-07.jpg

What's left:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1193787127