official veggie gardener's thread

[TraumaRN]

you guys use any liquid fertilizer (beside Miracle Gro) that you spray on??

I used ground up fish meal. Stinks to high hell but if it worked for natives americans it works for me! It's organic to boot. Also I rototilled, applied some compost/top soil, then tilled again. At the end of the year I'll be putting down horse manure and tilling one more time.

I've got a few green tomatos on my brandywine. And anyone want cucumbers?? I'm picking a half dozen or more each day.

 

[meltdown75]

for some of my jaleps, i will be halving them and filling them with cream cheese, wrapping them in bacon and grilling them. it's orgasmic. try it.

 

[bignateyk]

for some of my jaleps, i will be halving them and filling them with cream cheese, wrapping them in bacon and grilling them. it's orgasmic. try it.

What if you took a whole one, injected the cream cheese inside of it, then wrapped it and bacon and grilled it?

 

[BoomerD]

What if you took a whole one, injected the cream cheese inside of it, then wrapped it and bacon and grilled it?

You could do that, but they're better without the seeds...

(cut the top/stem off, remove seeds, then fill w/cream cheese)

 

[meltdown75]

lol... sometimes we put a whole bunch of seeds in one to make it super spicy and trick someone into eating it... 3 or 4 of us will eat a regular one and give someone the super spicy one. it's funny

 

[BoomerD]

lol... sometimes we put a whole bunch of seeds in one to make it super spicy and trick someone into eating it... 3 or 4 of us will eat a regular one and give someone the super spicy one. it's funny

meh...imo, the seeds aren't really that much hotter. Removing the seeds makes more room for filling.

 

[DrPizza]

Tomatoes are growing like crazy. The broccoli has been eaten (by something.) Got cucumbers this year already full grown (that was fast.) Corn, what's left of it, is doing great. Fairwell watermellon & cantaloupes - 2 plants left out of 24. They didn't survive the week we were on vacation. I can't believe they couldn't grow in the compost rich soil. Ate some strawberries already. Peppers on the way.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

2 weeks of hot sunny weather, then 2 days of nothing but rain. My smaller tomato plants doubled in size over the past few days. My Sweet Million is doing the best of all. It got so huge it tipped over its supporting cage. lost one of its big stems and a couple smaller ones. But its still massive. Added some poles and stings.

The mystery tomato transplant from the carrot bed turned out to be the little pear shape tomatoes i grew last year. Yay! ive only had a few ripe cherry tomatoes so far... every things still green.

peas are done. fun to grow but doubt i'll do em again. Green beans need poles that are 8' minimum. the 6 footers i used are way too small for how large they've gotten. Onions are doing great. Carrots are pushing 6" in length. I have no idea when i can dig up the potatoes. they're thriving and have been in the ground almost 8 weeks.

Cucumbers are still hanging in there. After being given up for lost, a couple plants have made a comeback and one is climbing up the fence its next to. ive got hopes for cucumbers yet!

Cilantro got so big it fell over. And the Basil couldnt be eaten fast enough. Its HUGE. This is the first year i didnt actually kill it. Its bitter and near inedible now.

tips on keeping basil good all season long in the garden?

 

[DrVos]

Any thoughts on how safe it would be water from my fish pond to water my veggie garden or other landscape plants? I figured that there would be a lot of beneficial nutrients in the water, but wonder if there are any potential health hazards.

 

[BoomerD]

I've mentioned my "nearly defoliated" tomatos that are heavily laden with fruit...

So far, I've picked close to two dozen tomatoes from the four plants...all of them the size of a baseball or larger. Gonna pick a bunch more tomorrow.

Remember, these plants are less than 24" tall and they are 2 wide in a 36" wide raised bed.

 

[spidey07]

Yep, that be a bush/determinate tomato. Notice there aren't any more blossom clusters. Great fruit set! Almost every blossom set!

 

[joesmoke]

ive got what looks like powdery mildew on a few of my melon leaves... backed off watering that spot(it gets more shade i think), but is there something i should be doing so it wont spread? somebody told me to wash them with diluted soapy water but this seemed odd.

advice?

 

[BoomerD]

Yep, that be a bush/determinate tomato. Notice there aren't any more blossom clusters. Great fruit set! Almost every blossom set!

Yes...great production from these. My early girl plants are about 5 feet tall and covered with both fruits and blossoms. I've picked maybe a dozen from the two of them so far...
Most are quite a bit smaller than the SunSugar tomatos, but very good in flavor.
My wife is going to make salsa and tomato sauce out of both varieties.

 

[spidey07]

That second picture looks like Early Girl? Start taking off the suckers, they are reaching for the sky.

 

[BoomerD]

That second picture looks like Early Girl? Start taking off the suckers, they are reaching for the sky.

Most of the suckers have blossoms...

Last year, we had fresh tomatos, jalapenos and bell peppers into late November or early December before the frost got them.

 

[spidey07]

Most of the suckers have blossoms...

Last year, we had fresh tomatos, jalapenos and bell peppers into late November or early December before the frost got them.

All suckers will eventually have blossoms, that's why they're called suckers. The plant uses all of it energy to send out those suckers instead of making larger fruit.

Trim suckers = bigger tomatoes
Don't = a little more tomatoes, ton of foliage, smaller fruit

Then again nabbing those suckers vs. not is almost a religious argument.:awe:

 

[Mike Gayner]

OK so I started cultivating my small patch this weekend. I have only 1/2 finished it, but it gives you a good idea of what I'm starting with. We just moved into this house recently so I have inherited this. It looks as though the previous owners made some mistakes with some of their plantings, and some mint and parsley basically took over. Then they basically stopped caring at all by the looks of things.

Anywho, I'm a complete beginner at this, so I'm definitely looking for any help/hints/tips. I don't know what I'll plant yet - it's the middle of winter here so there's not much I can put in.

Also, yeah I'm terrible at taking photos, especially with my GF's el cheapo point and shoot.

 

[TraumaRN]

Here is just today's harvest from only 4 cucumber plants

Like the lettuce/spinach before way overproducing. But still very delicious!

And for those wondering, I have 1 pickling cucumber plant 2 english style plants and one 'regular' cucumber plant

 

[BoomerD]

Back in March, I picked up what was supposed to be a Fresno chili plant...

The peppers don't look like a Fresno...more like a Hungarian wax pepper, (think pepperoccini) but these little fuckers are H-O-T!!

I ate the first one tonight...little sumbitch...maybe 3 inches long.

I was expecting something about like an Anaheim type of banana pepper...mildly hot with good flavor.

Well...the flavor was great, but my mouth and throat burned for 30 minutes...my wife said my face turned bright red as I ate the thing.

I eat jalapeno and serrano peppers all the time. Occasionally I'll get one that makes me sweat some, but nothing like this.

I'm thrilled that they're so dammed hot...and that the flavor is good, but it's going to limit how much the wife uses them in cooking...she's a wuss with hot peppers.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

i all of a sudden have a bunch of green beans about 10" long. didnt pay attention to them for a few days but noticed they were budding. Got that couple days of rain, then i check a few days later and POW, tons of green beans. mmmm...

 

[craftsmaster]

First time we're trying to grow anything. Too much deer and not enough land to put down an actual garden, we're just planting about 8 pots worth of peppers, tomatoes and beans and placing them on the deck. The beans we'll probably move to under the deck and them climb up.

Try considering indoor gardening, here's really only one catch to growing herbs indoors, especially in the initial stages. These plants crave -- and need! -- ten to 12 hours of sunlight every day to thrive.

 

[TraumaRN]

Ahhh yes the cantaloupe cometh

2 good size cantaloupe on the vine right now, both are about baseball size. Have about a dozen other that are a little bigger than a marble I've had 3 neighbors tell me they'll pay a couple dollars per cantaloupe. And so far so good

They are already paying me for cucumbers I've got so many.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

ive got blight starting on my tomaters...

 

[spidey07]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

ive got blight starting on my tomaters...

You sure it's blight and not just heat damage on the lower leaves? Are they planted too close together?

If it's the lower leaves turning yellow then just remove them.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

You sure it's blight and not just heat damage on the lower leaves? Are they planted too close together?

If it's the lower leaves turning yellow then just remove them.

ive got one plant with just some yellowing leaves. the others that im seeing ave been mid plat, yellowing, black spots, shriveling stems...