Veggie Time- show me your garden setup!

84FSP Jr and J got the garden beds turned and 8 Maters planted.  Still need to get some peppers in there in the coming days.

Still need to get basil and cilantro in but I usually put those in the front landscaping beds.

Another update.  These planters are much success

In reply to ProDarwin :

Those are looking good sir - you've got a solid 8" more height on your Maters that I have here in Ohio.  Just enlisted 84FSPJr to handle care and feeding while I'm off on a work trip.  Got the Jalapenos and Poblanos planted and they seem happy.

I got about a half acre of sweet corn and some popcorn planted today. I used my new Earth way garden seeder it was a major time saver. Do recommend if you're planting in long rows but the ground has to be pretty well tilled. The corn took me about an hour. 

84FSP said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

Those are looking good sir - you've got a solid 8" more height on your Maters that I have here in Ohio.  Just enlisted 84FSPJr to handle care and feeding while I'm off on a work trip.  Got the Jalapenos and Poblanos planted and they seem happy.

 

 They are over the top of those cages now - except the one on the left which I over-pruned by accident.  It'll come back, just behind the curve.  Each plant is starting to look like this.  I wonder how many I will get out of these... it already looks a lot more promising than last year.

I think they would be better if they got full sun, but I think they really only get about 6 hours there.  There are spots in my front yard that get full sun but I wasn't willing to commit to an area there until I know I can do this well.  Really I would probably just add more to the backyard - there is plenty of space.  Ideally the whole damn back yard would be full of produce.  Even though its work it is infinitely more enjoyable than grass.

What I need to figure out now is: bugs.  Most of my herbs are in another container and the basil is just getting wrecked by bugs.  The cilantro seems to be mostly ok, but a bit weak.  The oregano in that container is totally fine.  I've sprayed them with a DIY mix I used previously (cayenne pepper, water, a little soap to help it stick), but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick now.  I'm thinking its because I didn't put mulch down on top of the soil in that container, so there is wet area for bugs to reside.

Got an early start this year, first part of March.  Been eating sungold tomatoes and zucchini a few weeks

About 20 various tomato plants, probably half dozen tomatillo plants that were all volunteers.  Jalapeno and anaheim chileZucchini, butternut squash, some herbs and a bunch of snap peas, probably 30-40 of them, with a few snow peas thrown in there.  I am in a bit of a quandry what to do about the tomatoes getting too tall for the tomato cages.  Cages are four feet, and tomatoes are 5 feet now. I was going to put some fertilizer on the garden, but those tomato plants are like the Borg as it is.  If I throw some miracle grow at them they might just take over the planet.

Are they indeterminate?  If so, train them up a string.  For determinate, I don't know... I'm hoping I sized the cages right for my romas this year.

Oops, "show me" right. 

The dogs ate the first round of snap peas.  I blame my wife.  Last year she ate the peas and let the dog eat the husk.  She picked it and ate it in front of him.  He is a dog, but he is not stupid, so we had a bit of a problem with the dog eating the peas last year.  It never occurred to me he would eat the plants, then I saw him eating the plants.  I thought it was squirrels or something pulling them up.  Started over on the peas, built a little fence around them for round two, and have told the wife the she had best keep an eye on her dog if she wants any peas  I will see if I can get a shot of the dog eating peas off the vine.

My wife and I have been growing tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets on our deck for the past few years with pretty decent success. We quit trying to grow them in our garden because they always got bad blight, but they seem to do well up on the deck in the buckets. We've been doing the "string training" method, pruning each plant to grow as a single (eventually very tall) stem. Here's what last year's setup looked like around this time of year:

Each plant got one string, and the main stem was supported with clips like these:

This spring, we decided to replace the deck (which will be a full summer project) so the tomato buckets got moved down onto the landscaping rocks and patio bricks. Last weekend, it was obvious that they needed some kind of support, so here's what I came up with. I'm calling them tomato halos:

Each halo is made from a 10' piece of 3/8" rebar, bent around a spare bucket into a hoop, welded, and bent again.

Here's how they turned out. I drilled holes through the rim of each bucket, and used zip ties through those holes to support the rebar. They're not quite as stable as I'd like, but I think they'll hold up with the strings for support. Each bucket has 3 strings to start out with. I'm trying for 3-4 stems per plant this year, hoping to get more fruit that way than pruning to just a single stem on one string.

If this works out well, this could be the new system even after the buckets get moved back up onto the deck (whenever that gets done).

I started taking corn off Saturday. It was delicious. We have also canned 21 quarts.

It's gotten unbearably hot here in FL, but at least my okra is loving it! Advice on what (if anything) to do with the okra that get too big and woody? Is the answer just compost bin?

Timely bump.  

I have questions regarding fertilizing for raised beds / self watering planters.  How much do I need to fertilize?  Like how many grams of masterblend per plant per week?  I seem to have a hard time figuring that out.

I've gotten about 15lbs of tomatoes from 3 plants which is decent, but I'm sure I threw out about 10-15lbs as well.  It seems like later in the season I end up with a lot more fruit that has "blossom end rot" although not always on the blossom end.  It seems like a calcium deficiency but I just dont know how much I need to add and I'm afraid of overdoing it.

In reply to ProDarwin :

From what I can tell, the plants will kind of tell you it's time for food. But that may be too late. 
 

Also, Ca related rot is quite sensitive to some, and not to others. There are some good suggestions using egg shells and vinegar you can look into- it doesn't seem that they care about too much Ca. 

I couldn't plant my 6 Early Girl tomato plants until after Memorial Day because of frost over the holiday. They are in 24" pots with lots of drainage holes and a couple of inches of packing peanuts under landscape fabric and filled with Miracle Grow garden soil. I add a big handful of 10-10-10 fertilizer, gypsum, and garden lime because I heard it helps prevent blossom end rot and mix it in down to a shovels depth. I need to build something to hold the plants up other than the cages. I also planted about 25 radishes around the perimeter of each pot but a lot of them got away from me. I was told to let them flower out and they will self seed another crop in the fall. 

In reply to ProDarwin :

I've learned that blossom end rot can also be caused by under-watering. Even if there's calcium in the soil, if the roots aren't getting enough water, they can't absorb it.

First thing I did when I started seeing BER this year was step up the watering and that stopped it for me.

obsolete said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

I've learned that blossom end rot can also be caused by under-watering. Even if there's calcium in the soil, if the roots aren't getting enough water, they can't absorb it.

First thing I did when I started seeing BER this year was step up the watering and that stopped it for me.

These are in a sub-irrigated planter, there is no way they are underwatered.

Don't buy the cheapest landscape fabric you can find. 5 years my ass. 

I think next year I'm going to do a few pots, and leave the garden tarped from fall this year till spring of 24. 

Well, the garden is tapered down for the year.  Tomatoes barely had anything going on and the peppers were slowing, so I just pulled the plug before Ian came through and destroyed what was left.

Now I am doing 3 things:

1)  Turning the top of the sub irrigated planters into my compost bin for the winter.  Might as well compost in-place, right?

2) I trimmed back all my pepper plants and I am going to try and over-winter them in the basement.  They have some natural light from a window, but I've supplemented with a single LED bulb for 5 hrs/day.  Hopefully that is enough.  Basement is unheated but I can't see it ever getting below 50.

3) I am printing some of these https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4868103 for air-layering some clones of a crepe myrtle in my front yard that I will plant in back.  Part of my ongoing effort to replace the last 1/3 of my yard's grass with trees instead.

Just getting the last maters out of the garden.  It's been 9 years and my non-pressure treated lumber is finally roached.  I'm planning to more than double the garden for next year with a u shaped setup. With only fencing (Idiot Great Danes and rabbits) the outside of it with one entry gate It should be far easier to pick the veggies.

I'm trying to decide if I do it before winter to let it winter and season the soil?  Or maybe I procrastinate till spring?  I'd be having 10yards of good composte garden mix delivered so unclear if it matters.