let's see your veggie garden {pics} 2021-25

[deluxestogie]

During the mid 1980s, while I was on flying status at Eglin (33TFW)—with frequent, detailed meteorology briefings, I was jogging on most days, and fishing or exploring the bayous and ponds by boat on free weekends. I recall the frequency of rain to be as currently reported from Eglin. Weather patterns do change.

Bob

 

[Homegrowngoodnes]

Yeah, patterns change for sure! This year has been odd ball compared to how it has been. It started similarly with little rain through spring followed by a good month of rain in June. The it really went wonky n we got a couple light showers weekly in the end of July. August was basically nothing. September has been rather slow as well. Reportedly, we average 66" of rain per year. I am unsure we got half of that so far!

 

[deluxestogie]

How Big is Your Pumpkin?

"HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) — ...weighing 2,749 pounds (1,247 kilograms).​

​

Travis Gienger, of Anoka, Minnesota, won the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, with an enormous, lumpy, orange pumpkin that could produce at least 687 pies."​

Pumpkin weighing 2,749 pounds wins California contest, sets world record for biggest gourd

A Minnesota horticulture teacher has set a world record in California for the heaviest pumpkin after growing a giant jack-o’-lantern gourd weighing 2,749 pounds.

apnews.com

I planted no pumpkins this year.

Bob

 

[Redleaf]

We did grow some giant pumpkins. No prize winners but big for our garden. Also some small decorative pumpkins as well as watermelon and cantaloupe.

 

[ProZachJ]

Reviving this thread to show off some of my '23 work. This is an acre of "milpa" that we grew to donate to local food charities. Harvesting it is like a scavenger hunt.

 

[ProZachJ]

Here's my personal garden.

 

[smallwanderings]

This morning, waiting for spring.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

We had a freeze a few days ago, and I finally harvested nearly everything ahead of that, but I cut the lettuce and stuff off and left the stump to grow back if it will, and left one cabbage and one cauliflower that had only pretty small heads anyway so wouldn't be a big loss. Bumper crop of cilantro and I pulled it all out, bundled, vacuum bagged, and froze. Four collard green plants left and I cut off all the leaves hand size or bigger and left the stalks to fend for themselves in the cold weather. I had stuck a few onion and celery bottoms in the ground and I left them alone. My last Boxcar Willie tomato plant sadly was putting on new blooms and fruit but nothing even close to harvestable, and I expected it to die in the freezing temperatures. So I had a bunch of left over veggies from last year that I harvested because I had to, or risk losing them. But everything I left, except the tomato, survived and now is flourishing. I tilled the ground level garden areas a few weeks ago and some bok choi and cilantro volunteered and are doing fine. The last little cabbage is nearly ready to cut. Waiting furiously on the little baby cauliflower to get big enough to harvest. The collards are probably going to live and produce a second year. They do that sometimes. My new blackberry bushes put on flowers just in time to get them froze off. The last broccoli gave up its final side shoots in the great harvest. That's about it. I have a lot of winter weeds so I will till again in a couple of weeks, and plant my carrots and radishes. I have seedlings started for broccoli, jalapeños, cabbage, okra, bok choy, broccoli, San Marzano tomatoes, celery, callaloo, and probably missing something there. I forgot to get collard seeds so I ordered them a few minutes ago. Planting out date, to be determined by the long range weather forecast but not before the middle of next month. only doing 18 tobacco plants this year. I wanted to plant more Piloto for filler but I discovered I didn't have the seeds so rather than order and wait days, I planted Habano 2000, and the Moldovan 456 and Monte Calme Yellow.

I'm really looking forward to getting everything in the ground for 2024 but still have a few little things left from 2023. It was a good year and this one will be better.

 

[deluxestogie]

If you find yourself staring at veggie seed packets from prior years, and wondering if the seed are likely to still be viable, check out the table in a previous post from 2021:

Veggie Seed Viability Table

Seed that is stored well may be viable for longer than the durations in the table.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

 

[ProZachJ]

Five day side by side

 

[deluxestogie]

Johnny's Select Seed provides a web page calculator for when to start specific veggie seeds indoors, and when to put them out into the garden—based on your "last frost date".

Seed-Starting Date Calculator: When to Start Seeds Indoors | Johnny's Selected Seeds

Enter your spring frost-free date and the calculator will provide recommended date ranges for seed starting and transplanting a variety of garden crops.

www.johnnyseeds.com

It also includes an extensive list of flowers.

Look up your last frost date by zip code (for the US) here:

Lookup your first and last freeze/frost dates by zip code

Check out the largest plant identification database in the world. Read plant and insect reference guides at Daves Garden.

davesgarden.com

Bob

 

[ProZachJ]

Today was potting day for the early batch of tomatoes my wife almost made it through half of them. Hopefully they either be in the ground or sold after the first weekend of March.





Plenty more after that...

 

[MadFarmer]

Here's my personal garden.

View attachment 49405

Do you have a preferred method for thwarting the squash vine borer?

 

[ProZachJ]

Do you have a preferred method for thwarting the squash vine borer?

1. Sacrificial varieties around the border of the garden (trap cropping) https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2017/3/Trap_cropping/

2. Plant double the plants, harvest early, and have something else you are really eager to plant in those rows (okra for me) and that way you don't care as much when they get them.

3. The absolute miracle of diversity. When I grow my milpa field I see zip, ziltch, zero, vine borer in any of the many cucurbits including the ever plagued patty pan and yellow squash. I have no real idea why this works but my theory is that a decent size monoculture of squash plants is like a giant neon sign waving them in and having so many other things above below and around the squash means they just don't find them.

 

[ProZachJ]

Starting to smother out the winter weeds in preparation for topping with more compost and planting in March. Like everything on the farm nothing can be accomplished without the obligatory trip to home Depot. I ran out of plastic/tarps with 1/4 remaining.

 

[ProZachJ]

As of now, 324 tomatoes have made it into pots. This year hasn't been our best work but at least we aren't month behind or a hundred short. I think by the time friends and family get their pick Ill have just enough for a good size crop of each variety.

 

[deluxestogie]

Me too! Here's my veggie garden start for 2024:

This 3½" pot contains one snow pea seed near each corner. This is the first to germinate.

I guess that means that I will have a garden this year.

Bob

 

[ProZachJ]

Tomato garden almost ready for planting. We decided since we're doing so many plants across tomatoes, peppers, tobacco, vegetable acre that we didn't have time for weeding this year. So after we put the compost in we've covered it in geotextile fabric and are going to go sort of plastic culture style.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

A few tomato plants are showing their first 2024 tomatoes.


Old reliable collard greens from last year are still putting out. Having a hard time keeping up with eating them up.


The back bed. Mixed brassicas. Castle Dome broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, some romanescu, bok choy, maybe other stuff, and some radishes planted between the rows. I planted really early and the rain and wind got a bunch, and cool weather retarded growth, so I ended up replanting many, which is why some are half grown and some you can barely see. Elsewhere I have planted jalapeños, okra, onions, chard, more collards cause last years might die on me, carrots, and various annual herbs though the cilantro mostly reseeds itself. I just put the tobacco in the ground because the seedlings weren't looking too good. I exposed them to the cold winter air too soon. I will start some more and replant as necessary. The cold seems to be the bane of bakky and it has been dipping down into the low 50s and upper 40s even, at night.