2025 gardens

[masseyrider]

I planted tomatoes yesterday. Hoed out my broccoli and cabbage.

We're still 2 months out from doing that.
Still too early to start seeds for planting outside later.

 

[workinonit]

Hopefully next year I can get into starting seeds. I need a greenhouse.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Our seed starting area doesn't take much room or electricity. Could automate the watering but we use a simple waterer. Been doing this about 10 yrs now, works great for us.

We are hardening off everything now. Looks like our last frost is behind us.

Planting the brassicas (top shelf) this afternoon and might go ahead and plant the maters (middle shelf) tomorrow if I get the row done in time. We are trying red snapper tomatoes this year for our canning maters.

Wife just started some brandywine's for our sammich maters, my favorite. Her favorite is cherokee purple so we often plant those two and German johnson's. Bottom row are peppers, bell, jalepno, cayene etc.

Put some corn and potatoes in the ground last weekend. Trying tome glass gem popcorn. I have some ohio blue corn to plant this weekend.

I have 25 more pounds of taters coming hopefully today. All of our taters so far are russet type. I do want to plant some redskins in the near future.

Sweet taters in about another month are on the agenda.

 

[Sonny580]

got the onions planted--- took me 2 days and I am beat!! ended up with 4 1/2 rows again. same as last year.
Good friday will be tater planting day here. Have 50 pound bag of Kennebec and 10 pounds of red norland to plant.
Lookin like my last garden IF I make it thru this year. old body just wont hack it anymore.
Left most of the 4.5 acres not plowed, course now it has to be kept mowed so dont know!

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Wow thats a lot of onions. 4.5 acres for a garden? I know in the past, but WOW!!!. My hat is off to you. The easy part is planting em.

Many years we have tried sharing garden spaces with family. The idea is we share the responsibility, i'm ok with financing the costs. Inevitably they others run out of steam before the harvest happens. Now I plant it like I want with what I want and when/if I have surplus I offer it to them to come pick it. Rarely it seems does anyone want fresh "stuff" if they have to pick it.

So... We end up selling the surplus on our farm. Yes I often am the one to have to pick it, but it doesn't rot in the field.

Right now our garden is less than an acre. I think its 17 rows @ 125ft each. I have it separated every other row with blackberries (defined as purple below), so maybe its only 1/2 an acre. I do have two wide spots that are 5 and 3 rows.

I think we are planting about 60 mater plants. We can maters every other year. This year we are also going to freeze dry some maters (deseeded).

We use drip irrigation for it all. 3-5 times a week for about 2 hrs. I can run all those rows and maintain >5psi so it should emit/drip fine.

Unfortunately the peak of harvest comes about the same time as the peak of fruit harvesting.

Thanks to Google Earth here is a picture of it. This isn't the whole farm maybe 1/3 of it

 

[Sonny580]

We been hauling produce to the food bank every year. usually around 24,000 pounds per year. gets expensive since its a 25 mile trip one way! Getting hard to do now so dont know about this year. Nobody will come pick anything and a couple ladies will come IF I pick the stuff which I do so at least that much will get used.
Having to spend more time at the farm dont help either. got another 1,000' of tile to put in now and its slow digging with a mini exc.

 

[masseyrider]

We been hauling produce to the food bank every year. usually around 24,000 pounds per year. gets expensive since its a 25 mile trip one way! Getting hard to do now so dont know about this year. Nobody will come pick anything and a couple ladies will come IF I pick the stuff which I do so at least that much will get used.
Having to spend more time at the farm dont help either. got another 1,000' of tile to put in now and its slow digging with a mini exc.

You've been donating on a much larger scale than myself.
I'm by myself and the extended family is too far away to make it worth coming for/taking to my produce.
Nobody around here wants to help grow or pick and then they're fussy about what you give them.
6 tomatoes for myself, few cukes, zucchini and egg plant.
Other stuff I can buy as I need. There are a couple excellent produce stands near me.
No worries aboot looking after, watering...
I seed about an acre of sunflowers, which basically look after themselves, for the pollinators and other wild critters. I'd put in Buckwheat if I could find seed around here.
The 2 leggeds can look after themselves if they're to F'n lazy to help.
I'm happy on the deck in the shade of my catalpa trees listening to the oldies.

 

[sixdogs]

You've been donating on a much larger scale than myself.
I'm by myself and the extended family is too far away to make it worth coming for/taking to my produce.
Nobody around here wants to help grow or pick and then they're fussy about what you give them.
6 tomatoes for myself, few cukes, zucchini and egg plant.
Other stuff I can buy as I need. There are a couple excellent produce stands near me.
No worries aboot looking after, watering...
I seed about an acre of sunflowers, which basically look after themselves, for the pollinators and other wild critters. I'd put in Buckwheat if I could find seed around here.
The 2 leggeds can look after themselves if they're to F'n lazy to help.
I'm happy on the deck in the shade of my catalpa trees listening to the oldies.

I don't mean this to sound bad but when we farmed more we used to give away a lot of tons of food. None was immediately perishable and could be stored for months if away from freezing. Good stuff and first class; no culls.

You're right. They wanted the stuff but no one wanted to do anything to assist and to the point of saying as much. I don't recall a thank you, even when I gave 4000 lbs of dry foods and canned goods. Just loaded up and off they went.

When I grew up, anyone who ever gave us anything got multiple thanks from mom and out of respect we ate or wore every bit of whatever it was just because they thought enough to give it to us and likely gave the best they had.

 

[masseyrider]

We even had a lady who pretended to be ever so thankful and said was donating what she couldn't use to her church.
My mother let her take what she wanted.
She was running a produce stand at her daughters place making a killing.
Turns out she was doing this with some of the other local growers.
I'm not religious but it really burns my biscuits when crooks use the church to cover their crocked ways.
If a friend asks I'll let them have what they want.
But only once if there's no Thank You. That's the least my efforts are worth.

 

[sixdogs]

Our tomato seeds have started and have gotten leggy, as they always do. The wife then transplants into 16 oz cups and they are buried to the bottom of the cup.

When a little stronger they will start to go outside up against a sunny and wind-free spot next to a brick wall. They will be out for a few minutes at first and then longer. As mentioned earlier, they will be planted in a month or so and will be buried so that only an inch or two is above the ground. That whole stem will root all the way down.

We mound dirt around them to keep the wind off and cover with a 5 gallon bucket at night or for bad weather. It keeps rabbits away.