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.

 

[DJ54]

I have planted tomatoes that have gotten leggy by laying them down in a shallow trench. Worked great, as the top was standing straight up in a few days. They made some dandy plants, like you say that stem growing roots, but were in the fertile soil in the top 4"-5". Depends on how much room you have to work with though.

 

[sixdogs]

I have planted tomatoes that have gotten leggy by laying them down in a shallow trench. Worked great, as the top was standing straight up in a few days. They made some dandy plants, like you say that stem growing roots, but were in the fertile soil in the top 4"-5". Depends on how much room you have to work with though.

We did the trench way when we lived in a cold climate with short growing season and it worked great. In this warmer climate, we read about just burying the plant straight down and they did much better.

We dig the hole straight down and almost as deep as the plant. We snip off anything but the last few leaves so the top is only out of the ground a couple inches. Then we temporarily hump some dirt near the top of the plant to keep the wind off and keep it warmer. We smooth out when the plant is stronger. We backfill around the plant with good black dirt topsoil.

We put in 11 or 12 plants a year and typically get 450-475 pounds of tomatoes. 425 is about the lowest and 480 the highest amount.

 

[masseyrider]

I bought some strawberry plants.
I'm soaking them overnight before I put them in small pots tomorrow.
They'll be nice size for putting out in May.
Both are everbearing, Ozark and Honeoye.

 

[DJ54]

We had 2 neighbors who raised the "Jewel" strawberry, man were those things good. A June bearing berry and only produced for 2-3 weeks but were the best berry I've ever had. My mouth still waters just thinking about them.

 

[sixdogs]

We had 2 neighbors who raised the "Jewel" strawberry, man were those things good. A June bearing berry and only produced for 2-3 weeks but were the best berry I've ever had. My mouth still waters just thinking about them.

Nothing beats home grown or local grown strawberries. After those, it's hard to eat a commercial strawberry again. We can buy berries fresh from the Amish in June and wife makes a killer fresh (uncooked) strawberry pie. Nothing better.

 

[masseyrider]

We had 2 neighbors who raised the "Jewel" strawberry, man were those things good. A June bearing berry and only produced for 2-3 weeks but were the best berry I've ever had. My mouth still waters just thinking about them.

Used to be a variety called Red Coat when I was a kid.
In those days many small growers grew strawberries for the shippers.
The Red Coats were bleeders and not that big but when they were really ripe you couldn't beat the taste.
At the end of the season the ladies would come out to pick for jam. Almost everyone did their own preserves back then.
The best part was riding your bike around and you knew where all the berry patches where by the aroma wafting out.

 

[sixdogs]

Used to be a variety called Red Coat when I was a kid.
In those days many small growers grew strawberries for the shippers.
The Red Coats were bleeders and not that big but when they were really ripe you couldn't beat the taste.
At the end of the season the ladies would come out to pick for jam. Almost everyone did their own preserves back then.
The best part was riding your bike around and you knew where all the berry patches where by the aroma wafting out.

Fresh made homemade strawberry jam is so good it will spoil you for life. There is no factory made jam that can compete.


My cousin grows Concord grapes in western NY State and when the grapes are ripening in late September it's a 30 mile ride on Rt 20 with an enveloping smell that makes you roll all the windows down. What a great aroma.

With real food tasting and smelling this good, I don't get the attraction with factory food, artificial everything and Red Dye food coloring?

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

We have peppers and cabbage up. Still waiting on tomatoes

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

I bought 500 sweet Charlie strawberry plants a couple of years. Down here we plant them in the fall for the following springs season. I usually do this every couple of years. When ripe, I assign various family members a day to pick and they will get 20-30# a pick. Have to be picked every two days. We take 2 pickings and freeze them, cook many things, freeze dry and even dehydrate em. Our stock is running low so this fall will be a planting session for em.

My problem is remembering to put the order in on time. You snooze, you loose...

Planted the rest of my taters. I have 3 rows @ 125'. I did my corn a little different. Instead of a single or double row in a 5 foot row spacing, I planted them about 6-10" apart 5 across. I am planning to hook up the drip in about a week or so. The idea is maybe they won't get wind damaged. we'll see.

Planting tomatoes, cabbage, squash and Watermelons this week.

Its normally way early for watermelons but we have gotten hot pretty quick, supposed to be about 90 Fri and Sat.

May have missed the window for my lettuce transplants, if it stays hot they'll bolt for sure.

 

[DJ54]

Tomatoes germinated in 60 hours. First pic is yesterday just before noon. Second picture is 24 hours later. Amazing how fast they can grow. Probably should have put them in the greenhouse last evening, but tractor club meeting ran a little late, and was raining pretty good by the time I got the feeding done. Hopefully they won't get too leggy.

Ones on the second shelf weren't getting as much light so moved them up after taking the ones off the top shelf. Should be big enough to put in the greenhouse here in a bit.

Will have to put them in the heated shop on Mon. & Tue. night as they are calling for a low of 25º Mon. and 27º Tue. overnight. Temps look to be reasonable the rest of the week.