Gardening

[AHNC]

I went out in the front yard with my pick this morning. Took the point and gave it a full swing. The recoil pretty much shivered me timbers. I'm going to go back into hibernation for a bit.

 

[Stimw]

Here is a local planting guide handed out by a local farm/seed store.

 

[Scotty370]

Doggone you guy with the long growing season!! I was thinking of soaking the carrot seeds in Viagra, But then I've got to rinse then off "....... After 4 hours.....or call my Horticulturist!" (Can I get a 'rim-shot' here?) ~S

 

[charlz]

Garlic, shallots and walking onions keep shooting up green through the snow. That's kind of a nice sight. Tough little buggers. First time planting garlic for me. Looking forward to harvesting in July.

You are a bit more south than me, I usually harvest my garlic at the end of June/Early July. I am zone 6b. The rule of thumb is when about 1/2 of the lower leaves are brown it is time to harvest garlic. If you wait too long the bulbs can start to split the paper a little allowing dirt to get inside. Not really a big deal if you break them up and use the cloves but I like to roast the bulbs. Your mileage may vary based on the type of garlic you are growing, fertilization etc. I grow a Rocambole hard neck type which has loose skins compared to other types.

 

[jeffinsgf]

You are a bit more south than me, I usually harvest my garlic at the end of June/Early July. I am zone 6b. The rule of thumb is when about 1/2 of the lower leaves are brown it is time to harvest garlic. If you wait too long the bulbs can start to split the paper a little allowing dirt to get inside. Not really a big deal if you break them up and use the cloves but I like to roast the bulbs. Your mileage may vary based on the type of garlic you are growing, fertilization etc. I grow a Rocambole hard neck type which has loose skins compared to other types.

May be south of you, but we're in Zone 6b, too. Doesn't really matter, because USDA Zones relate to lowest temps in the winter, not growing season length, first or last frost, or anything else that really matters.

Thanks for the tip about the lower leaves going brown. I remember reading that somewhere, but had completely forgotten, and was wondering how I would know when to harvest (beyond "sometime in July"). I have some hardneck, some softneck and some elephant.

 

[jinman]

I'm a little north of you, and not the gardener of the family (just run the plow and tiller). The wife already has our house looking like a green house. Can't sit down without moving a plant of some kind. Tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, peppers are in the living room now. As I am typing this she just said "If you had built me a green house like I ASKED YOU TO, they wouldn't be in the house !!

You can get out of the greenhouse "doghouse" easily with one of these shelf units. I bought two. One is shorter and has a flap near the top in the rear so it can be unzipped to allow airflow. The other one I will have to cut my own flap and use velcro to close it as needed.

I also bought two of those 72 place planting beds from Walmart with the round peat plugs wrapped in cloth. You wet them with water and let the peat swell up before planting seeds. I used a pencil to make planting holes in the plugs and planted tomatoes, chives, cantaloupe, squash, melons, and several other things. To keep up with what I'd planted, I printed out a matrix of squares to match the 72 places in each planter and wrote down what seeds I'd planted in each matching square.

I've been thrilled to see my plants emerge so quickly (some in 4 days). The beds come with a clear plastic cover and in short order, the plants were pressing up against the tops.

My greenhouse shelves were delivered in about 4 days from Amazon. They go together very easily and are a good value in my opinion because they can be so easily assembled and torn down for storage at the end of the season.

I put the greenhouse shelves out on my new deck and have been putting the planting beds into them on sunny days. Some of my plants are 6"-8" tall. Yesterday was a perfect day for the greenhouse shelves. The temperature was about 31 degrees, but the sun was out. The temperature inside the greenhouses was 86 degrees, so I put the planting beds in them for the day. About 11:30 AM, I heard an awful banging on my deck and went out to discover that the wind had blown over my greenhouse. Both my planting beds were upside down and my little peat plugs with plants growing out of them were scattered all inside the plastic covers. All my organization and documentation is now worthless.

Oh well, we can start over. Sheesh! My wife and I had to just laugh. At least we have plenty of time to do it all again, but I'm gonna find a way to mark each little peat plug with some kind of unique mark. I may also use some potting soil in small styrofoam cups too, and write on the outside of the cup. I will also put some anchor points on the rail of my deck and use bungee cords to hold my greenhouse shelves in place. I've learned my lesson.

EDIT: Oh yes, I forgot to say that my garden is floating. Well, it's not full of standing water, but it sure is muddy. I have several things to finish including a fence, but I can't get out there because it is way too muddy. I tilled my garden a few days before the rain started, so it soaked up lots of moisture and is very soft. I want to build a big greenhouse this year, but my spot I've chosen is too wet to walk across at the moment.

Our safe planting day here is normally March 15th. That means the seeds won't germinate until late March. Setting out young plants started in the greenhouse is best delayed until April 1st. Many melon producers here and in East Texas hope to get melons going in early March so they can beat the competition to market. Sometimes they get lucky and sometimes they don't.

I won't plant peas, beans, okra, or other row-crop plants early. Okra pops up in 7 days or less when I plant it directly into a row as do beans and peas. It's just not worth the hassle to plant any other way.

 

[forgeblast]

Our last frost day is april 20th, but i am pulling together everything we are going to use now. (seeds, starter trays, (i make my own peat type pots out of newspaper) and same sticks (use pop sticks with the name on it). I also made an excel sheet of the name of the seed, where/when i bought it from, action (si=start inside, or so=start outside), action date, and where i planted them in our raised bed garden so that i can rotate the crops. this is really helping me this year, also helps when you get snow and cant wait for spring.

 

[charlz]

I have some hardneck, some softneck and some elephant.

If you haven't tried it before you should try cooking the hardneck scapes when it comes time to cut them off. I just swish them around in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper then toss them on the grill for a few minutes. Very bitter when raw but the heat does something to them... good way to get a little garlic prior to harvest. I have found it to be a timing issue, you don't want to cut them too early (before full curl) and if you wait too long they start to get woody.

 

[jeffinsgf]

Thanks. Can't wait!

 

[Bartcephus]

Well, we received a gift from Mother Nature yesterday.... six inches of white fluffy stuff which fell from the sky. My melons are now 5" tall. I'm beginning to think I'm way ahead of the game here. Pepers are now popping up and some are about an inch tall now. All still in my kitchen. Reading about the roasted garlic.... mmmmmmm I can hardly wait.... guess I need to get some of those seeds or plants. We have some pretty good co-ops around here to get plants and seeds. Today, the temps are above freezing, at 39 degrees, but everything that isn't paved is so soft you can't even walk on it without sinking in. We have some cold weather forcast for this next week too and possibly more rain/snow. I know I'll be doing the rain dance in July-September for the moisture, but right now... it would be nice to at least get some dry and a little warmth. At my lease, (hunting and garden) you can get stuck on the county roads if you don't have 4 wheel drive just to get there. All the roads I spent hours and hours grading and filling holes are now mud strips and slides. Now I know how our county road commissioners feel. It is a constant battle with nature on unpaved roads. At least I can mark the really wet spots to try and come up with something to improve the water drainage.

 

[LRTX1]

Bart,

You should be ok on your peppers... But your melons will probably try to fall over and make runners in the next week or two. You will probably do better starting over with your melons. Good luck and let us know how things turn out.

 

[charlz]

Reading about the roasted garlic.... mmmmmmm I can hardly wait.... guess I need to get some of those seeds or plants.

Garlic is mostly grown from the cloves. I say mostly because with hardneck you can let the scapes go and they will bloom and form bubils which can also be planted. Normally the scapes are cut off so the plant puts all it energy into making the bulb.

Garlic is also typically planted in the fall but you can plant early in the spring as well. You can order some or maybe find it at a local store that would carry onion sets etc. or you could just plant what your local grocery store carries. The commercial varieties are all softneck. The larger the clove you plant the bigger the bulb you get.

 

[Bartcephus]

Well, at least I know the melons will come up soon when I plant new ones... LOL... I'll be looking for the garlic. But is sure is muddy out there to plant them. Don't ya just love mother nature?

 

[Mousefield]

We plant our garlic in the fall. As an earlier post mentioned, the larger the clove planted typically the larger the bulb. Had a very mild winter, warmest January on record. Pictures taken just this morning.

 

[Bartcephus]

Hey Mousefield... Great looking garden spot you have there.... nice dark soil, critter fence... Look's great! Mine isn't near as pretty....

 

[Mousefield]

We use raised beds and composted goat manure. Wife is the gardener, has a real green thumb. She cans a lot of what we grow. Had carrots for supper tonight, harvested this fall and still good to eat, tasted great.

 

[lakngulf]

Here are what my tomatoes look like after two weeks. I transplanted them last weekend to the larger containers, and will probably transplant one more time before setting out time. They survived the first handling fairly well. White containers are Celebrity, the others are Better Boy.

The other picture shows my new method for starting the plants. My wife read somewhere the a used TP roll cut in half made an excellent starter container for growing indoor plants. You can get a bunch in a flat, I have 50 in this one flat. In the first flat I did, the germination rate on the tomatoes was unreal. I put just one seed per TP roll and got over 90%. From these it was easy to lift the starts out and transplant to the larger container. Also, the paper should just deteriate in the soil.

Most of this flat was started last Saturday. The two rows on the left are left over from the first start two weeks ago. I think the second row has bell pepper. I planted last year egg plant seed and pepper seed in those two rows, but I forgot which is which. The stringy stuff in rows 7 and 8 are broccilli, my first time ever to try it. I have a couple of yellow squash coming up. I know it is too early for it but my goal is to nurture it along in some indoor pots and maybe get an early crop. We will see. Other items that should come up in this flat are a few more tomatoes, bell pepper, jalepeno pepper and egg plant. It is interesting how the seeds vary in germination time.

 

[charlz]

Tomatoes handle transplanting really well. You can just spread the seeds in a flat and cover them for germination. When the first true leaves develop (about 14 days) prick them out with a nail or something and transplant them to a small individual container. Then when they are about 3 inches (another 14 days or so) transplant them again into slightly larger containers. The final transplanting I use 4" containers for the last month or so they are under lights. Then they get hardened off and transplanted into the garden. You can go to larger containers sooner but then they take more growing rack space.

I really like those Better Boy tomatoes, nice and meaty with great flavor.

 

[Bartcephus]

Thanks for the tips Charlz... Went out to work the garden this weekend. Prepared a nice 4' by about 20' raised bed for onion sets. Just as we were about to start sticking them in the soil.... down comes the rain. Garden was a mud pit in minutes. LOL

 

[Bartcephus]

Rain.... Rain.... and more rain.... Saturday was sunny and beautiful. Got some seat time grading the drive and some roads. But ground was still too wet for anything significant. Sunday was another beautiful day. Planted an onion bed. Wish I had some potatoes to drop in the ground. But I didn't have time to do that anyway. My starter planter in my kitchen seems to be growing some form of white fungus. Started with the onions, but has spread to the watermellon and now some tomatoes. I hope it doesn't affect the plants. Definately want to get a PTO tiller for the tractor. Using the Cub Cadet walk behind tiller is giving my arms a workout.