Jim Inman's (jinman) Garden - 2007

[TBDonnelly]

Here's a few of the latest pictures of our yard.......er......garden.......er......"Yarden"! That's it.....the "Yarden". All of the beds are planted. A few of the tomato plants have small tomatoes on them. The Zucchini has taken off....still in the small greenhouse. Also included a tomato and a pepper plant from the vertical garden.

Don

 

[jinman]

Don, your "yarden" looks like a great adventure to me. It's certainly a lot more interesting than all my traditional plantings. I'm happy to see that all your transplants from the hoophouse look like they are doing very well too. I look at your overall shot and I wonder what each thing is, because many of the smaller plants are hard to identify. I'm looking forward to seeing the progress and growth of all your plants. I know they will surely grow great in your raised beds.

I like your JC-inspired tomato cages too. You did a very neat job on those corner loops and my guess is those cages will last long enough to be passed on as a family heirloom. Nice job! I also built 8 cages out of field fence for my sweet 100 tomatoes on Saturday. My wife held up all the limbs while I wrapped the wire around and bent the ends to make loop. This is the second-stage cages on these tomatoes and I'm sure there will eventually be a third since they are already over the top of the wire. We are starting to gather lots of small cherry tomatoes and a few larger ones. I expect the fruit will really start ripening by this next weekend.

We dug about 1/4 of our potatoes this weekend. I'd say we got close to 50 lb total. The potatoes in the ground are more consistent in size than the ones we planted in the hay, but the hay sure produces a lot nicer looking potato. Unfortunately, we lost about one out of every 10 to grubs. I thought it was interesting that the grubs would eat a lot out of one potato and leave the others untouched. I guess once they found a food source, they just stayed with it. Some pictures of the "hay-tators" are attached.

It was so hot here this weekend that you didn't have to do anything to break a sweat (95º). We rigged soaker hoses between rows of veggies and I looked like someone had turned a hose on me. I took three showers and went through three sets of clothes on Saturday. Whew! Summertime heat is already here.

 

[Egon]

Nice looking Taters!

We planted our driveway garden last week.

 

[Chuck52]

Cattle panels are real handy. I have one in the garden supporting cucumbers and another with tomatoes on it. I didn't cut those, but I will have several extra panels when I finish the permanent fence around my garden and I will probably use them for supports of various kinds then. One of my buddies just forms an arch with a panel and lets his tomatoes grow up and over it, and the tomatoes eventually hang down easy to pick. Under the arch he plants other stuff, and it can be a good place for lettuce and other crops that don't need too much hot sun.

Chuck

 

[dmccarty]

Jim,

When did you plant the garden?

Our soil is clay and rock. So we have had to bring in50ish yards of "topsoil" for the garden. I think next year we will drop another 30-60 yards to get the garden deep enough, 6-12 inchs before hitting clay as well as to make the garden a bit larger. Its currently about 24x45.

I used the tractor to move the topsoil around and in the process compacted the heck out of it in places. In hindsight I should have at least ripped the soil with the box blade teeth. I have to use a hard tine rack, point hoe, regular hoe, and a pick ax to prepare planting beds.

We might get a walk behind tiller next year. Don't really need one for the tractor so a small one will do. Eventually I'll put in retaining wall blocks around the garden to make it a raised garden. And a finished fence to keep out the Wood Rats aka deer. Right now we have HT fence and 4x4 mesh fence on T Posts.

Anywho, Stuff is growing and I saw my first flowers on plants yesterday. I planted early. The average last frost is 4/15 in my area and I was planting carrots earlier in April. We still don't have anything to eat, well some carrots look good. The rest seem to have hit the "hardpan".

Last year I did not water enough. This year I have been watering too much. Our tomatoes came in late July as did the Basil. Another 6 weeks before we get any food...

I'm jealous.

Later,
Dan

 

[TrippleT]

Beautiful garden Jim, I wouldn't worry to much about the weeds. I think one of the best gardens we had grew up with weeds while we were on vacation. I must admit I am ignorant as a hog about agriculture things. But, have often wondered afterward, if the clean middles were reflecting sunlight upward and cooking the stuff we planted on the bottom of the leaves?

 

[dmccarty]

TrippleT,

Indians used to plant corn in a mound and wait for 6-8 weeks for it to grow. Then beans are planted that would grow up the corn stalks. After the beans where growing squash was planted. It was called the Three Sisters. The squash was grown as a ground cover which at a minimum helped keep the soil moist. The prickly parts of the squash plant may also have kept away some bugs. Since corn need nitrogen and beans are a nitrogen fixer planting the three togather made sense.

There is also the idea/theory of Companion Planting. Not sure I really believe some of the Companion Planting ideas but some of it makes sense. Specifically not having row and rows of the same plant which makes it a bit easier for problems bugs/diseases to walk on down the line. Also having a variety of plants in the garden, not just food plants, helps attract helpful bugs.

For farmers, not us gardeners, there is Intercropping which is still row and row of a given plant but they might mix soybeans and corn in the same fields. Say 10 rows of beans followed by 10 rows of corn. This seems to work plant wise. It was not clear if the farmer made money though which has to be market dependent.

I'm planting here and there in the garden. Beans are planted in small rows. The corn has to be togather though. Spreading things out just to see what happens. My biggest problem is I have rows all mixed up which does not make drip irrigation easy. I have a row of Whatever is growing between the garden and the fence. Some of it has flowers.

All of that said, I could see "weeds" helping in the garden as long as they are not close to the plants you want to grow.

Later,
Dan

 

[schmism]

ok now that i have something to show.....

June Pics

as usuall you have to have the inspector checking out the tator planting...



d@mn radish(s? radishi?) grow quick....



an update on the tomato's planted by seed....

we have 2" sprouts peeking finnally.... so it doesnt seem to be a total loss, just a REALLY slow start....

weeding has been...... well.... what has it been.... Julie LIKES to do it, i like running the mantis between rows, and she cleans up the stuff mixed in.

between the 2 of us we can knock out a large section in just an hr or so....

we are attributeing the gaps in the green beens to our 4 legged kids that didnt know to stay out of the garden when we were just planting things.... so there was some loss due to being trampled on.....

 

[jinman]

Dan: We sure did start early this year. The weather was mild and I was able to plow-add manure and compost-till before starting to plant the end of February. Our first plantings were onions, radishes, turnips, and rutabagas in that order. We just pulled the last of the onions this weekend. Our cool weather crops were complete before the temperature rose consistently out of the 80s.

Our English peas, snap beans, and spuds in the ground were done by mid-March. Toward the end of March we planted pinto beans and cucumber sets after our first cucumber seeds did not germinate well. For all our effort, we had the cukes freeze after setting them out and ended up planting them again with great success after April 15th. We are getting about 5 lb of cucumbers every two days now. Our pinto bean plants are so covered with beans that I'm ashamed to show them. We've picked close to 60 lb of snaps already, and we're letting the last ones mature for shelling. I would say NEVER-EVER plant four 50 ft rows of pintos unless you are prepared to open a burrito stand. Holy smoke! I've never seen so many beans in my life.

We set out tomatoes and squash around the first week of April and had one frost mid-April. We had to cover the plants with plastic to protect them. After the frost we planted blackeye and purple hull peas, okra, cantaloupe, & watermelons. The following weekend, we planted gourds, and pumpkins just for fun. My tomato plants are monsters and the fruit is ripening quickly. I'd say we have picked 10 lb already. By the end of the week, we'll probably have 30 lb of tomatoes sitting around lookin' for a home.

...and squash. We can't give it away fast enough: yellow, scalloped, acorn, butternut, and spaghetti at about 10 lb per day.

Did I mention that we have softball sized cantaloupes on our 35 vines? (We did get them weeded TrippleT).

Heck! I can't find enough time to post pictures for having to try and keep up with all the produce. As usual, I overdid it. I guess that's just my nature.

Steve: You are making great progress with your garden. Just stay after it and you'll have lots to eat before long. I've got to look longer at your pictures, but from what I saw quickly, I'd say you are going to be eating well this summer.

 

[dmccarty]

Jim,

Whew. I don't feel so bad that our garden is just poking along. My parents are getting some produce off thier little plantings in Florida. Between pictures on TBN and my reports from parents started giving me feelings of garden inadequency.

We have too many squash. The wife likes it. I don't. I think we have 4-6 plants. I'm sure I'll be bringing some to work to give away for free. I hope we get the beans like you are getting though. We have a green bean variety and soybeans. I can handle a bunch of those.

I planted 9 cantalope seeds and it looks like 6 or so have sprouted. I'm worried that will be too much. Can you eat what is produced on 35 catalope vines?

Sure wish this garden would give me some 'maters and Basil.....

Later,
Dan