How does your garden grow?

[crazyivan]

Planted 10 beginning of June. They reached 5 ft tall. So many tomaters I couldn't get them all before afew started falling off.
  The 2 I planted first and that produced first as well seem to be dieing. Heats been horrible and rains been hit and miss.
Still think its plant time, end of the summer maybe ? I also planted cumbers and peppers. First year green thumb. Will try and read up this winter. First thing I learned though was put a fence around your garden. Damn Wabbits!

[CHAPPY]

Planted 10 beginning of June. They reached 5 ft tall. So many tomaters I couldn't get them all before afew started falling off.
  The 2 I planted first and that produced first as well seem to be dieing. Heats been horrible and rains been hit and miss.
Still think its plant time, end of the summer maybe ? I also planted cumbers and peppers. First year green thumb. Will try and read up this winter. First thing I learned though was put a fence around your garden. Damn Wabbits!

(Image removed from quote.)

Nice tomaters

[Frodo]

Nice Von! See what beer will drive a man to do. 

Frodo

[ROX]

My hat's off to von for even trying hops.  It's such a specialized crop that very few know anything about growing them, much less growing different varieties. WTG!

Ivan--rabbits HATE the smell of marigolds.  Planing them around the periffary of a garden will definitely keep them away.  They do nothing for keeping out squirrels, however.

This year, even though it's been the wettest summer on record here, I had no slug problems--which is the bane of a wet summer for crops.  My main problem has been giant caterpillars.  These aren't your regular furry 1' kind--I'm talking about 4" to 7" that are the diameter of a nickel.  These are NASTY little creatures that can strip the leaves of a 4' jalepeno plant in one day--killing it.  So far, the only thing I can do is keep a sharp eye and eliminate them as soon as they show up.  Living in a National Park does have many insects, game, and animals that most people with a garden don't have to contend with.



ROX

[dkff49]

I have always planted marigolds in my garden just for the purpose of keeping the rabbits out, unfortunately my rabbits liked to taunt me by eating the plants that were right nest to them. My wife even claims to have seen one eat the marigolds. I do however think it does help to plant them since this year I did not plant a single marigold and did not have one bean plant that was untounched by these destructive things and years past they only ate a few plants. The one thing I have found though is my bean plants are producing like crazy even though the rabbits ate off the first sprouts down to the ground. I most likely will be planting marigolds next year even if it is not a 100% fix it does indeed help, kind of like putting a lock on your door (it won't keep all the thieves out but the majority of them won't tempt fate).

Rox those catepillars sound as though you could make meal out of those things, though they might not be as tasty as your peppers. 

I also wonder if your tomato issue was the result of lack of polination. Could it be that your plants were in a place that was not very good for the bees to get to them and do their work. I too am facing the problem of flowering pumpkins but no fruit starting on the vines. I think my issue may be in part to the corn over growing the plants and possibly not making the flowers easily seen by the bees.       Just tossing out ideas.

[ROX]

I had the tomatoes in a single E/W row with plenty of pollination chances.  Yes, I actually do live in a National park, and there are bees all over the place, and 4 different kinds.  There's been lack of bees problems in some places, but NOT here.  And sometimes they make regular rounds and show up the same time of day.  I also have BOATLOADS of humming birds...boatloads.  In fact, you name it we got it.  Bears, deer, coyotes, silver and red fox, racoons galore, HUGE dragonflies, hundreds of Hawks, more birds than I can mention, bobcats, owls, black panthers (rare), and both red and gray squirrels.

I also found a black widow spider in my yard.

The peppers, however, are going CRAZY...one tobasco has 80+ ripening on it and the New Mexico's have 4 to 6 LARGE red peppers ripening each.  I'll have more sweet yellow peppers than I'll know what to do with.


ROX

[dkff49]

I threw that out there because it was the only thing I could think of and I know of some people who put theirs in nice screened porches. These not necessarily stupid people just over looking the one thing that you don't always see going on. I even didn't think of it myself until I was takling to someone about how I have no pumpkins, lots of flowers but no pumpkins.

Just a thought but glad to here your peppers are doing well because mine won't change colors, they just stay green. I even left a few go to see if they would change and they just started to get rotten spots in them. Oh well they taste pretty darn good green too.

I can't seem to pick the tomatoes fast enough though and we definitely can't eat them fast enough either. We have actually started taking the extras to all our friends and seeing if any of them want any.

[Shuffler]

I have a couple of raised tomato beds and a small garden with tomatoes in it also. About 60 plants all together.
We have been getting about 15 lbs of tomatoes a day for quite a while now and they are still loaded to the gills. I have 12 yellow pear tomato plants that are totally unreal. Looks like a jungle. I have made and canned a supply of tomato/pepper jelly and will make more in the next day or two. Love the stuff with sausage
The purple hull peas look like a jungle and have to be picked every two days to keep up. Lots of peas in the freezer and all the neighbors and family are happy campers.
The corn is about coming to an end, but have mountains of it put up plus all we could eat for corn on the cob and gritted cornbread. <Drooooooooool!>
The green beans are about the same as the peas. Loads and loads of them already picked and they are load now and still blooming.
My okra this year is AWESOME. Right now the plants are about 7 to 7 1/2 ft. tall and have to be picked every day. Plenty put up in the freezer and plenty has been consumed.
I have about 10 cantaloupes ripening now and have picked gobs of them from about 5 plants. It`s unreal.
All grown organic with intensive planting. It`s been an awesome garden.
Anyone else into growing veggies and such?

I quit gardening as I get most all of my veggies from neighbors lol.

[Reschke]

Well this year was not a real good year for blueberries at our family farm. Between the late frost and the pruning we ended up with about half of the crop that we had last year. We only were able to get around 50 gallons out of the usual 90-120 that have been produced off of the 40 bushes we have. We are adding in 40 more bushes this fall and are looking for another crop to start growing. Hops just might be the key for something new since it doesn't appear that anyone is growing them here in Alabama for anything other than home brew...and all the micro breweries are having them shipped in from out of state. We have about 40 acres that we can use and another 100 that is family land that we are looking to use for corn, purple hull peas and sugar cane.

On the small garden that my dad planted we had about 40 pea plants that are producing about a bushel a week and the same with the snap beans, tomatoes are coming out of my ears and have been for a few weeks now, cucumbers and zucchini have over run the canning, freezer and friends...okra is coming in nicely and asparagus is going to be turning out very good next year as well.

[VonMessa]

Well this year was not a real good year for blueberries at our family farm. Between the late frost and the pruning we ended up with about half of the crop that we had last year. We only were able to get around 50 gallons out of the usual 90-120 that have been produced off of the 40 bushes we have. We are adding in 40 more bushes this fall and are looking for another crop to start growing. Hops just might be the key for something new since it doesn't appear that anyone is growing them here in Alabama for anything other than home brew...and all the micro breweries are having them shipped in from out of state. We have about 40 acres that we can use and another 100 that is family land that we are looking to use for corn, purple hull peas and sugar cane.

On the small garden that my dad planted we had about 40 pea plants that are producing about a bushel a week and the same with the snap beans, tomatoes are coming out of my ears and have been for a few weeks now, cucumbers and zucchini have over run the canning, freezer and friends...okra is coming in nicely and asparagus is going to be turning out very good next year as well.

PM me an address.  I'll send you some rhizomes in the spring.    All of my hops were grown from a 12" rhizome (root cutting)

First year growth isn't spectacular, but the next year is nuts.  It was all I could do to get my new trellis up before they took over the garden. 

All they need is some decent soil/water and they can grow more than 12" in a day!

[Tac]

I wish I had more time to grow stuff on my back yard but anyways the homeowners association forbids this so the only thing I can get away with is parsley, basil and garlic. Keeps me supplied with enough fresh spices to make my food taste real good. Im never going back to buying the store dehydrated stuff. ugh!