2019 Gardens

[ak474u]

Wow AK. Sounds like you've put a ton of work in on all that. I bet you'll see some good results from all of it. In particular when you get everything dialed in to it's top production.

I don't expect super good results this year just because we're a little late. Gonna direct sow a few maters and we usually already have some ready by now. Although, planting prior to Easter here is risky, we've had snow the day before Easter before. We will do everything we can this year, and hit it hard next year. Really looking forward to fall garden, which we've never really done before. Put in 800lbs of gravel in the walkways tonite, and didn't even get 1/3 of the walkways covered. Gonna tear down a 4x6 playhouse that the old owner built (it's been converted to mower storage) and build a 2-tiered strawberry bed where I've got some extra space. I have a 1/4 pallet of stone left over, and need more space. I can see doing another area of raised bed next year, but for this year, I'm over it. My goal in this was lower maintenance, as well as aesthetics. Now I can sit on my deck and see what's going on in the garden, and be proud of it. We worked hard and did ok before, but we were faking it as far as quality of installation and easily maintainable garden area. My wife laughed at me this weekend when I told her we spent 3k to save $9 on tomatoes. Yes, we have a rich folk garden now. I still have to level the old garden area out and re-seed grass because we pretty much displaced my kid's nerf battleground. I also have 4 sour bush cherries waiting in large pots that I have to find a spot for, as well as another elderberry and a BIG cherry tree on order for another spot at the top of the hill. So. Very. Tired.

[bacpacker]

Yeah but it's a good tired. Results will shine thru for years. Tired goes away after a while.

[gm2]

I got two of my 4ftx4ft raised beds put together, now I just have to do the rest, lay down the weed fabric and get the dirt delivered.

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[Katrina]

gm2 How much snow did you get up there? Not sure but we're getting another frost here tonight, I'm half expecting to see snow too LOL

[gm2]

Not sure how much we got total but we had more than for the last 40 years. I'm hoping next year is a little more reasonable

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[bacpacker]

Took Thursday off work and spent the day in the garden. Planted over 300 more onion slips, worked out and fertilized my first planting of onions and cabbage as well. Planted 24 tomatos, a row of cukes, a row of okra. Started to plant my peppers, but only put out 2 Jalapenos. All the rest of them are still too small. Gonna repot them to larger pots and give them a little more time to grow.
Finally put out 2 blueberries in the rain. Yeehaw

[bacpacker]

I started some seed on a heat mat and under a light this year. Transplanted some to pots today. I moved Acorn, Butternut squash, and a squasha friend of mine gave me (haven't been able to ID them). Also sugar baby, moon and stars, and Anchient watermelons, Some gourds that look like a luffa type, some tomatos, japaleno, serano, ozark gaint, and california wonder peppers, and 36 cabbage plants.
Still need to transplant the long island cheese pumpkins, Alisha Craig onions, and parsnips.

[Katrina]

Well no maters this year but peppers, woo hoo! They are still producing buds and fruit AND we're getting more salad greens. Can't decide if I should freeze or dehydrate the peppers. IF I freeze do I HAVE to blanch them? I haven't in the past because with the two boys never could keep enough in the freezer to "store" for any length of time LOL. Now it's the two of us not sure what to do. Have read up on this and there seems to be two schools of thought, yes blanch and no blanch. Any body out there got some experience? Thanks in Advance

[bacpacker]

We just bag our excess peppers and freeze them whole. No blanching for us.

Our garden this year has mostly been a failure. I was late getting most everything out, even stuff I started under a grow light was very late. We've had plenty of okra, cukes and jalapenos. Bell pepper, melons, and maters were slim to non existant. Onions all lived, but never got much size. They do taste good. Squash didn't do much other than the butternuts. Picked a dozen or so of them and they lasted maybe a week before they molded and melted down. We have 1 left. Kind of discouraging.
Blue berries did fantastic, my pears got raided again this year, as did my apple and pawpaws. I'm just about over the wildlife. This would have been our first pawpaws and they were large, would have been our largest apple crop. And the pears were loaded down. We didn't get a single one.

[Katrina]

BP, can sympathize with you . The only things that did well were the salad greens and the peppers. Our apples are deer fodder now. None are viable due to the rust spots and the worms. Thanks for the advice on the peppers. I'm going to chop some and slice some then freeze 'em.Depending on how fast what is still left that's ripening I'll probably try to use the oven, it has a dehydrating button on it, so I'm going to try dehydrating in the oven and see how that does.