2023 Gardening Thread

I am a total newbie to gardening. I started all my seeds a while ago, and none of my jalapeños germinated. I sent the trays aside and I wrote them off. I happened to look down at them and noticed that they had started growing!

Do you guys think if I get them out in the garden there’s still time for them to produce this year?
 
SnowRooster said:
Do you guys think if I get them out in the garden there’s still time for them to produce this year?
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Yes, especially since it’s been so cool. We’ve been having a hard time with sweet peppers though the hot ones have dove well. Get them planted now and you should be good. Worst case, we’ll, that’s obvious, but I think you’ll be fine,
 
noway2 said:
Yes, especially since it’s been so cool. We’ve been having a hard time with sweet peppers though the hot ones have dove well. Get them planted now and you should be good. Worst case, we’ll, that’s obvious, but I think you’ll be fine,
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Thanks! I will get them in a bed!
 
SnowRooster said:
I am a total newbie to gardening. I started all my seeds a while ago, and none of my jalapeños germinated. I sent the trays aside and I wrote them off. I happened to look down at them and noticed that they had started growing!

Do you guys think if I get them out in the garden there’s still time for them to produce this year?
Click to expand...
I've planted jalapenos and habaneros very late in the year (June) and had them explode in the very late summer all the way up to first frost.
 
SnowRooster said:
I am a total newbie to gardening. I started all my seeds a while ago, and none of my jalapeños germinated. I sent the trays aside and I wrote them off. I happened to look down at them and noticed that they had started growing!

Do you guys think if I get them out in the garden there’s still time for them to produce this year?
Click to expand...
If the peppers do not make before frost, put them in buckets, bring them in the house and over winter them and have a jump start on next year. My hot peppers are in my planters for their 3rd season and were blooming when I put them out.

I prune them back before the first frost, strip the leaves off and put them in 5 gal buckets. I put them upstairs for the winter and only give them a little water about once a month. Once the chance of frost is over in the spring, I put them back out in my barrel planters.

I took this pic this morning of one of mine.

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Something is eating every strawberry and blueberry right before they are ripe. Talk about frustrating. Hopefully whatever it is leaves my other stuff alone.
 
ChickenHawk said:
Something is eating every strawberry and blueberry right before they are ripe. Talk about frustrating. Hopefully whatever it is leaves my other stuff alone.
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The birds get their share of my blueberries, but they do not bother them until they are ripe. Is it maybe squirrels? Squirrels get my apples, pears and pecans before they are ripe. And I have run them out of the blueberries before. Now I just shoot them.

I turned my drip irrigation on today for the berries and grapes, for the first time this year. Had to patch several places where I suspect squirrels had chewed holes in my heavy drip line trying to get water.
 
This was my efforts a couple weeks ago -try to get a follow up as it grows. Got a little tunnel up this year which really helped with getting things going earlier. Got unexpected squash coming up everywhere hate to pullthem but don't want cross pollination with what I planted. Potatoes and tomatoes coming up gangbusters! We shall see if the deer don't attack.

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beamernc said:
The birds get their share of my blueberries, but they do not bother them until they are ripe. Is it maybe squirrels? Squirrels get my apples, pears and pecans before they are ripe. And I have run them out of the blueberries before. Now I just shoot them.

I turned my drip irrigation on today for the berries and grapes, for the first time this year. Had to patch several places where I suspect squirrels had chewed holes in my heavy drip line trying to get water.
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I hadn't thought of squirrels since I don't see them much. That would explain the dead one that the neighbor's cat got. Squirrels would explain the bite size and shape.
 
Armed4defense said:
This was my efforts a couple weeks ago -try to get a follow up as it grows. Got a little tunnel up this year which really helped with getting things going earlier. Got unexpected squash coming up everywhere hate to pullthem but don't want cross pollination with what I planted. Potatoes and tomatoes coming up gangbusters! We shall see if the deer don't attack.

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Progress as of yesterday - about to get some garlic!

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I took my elephant garlic up this morning. Have it spread out on cardboard in the garage to start drying/curing. Decent crop, but no huge bulbs. Lots of corms to replant this fall.
 
ChickenHawk said:
Something is eating every strawberry and blueberry right before they are ripe. Talk about frustrating. Hopefully whatever it is leaves my other stuff alone.
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My mother said the same thing yesterday about the strawberries. The beds have cages with netting on them, but the netting needs to be replaced.
 
beamernc said:
I took my elephant garlic up this morning. Have it spread out on cardboard in the garage to start drying/curing. Decent crop, but no huge bulbs. Lots of corms to replant this fall.
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We've been watching the garlic. The plants have been turning yellow and drying up. We're thinking about the 1st or 2nd week in June it should be ready to do something with. It doesn't seem to be the easiest thing to preserve, either. This year we're thinking of freeze drying it and making garlic powder. One method that we learned that does work is to crush it up, put it in a glass (jam) jar with a lid, a little water to the canning line and then freeze it. When it's thawed, it is like having fresh garlic.
 
noway2 said:
My mother said the same thing yesterday about the strawberries. The beds have cages with netting on them, but the netting needs to be replaced.
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Mine are in hanging pots from shepherds hooks, but they are near small trees.
 
ChickenHawk said:
Something is eating every strawberry and blueberry right before they are ripe. Talk about frustrating. Hopefully whatever it is leaves my other stuff alone.
Click to expand...

Weird little trick I've been seeing. Painting rocks to look like strawberries to turn the birds off of the real ones.

www.budget101.com

How to Keep Birds Away From your Strawberries!

If birds are annihilating your strawberries before you can pick them, here's a simple trick you can use year after year! paint rocks to look like
www.budget101.com www.budget101.com


Been picking some snap peas. Tomatoes are growing well. Cucumbers, zucchini, okra, and peppers coming along. Well, all but the green peppers. Most of them did not transplant or the birds tore them up.
 
noway2 said:
Peppers have been tough for us too this year. Hmm..
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Banana and jalapeño have done fine. Green peppers never really took off. It was still a bit cool and they were very small when we planted. Not sure is we didn't water enough, cool got them, transplant shock, or birds. Regardless only 2 of 6-8 we planted are left. Trying to seed more. Probably buy some if we find some good ones.
 
chiefjason said:
Weird little trick I've been seeing. Painting rocks to look like strawberries to turn the birds off of the real ones.
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Worked in Graham for us. Wife saw it online a few years back so we gave it a shot. Some birds are smarter than others haven't tried the Asheboro birds yet lol.
 
My new place of employment has a community garden on site. The vegetables from it go to local folks in need. The people in charge of it are struggling get it going this year and the dirt wasn’t very good.
It got a makeover today. We lined the entire thing with cardboard. Made planting rows and walking rows with mulch and topsoil we make on site. Rows are a little crooked and we were trying to beat the rain this morning. We’ll fill in any spots that have settled after the rain is over and start getting plants in the ground. Dirt and mulch are 12” deep. I’ll put some ground leaves on it over the winter for the worms and compost on the rows next spring. Should be a good garden. The dirt is good stuff.

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chiefjason said:
Weird little trick I've been seeing. Painting rocks to look like strawberries to turn the birds off of the real ones.

www.budget101.com

How to Keep Birds Away From your Strawberries!

If birds are annihilating your strawberries before you can pick them, here's a simple trick you can use year after year! paint rocks to look like
www.budget101.com www.budget101.com


Been picking some snap peas. Tomatoes are growing well. Cucumbers, zucchini, okra, and peppers coming along. Well, all but the green peppers. Most of them did not transplant or the birds tore them up.
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I've seen that. I don't think what is getting them are birds. I need to get a trail cam.
 
Burt Gummer said:
My new place of employment has a community garden on site. The vegetables from it go to local folks in need. The people in charge of it are struggling get it going this year and the dirt wasn’t very good.
It got a makeover today. We lined the entire thing with cardboard. Made planting rows and walking rows with mulch and topsoil we make on site. Rows are a little crooked and we were trying to beat the rain this morning. We’ll fill in any spots that have settled after the rain is over and start getting plants in the ground. Dirt and mulch are 12” deep. I’ll put some ground leaves on it over the winter for the worms and compost on the rows next spring. Should be a good garden. The dirt is good stuff.

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Wait you make topsoil? Is it for sale also?
 
Squanchy said:
Wait you make topsoil? Is it for sale also?
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We make topsoil, compost and single ground wood mulch.
Wood mulch is $17/ton
Compost and topsoil are $22/ton
We have ground leaf mulch, it’s broken down and almost like compost, it’s free. I need to get rid of a couple hundred tons between now and leaf pickup season.
Ingleside Compost Facility
3001 Ingleside Dr
High Point, NC 27265
 
Squanchy said:
Wait you make topsoil? Is it for sale also?
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Our for sale compost pile is in the background. It’s 50/50 ground and cured yard waste(leaves,grass,etc), mixed with the ground broken down leave mulch and ram through a screener.

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Well, we have been extremely active in the garden since Mother's day. I thought I would report some progress. I have never grown a garden this big and it is very satisfying to be able to grow on the scale we are growing now. We have borrowed a lot from what we see organic market gardeners doing and trying new things to improve the quality of what we are growing while managing time. We added two very useful tools to our arsenal: 1)weed cloth in the raised beds and 2) a wheeled hoe for cultivating and weeding the enormous (by gardener's standards) corn plot.

Regarding the weed fabric, I am so pleased with the investment. If you can afford the initial investment it will save months of weeding and allow you to manage a much larger planting. We have been able to spend more time planting seedlings and managing other tasks with the time we have saved in weeding. We simply could not keep up with the weeding tasks of a garden this size without it. We amend our soil, broadfork the beds, heavily mulch with soiled goat bedding (straw), rabbit manure and compost as usual and then cover the beds with the fabric and stick seedlings in the tiny evenly spaced rows. We have noticed that the black material allows the soil to warm slightly which can be important up here in the mountains.

I was able to expand the grain corn plot to a tick over an acre. This means we had our work cut out working and prepping an area that has not been farmed in decades and was pasture. We hired a fellow farmer and friend to come in with a subsoil plow and rip things up real deep. After adding a lot of lime we moved to a turn plow picking up most of the big rocks. I have been moving away from mechanical tillage over the years but it is very useful the first year to get a start. After tilling we had more rocks to pick up. When we had a good bed ready we planted 30" rows and direct seeded with a spacing of one foot. This year I added a wheeled hoe to the mix and have been using some widely spaced cultivator tines to keep working the ground and pulling out smaller rocks. My kiddos have been walking next to the wheeled hoe and collecting rocks as we go. I'm almost to the place where I can just run the hoe down the rows with a pair of stirup hoe attachments. I say almost, because the rain has been revealing new rocks here and there. In a week or so I'll be ripping down the rows like a hot knive through budda'. I have been pumped about the Bloody Butcher corn seed I set aside from last year's best. I estimate we had a 95% germination rate and a very even sprouting within a week. I love this stage...you can see an inch of growth a day over the whole field. I can relate to Tim McGraw, "watchin my corn pop up in rows." It truely is a wonderment that makes me grateful to God for the miracle of life and the bounty he provides!!!

Regarding my corn, I have plenty for the family to make grits and cornbread two or three times a week until harvest. With what I figured would be extra, I started trying something a little different. I started soaking the kernels over night and sprouting the corn in trays and using it as fodder for pigs, ducks and turkeys and really think I'm on to something. We have been sprouting barley grain for the goats for a couple years now but I wanted to grow as much feed for the other critters as I could. Having one year old viable seed makes this an option over store bought corn that is like 7 years old and wouldn't sprout. I have heard of folks fermenting corn to help make it more digestible, but I think sprouting is even better. The animals love it!!!

Also, last year I put aside double the corn seed I thought I would need in case of a failed crop. I rethought this a bit and ended up giving my farming friend a bunch knowing he would probably be able to wring out an even better harvest than I could ever dream of on his land (he's a wizard of a farmer). I felt like it was better to be in the ground when it was viable than trying to keep it as a backup. I also gave some seed to a couple hobby gardeners after making them swear a sacred oath that they would give me back a handful of seed from their best ears. Come shelling time I hope to have a lot of quality ears to pick from for improving the strain for the future.

Lastly, I have a tray of tobacco seeds sprouting from four different varieties. I haven't ever grown it but thought I would try my hand at a couple dozen plants for giggles....We'll see! I never knew how tiny tobacco seeds were!!!
 
@ShooterBug interesting, thank you for sharing. We’ve got PVC framed cages with netting over the strawberry beds but I’ve been thinking of putting the game camera out too because I’m curious if the coons are still able to get them. We used to have a real problem with missing berries that were just ripening but the cages stopped that. Now the biggest problem we’re aware of is slugs after it rains.
 
noway2 said:
@ShooterBug interesting, thank you for sharing. We’ve got PVC framed cages with netting over the strawberry beds but I’ve been thinking of putting the game camera out too because I’m curious if the coons are still able to get them. We used to have a real problem with missing berries that were just ripening but the cages stopped that. Now the biggest problem we’re aware of is slugs after it rains.
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I don't suggest pulling the baggie strings too tight that might cut the berry stem, but the baggie seems to deter slugs for me. Maybe they don't like the material?

Coons might figure out how to open the bags, tear them, or just rip bagged berries off (destroying them without eating). We don't have coon problems here, but I've seen bird damage before using the baggies.
 
I've read that you harvest potatoes a week or two after the plant has died. Do I wait till the plant is entirely brown then harvest a week or two later? I've got the bottom branches slowly starting to brown and fall off.

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AirForce85 said:
Do I wait till the plant is entirely brown then harvest a week or two later?
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That's what we do. At least wait until they're obviously gone, but maybe not rotted. And don't be surprised if you find volunteer potatoes in the future wherever you planted them.
 
noway2 said:
That's what we do. At least wait until they're obviously gone, but maybe not rotted. And don't be surprised if you find volunteer potatoes in the future wherever you planted them.
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We planted them in a laundry basket. I like keeping the garden mobile with baskets and buckets. Hoping to double the size of it next year.
 
Anyone else using a Biofungicide on your fruit & vegetables?
 
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