23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
Nhbabs,
Good questions and comments all around. We bought this house a few months ago. I just built the beds and haven't grown in them yet. All of my gardening experience comes from containers on my apartment patio. I grew up with a gardening father and couldn't wait to get started on my own.
Like my father, most experienced gardeners tend to go for more potatoes, onionions beans etc that provide more real food year round. I guess I am guilty of just picking "cool" or "weird" veggies to be different. Seed catalogues and websites can be addicting. It would be hard for me to get rid of any of my plant choices... although I might cut down on a few to increase the onion/basil output.
I do not have the experience to know exactly how much room each plant takes up but I will take your advice and keep track of the weekly progress with pics. Crop rotation was something I thought I coukr figure out on the fly. A's long as I successively sew the greens to keep them young I could replant some in the fall... they hopefully will be in the shade of the trellis.
I will have to keep the fabrics in mind to increase the season.
Borage in there was Just to attract good bugs... maybe I dont need that .
My yard is fenced in and u didnt see many bees in the yard so I was hoping to attract what I could...
In conclusion, I need to learn and experience more before I can realistically have a full season plan. I would just be guessing beyond this layout.
Thanks forth response.
Nhbabs,
Good questions and comments all around. We bought this house a few months ago. I just built the beds and haven't grown in them yet. All of my gardening experience comes from containers on my apartment patio. I grew up with a gardening father and couldn't wait to get started on my own.
Like my father, most experienced gardeners tend to go for more potatoes, onionions beans etc that provide more real food year round. I guess I am guilty of just picking "cool" or "weird" veggies to be different. Seed catalogues and websites can be addicting. It would be hard for me to get rid of any of my plant choices... although I might cut down on a few to increase the onion/basil output.
I do not have the experience to know exactly how much room each plant takes up but I will take your advice and keep track of the weekly progress with pics. Crop rotation was something I thought I coukr figure out on the fly. A's long as I successively sew the greens to keep them young I could replant some in the fall... they hopefully will be in the shade of the trellis.
I will have to keep the fabrics in mind to increase the season.
Borage in there was Just to attract good bugs... maybe I dont need that .
My yard is fenced in and u didnt see many bees in the yard so I was hoping to attract what I could...
In conclusion, I need to learn and experience more before I can realistically have a full season plan. I would just be guessing beyond this layout.
Thanks forth response.
Good question. I see that you are in climate zone 9 as am I. But where are you located? It might help to answer your question.
In our South Louisiana area we are typically setting plants in December for a late April/early May harvest. Not sure what the plants you described would do if they were currently in our garden.
This post was edited by grandad on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 11:35
There is nothing by that name in the European database which list more tha 4000 varieties. You may want to look through to see if can recognize the variety you want. http://www.europotato.org/varietyindex.php?page_no=6
Here is a link that might be useful: European potato database.
Stranges garden center in Richmond VA has 3 packages of seed left for sale. I bought one there a few days ago. Contact me if you want me to buy you a package. they are $1.99 for a package of 15 seeds. Diane Floca Epstein email is dianeepstein1945@gmail.com
Hi, Does anyone have seeds of either plant? I will admit I'm more interested in the Cucuzzi aka cucuzza is Lagenaria siceraria.
(Cucurbita moschata) Cucuzza squash Zucchetta Cucuzzi, Serpent of Sicily
I do have seeds to trade or can do a SASBE for them.
Here is my exchange page:
http://www.gardenweb.com/members/exch/farmer_rons_patch
Thanks, Ron:)
"Asparagus is one of the very few crops that is never bothered by wildlife."
I'm not sure about this. Some folks reported that deer has eaten some of the asparagus ferns. There are also reports on wild life taking on the spears.
If I can decide on where to set up my asparagus bed, I can mix the soil with some fully composted wood chips and sawdust and let the soil over-winter. If I dig up the beds in spring, I can only use them as mulch. But I can still mix with peat moss.
Is it all soft and wilted, collapsed and blackened? If so then you wouldn't want it anyway. If not then it hasn't been frozen/damaged regardless of what your temps have been and likely it won't be. Kale grows all winter with no problems even in the far north.
But if you want to harvest it then yes, it will need to be blanched before packing for the freezer to destroy the spoilage enzymes.
You can learn more about the process over on the Harvest forum here as it is the food preservation forum.
Dave
bdot I'm in Sonoma Co, about 2 hrs west of you.
I planted on April 15th as I always do and had fine weather for growing after that.
The only thing that was not optimal was that I was in Hawaii the last week of May and the first week of June (well it was optimal for ME!) and my non-gardener daughter might have been impatient with the watering, but everything looked healthy when I got home.
Who knows???? Nancy
My cherry tomatoes grew wild this year and put on a lot of berries. But all the large ones are disappointing. Not sure why, but I did not fertilize them, and they are in the same bed the 3rd year.
Next year, I'm going to move them to a different bed. And to fertilize them more. I'll also try different varieties. I want more meaty, not watery.
Okay - The dye is cast; I am officially suffering from spring fever. I ordered artichoke and leeks seeds from Johnny's seeds. I will get 25 artichoke seeds, but expect I will plant only 10 plants. If I plant 20 seeds and get a 50% germination rate I will be satisfied. I am going start them under lights in my basement around January 10, 2015. I will start hardening them off around April 1 and transplant them to my raised bed in mid-April and cover as needed at night or during an unexpected cold snap. I realized that last year I did not get blooms because I transplanted them around May 3 and they did not get enough chill hours below 50 degrees. In any case Thomas Jefferson made it work at Monticello, so I should be able to make it work also.
Hey Charlie, I can't shed too much light on overwintering them, but I did get a nice harvest of several medium and small chokes this summer. And that was from only two plants. I had had so many disappointments in previous years and only one successful harvest before this summer that I only planted the last of my seeds to empty the packet. Of course that means I'll be ordering more this year, now. Anyway, you propose basically the protocol I used.
I'm going to try keeping this years plants over the winter, but beyond the freezing I tend to get voles in my garden each winter and they love the artichoke roots. So we'll see who wins the battle this year, them or me. So good luck! I have pretty much the same weather you do, it bodes well!
Agree with everyone above -- keep it!
And in the spring, if it tries to go to seed, just clip and eat the flowers and seed pods (they're delicious) and it will eventually get the idea and just make leaves instead of seeds (in my experience, anyway)
I've had kale plants produce for several years.
my kale last year stood minus 31 F under cover.
Unless it's Red Russian, in which case it might not last as long into the winter.
I just made Kale chips in the dehydrator. You can also put it in the oven, but you would need to look up the temperature. I sprayed olive oil over all the leaves - not over doing it. Then covered one batch with powdered tomato and garlic pepper the other with powdered ranch dressing. Best to go heavy on the toppings.
Very good.
I learned this from a cook at a local Mexican restaurant.......and it really works.
Remove a hair from your head and place it in your eye near the lower lid.
I have short hair but it took away the pain immediately.
You probably should wear rubber gloves unless you have gotten the hot stuff off your hands first.
If the ground will probably be freezing very soon I would personally wait until spring. You would probably find a lot of different opinions on the best timing, if the board was more active.
Thanks Jean & Peter.
I already decided to wait for spring to transplant my asparagus. We've abruptly had several consecutive nights approaching -10C and the (raised) bed doesn't get much daytime sun this time of year.
Besides, "Do nothing is always an option." :)