This Year's Garden

[crashdive123]

We got mid 90's a couple of days ago.

[crashdive123]

Love to see others gardens! So much work, but Oh so worth it all to know where and how your food is grown.

my 2012 garden is coming along.............

here are a few pictures of my garden and produce from the last few years.....

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I'm curious. You described your off grid power as solar from "6 2 volt batteries, a 1500 watt inverter and 2 solar panels" with "2500 watt generator for backup power" yet you say you run a freezer and in the above picture you have an electric stove, electric coffee maker and electric toaster. It doesn't sound as though your system will support these types of consumption.

[Wildthang]

I am going to start tilling my garden this weekend. It is just now getting warm enough to plant here on lake Eerie. Since my garden has a lot of clay, I am going to get a couple of truckloads of manure hauled in, and till it into the rows. The clay gives the plants a good flavor, but they just do not get as big because of the lack of nutrients, and the clay packs so the roots dont get enough oxygen.
Growing a garden in clay is a pain! I am going to start tilling in leaves every fall and turn that clay into dirt one of these days!

[Darkevs]

crashdive123, A friend of mine who has a house on the beach, on grid, invited me down to can a whack of beets and dill pickles and party on the beach for the day. So I did.
My kitchen consists of a propane stove and fridge and a sink that drains out to a rock pit. As I have no running hot water, I heat water from my rain barrel on my wood stove then fill up my sink by hand.

Wildthang, my land is quite clayey too, the first year my garden was.awful, I had to add lots of manure and sand to lighten it up! It was a lot of work, but so worth it!

[Wildthang]

crashdive123, A friend of mine who has a house on the beach, on grid, invited me down to can a whack of beets and dill pickles and party on the beach for the day. So I did.
My kitchen consists of a propane stove and fridge and a sink that drains out to a rock pit. As I have no running hot water, I heat water from my rain barrel on my wood stove then fill up my sink by hand.

Wildthang, my land is quite clayey too, the first year my garden was.awful, I had to add lots of manure and sand to lighten it up! It was a lot of work, but so worth it!

I have read that tilling in leaves in the fall will really start to form good topsoil in a clay garden, so next fall I'll be getting all of my friends leaves and tilling them in!

[Darkevs]

I have a few acres of yards that I mow and then put the clippings on my garden as mulch........the mulch breaks down over the winter and has added lots of humus to my gardens soil. I try to put as much seaweed on as i can too, but it means a trip to the beach. There is also a few gravel'sand pits around that i shovel buckets full to add to the garden too.

It is a lot of work for sure, but I enjoy it all and it is paying off now, my garden soil grows veggies like weeds now!

[grrlscout]

Those are jim dandy. We're under another freeze warning tonight (sob)

We got up to 102 yesterday

[Rick]

I hope your zucchini melts!

[crashdive123]

The garden is progressing, but I'm not happy with the new containers I made. I don't thing there is enough soil, and it stays too wet. With the larger volume of soil, the water that is wicked up is spread out a lot more. Here's the progress.

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These tomatoes were started about a month after the others.

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There are quite a few peppers on the plants, but the plants seem a little "tired". In a couple of the boxes one or two of the plants just gave up.

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Watermelon and Honeydew melon in the raised bed.

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This box was a complete bust. The soil was very wet.

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Built a new one today. Used the larger container - same size as the older boxes.

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[Darkevs]

I never had much luck with container growing..my tomatoes usually got blossom end rot.

Nice looking Eggplant!

I just transplanted my Tomatoes and peppers into my greehouse. I think the danger of frost has passed for my area now. I hope.

In the grarden the peas, fava beans and spinach are up. Potatoes still not up.

The onions, leeks, celery and herbs I transplanted out too the garden are growing well now!

I took a picture of my Cabins Kitchen today...........
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[grrlscout]

I hope your zucchini melts!

Ha! The zucchinis are just getting ready to bloom

Looks like there's a storm coming tomorrow though. High winds. I need to add more support to the maters, as they have outgrown the cages by about 3 feet.

[crashdive123]

Well, I guess I'm going to have to call the new, smaller earth box style planters a failure. There just isn't enough dirt in them. I've already picked up some more 18 gallon, UV resistant totes to make a new batch. I'm going to let two boxes continue to see what they produce, but one has already been replaced and a second needs to be replaced.

Here's the one that I'll replace next.

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Here's what plants should be doing in an earth box.

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Some of the other containers....

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[Rick]

Those plants should grow they just won't get as large if the container is too small. Just like a house plant if it becomes root bound it won't get any larger until you transplant it. It looks like one died and one is terminally ill. There must be something else at play there. Maybe give them some fertilizer to feed them?

[crashdive123]

There is a fertilizer strip in the box. I believe the issue is twofold. Not enough space as you have stated, but also the soil is too wet. With a large wick to the water reservoir and not enough soil, I believe it is just too wet. In the box I already replaced the cucumber seedlings I transplanted died right off.

[Rick]

I hate that. You go to all the work and expense of making something like that and then it doesn't work. I guess with failure comes knowledge.

[crashdive123]

Yeah, I suppose that Thomas Edison had it right when he said

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

[crashdive123]

Here's some of the progress.

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I have never grown melons before. I planted one cantaloupe and one watermelon plant. They have gone from this.....

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To this.....

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Some of the cantaloupe and watermelon vines are "cohabitating" Not sure if I can untangle them, or if I need to. There are a lot of watermelons coming out. Is it best to leave them on the ground or have them supported by some sort of platform (have one on that white table)? The cantaloupe vines are climbing up the chain link fence. Good? Bad? I imagine they will need to be supported (stockings or pantyhose) at some point if the continue on the fence.

Thanks for your advice in advace.

[your_comforting_company]

A fellow beekeeper has pumpkins growing on a fence and they do not need support. I would imagine that the lopes will be fine without support too. If you can get a piece of wood or something under the melons just to keep them off the ground, you'll run less chance of those nasty worms getting in them. If you had several acres of w-melons, it wouldn't be an issue, but only one plant means you will get 2 or 3 melons (the plant will abort the rest on it's own, according to the farmer who wanted me to set bees on his 50 acre field).

The tomato plants in the last set of pics has some bad signs. That looks exactly like the tomato blight we get here every blasted year. I know that the local U-Pik produce market keep all their tomatoes staked and bundled so they can get the sprayers between the rows, and I know they spray at least once a week. I'm told that a bug carries and transmits the blight (wilt virus).

I sure hope you get it worked out. We usually get one or two tomatoes per plant, then it dies. I'm a little biased against all the chemical sprays, especially since I have 4 beehives 50 feet away...

[your_comforting_company]

This is the pic that looks to me like the blight

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[Rick]

There are actually two blights and it's important to know which you are dealing with. Early Blight is a fungus and Late Blight is a water mold. Late Blight can occur early in the year if conditions favor over wintering. To my knowledge, there is no effective treatment (spray) for either. Heavy on the effective part. Take a sample of the plant to your county extension office and find out precisely what you are dealing with. It's important to know because some wild plants can host spores from either one (different plants for Early and Late) and you might benefit by removing some of those plants from your surrounding garden area. Late Blight is what caused the great Irish famine so potatoes can be affected as well.

Also, closely examine your tomatoes if you buy them because many will already have Early Blight symptoms. Avoid buying any plants from that store if the tomatoes show signs because the spores could well be on surrounding plants. If you buy cukes from Store X and go to store Y and buy your tomatoes because Store X tomatoes showed signs of Blight the cukes could well infect the tomatoes and you'll be in the same boat.

Also, there are many look alike diseases that can be mistaken for Late Blight. Buckeye fruit rot is one. It's caused by tomatoes that touch the ground or very close and will only be present on the tomatoes. It's a spore that has to come in contact with the fruit and it does so by direct contact or rain/water splash. Gray mold and Septoria Leaf Spot are a couple of others.

If you are infected and need to destroy plants then do so in full sun on a no breeze day. You'll be less apt to disperse spores and those that do get dispersed will be killed by the suns UV light. Obviously, don't toss in the compost bin. Also clean the soil area of any loose leaf litter because they can live on the litter until next growing season. And if you use any tools be sure to clean them before moving to other plants or you'll transfer the spores to the other plants and can reinfect any new tomatoes if you do replacement planting.