The veg garden is underway (but not completed).

[chowmama]

Looking at the economy and general national situation, I decided last fall that this was the time. I've done herbs for years, along with pole beans and pickling cukes on a trellis before, but at some point, the little bunny bastards began chewing the veg off at ground level as soon as they started to come up. I gave up on everything but herbs.

But I and a wonderful helper spent 10 hours yesterday clearing the side of the house, 7 feet out. We haven't done the whole thing yet because there's a gas line we can't till near. This is the patch that will include raspberry bushes and a winter squash patch (this year is sugar pumpkin and a kind of a butternut/acorn cross - butternut flavor and acorn size if the picture and description are to be believed). So we've done about 26 feet out of 36 feet. Cleared (mounds covering broken up concrete, bricks and associated rubble), tilled multiple times, including tilling in composted manure and topsoil, and the bunny fence started.

It looks weird to see it all flat - those mounds have been in place for the 40+ years we've lived here. The soil looks less bad than I imagined, but isn't near as good as the 10 feet I've been growing on for a while. I'm not fond of chemical fertilizer anyway, but since Idiot's Hormuz blockade is making that unaffordable, composted manure seems to be the best bet anyway.

Still to come is hand-digging and preparing the remaining 10 feet, most of which will be fenced. Latticework is going to be hung for trellises and everything will be grown vertically that will accept it - beans, sugar snap peas, eating cukes, pickling cukes, 2 kinds of tomatoes (instead of caging or staking). I'm going to need to figure out how to store a lot of cabbage. 3 kinds of onions, not counting the scallions and leeks. (We like our onion family.) In the fall, I'll start garlic for next year. Carrots (Danvers half-longs), beets, red bell and jalapeno peppers. Lettuces and herbs, of course.

From the old garden, I moved a rhubarb plant that's never been successful, along with spearmint and chives, I put them all in a large pot while we worked, and the chives and rhubarb didn't love the new digs. So I've already moved them into their new homes and we'll see if they survive. I'd miss the chives - I started them at my parent's old house 50 years ago and just kept moving them whenever I moved. If the rhubarb kicks it, I'll just get another plant and try again. Where it was, it never got more than pencil thick and drooped depressingly. This place has more sun and a hell of a lot more manure. It may be that the original place was just too non-nutritious. The mint loved the pot and I was tired of pulling it back from where it didn't belong anyway. If it likes the pot, it can live there.

Anyway, I'm more sore than I've been in years and keeping Excedrin in business. My (younger) helper does this for a living, so she's in better shape, so I hope she's doing better than I am, but I'll bet she's feeling it too. She's helped us improve the house for several years now; I'm sure eventually she'll need to stop doing private jobs - she has a full time job - but we'll be happy to pay her for as long as she's willing to do it. Gods know, I couldn't do this on my own.

[niyad]

1. Oh my word, you have been incredibly busy. I feel like such a slacker.

Over this weekend, I just transplanted a dozen varieties of tomatoes, including three kinds of blacks/purple, and three peppers, one of which is supposed to be hot (not holding my breath). Will cage them tomorrow and plant calendula all around them (a
friend will be making calendula cream again for our group this winter). I also found the seeds for cucumelons (adorable little cukes that resemble tiny watermelons). The vines can grow to ten feet, so I am going to train them up the netting I got from the dollar store. Should be interesting.

Now if we could just get some rain!!!

[chowmama]

2. Well, this kind of preparation is hell, but only needs to be done once

Next year should be much easier.

What kind of tomatoes? I've got my favorite eating (Black Krim) and my favorite cooking (Roma).

And our rain finally started about an hour ago and is supposed to continue through tomorrow. If it hadn't, we'd have been at risk of drought. Whew!

[niyad]

3. The major prep work on the raised beds was done three years ago, so

it wasn't all that hard. Black Krim, Cherokee purple, Queen of the Nile. Sun Gold, Tuscan Sunset. Damsel. Sweet 100. Jeune flaume. A red Roma and a yellow one. And, just for tradition, an Early Girl. Last year, a hail storm around the 4th of July trashed the gardens, and they were slow to recover. Year before last, I was picking the last tomatoes just before turkey day.


We are in severe drought, so I am praying for the rain.

[Bayard]

4. Gardening provides a real feeling of accomplishment

At least for me. We're still eating a few things I canned from last year. On the last jar of Caramel Apple Jam--to die for!

I did a long post about my vege garden previously. I've had to replace a few things....gave up on the fancy sweet pepper and broccoli seeds. Went to one of my favorite nurseries and just bought plants. Also got some sweet potato slips, onion starts, and a thornless blackberry. Everything else is up and looking good.

The biggest varmit problem I have is one of our geese--Bubba. He wants to be under my feet all the time. He figured out he could get under the lowest board of the garden fence, so he sneaks in and stomps on things with his big old goose feet. I'm having to run wire underneath the bottom board.

Really focused on the big flower garden now, and hanging pots for the porch. We've been in major drought mode now for over a month. Our farm pond has totally dried up for the first time.

I need to take some new pictures.

Have fun with your garden, chowmama! Wish I had a young helper-bee.

[niyad]

5. As the saying goes, " gardening is cheaper than therapy, plus you

get tomatoes!!!"

The caramel apple jam sounds amazing!

[Bayard]

6. The Spiced Pear Jam turned out pretty good too

I gave both as xmas gifts.

[niyad]

7. You are making me hungry!

[Trueblue Texan]

9. I think maybe...

…you should share that recipe, if indeed, not the jam!

[Trueblue Texan]

8. My garden is containerized for the most part.

We have some big oak trees in the back yard that suck all the nutrients out of the soil. Our space is small because so much of it is shaded. But I have some raised beds in the corners of the fence—as far from the trees as possible. They sit directly on the ground, of course. In one we have planted asparagus and in the other, only onions because seemingly overnight it sprang up with all kinds of volunteers: potatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, MANY tomatoes, zinnias. I already harvested a mess of potatoes. I’m not sure if I’ll get anything else, but the rampicante squash has already had both male and female blossoms, and at least half of the tomato plants are blossoming. I have my “deliberate” garden in grow bags, four of which are 3’ x 6’. The verdict is till out on how well they will do for me. I typically garden in 10 gallon bags, but these big ones were really affordable and I thought I’d give them a try. So far I have yellow squash, spaghetti squash, gray squash, zucchini, marketmore cukes, cucumelon, bush green beans, yellow wax beans, and lots of flowers growing. I had planted some lettuces and greens, but they never germinated, even though the weather was still plenty cool enough. What strange weather this year has brought. A great year for perennials and plants that sow themselves, though.

I also have 2 - 100 gallon grow bags which I’m growing Blue Lake pole green beans. I have sweet potato slips coming on, but they are not long enough in roots to plant yet (even though I started them PLENTY early enough!). My plan is to plant the slips with the beans so they will grow on the same netting which climbs on top of the raised beds that are on legs. In those raised beds I grow lettuces, beets, carrots, radishes (which are about done), cilantro, and nasturtium.

On the side of the house I have a bed with fig trees and herbs: fennel, parsley (volunteer!!!), cilantro, catnip, and garlic chives. Then across the sidewalk from that I have big whiskey barrel pots of mints, parsley, cilantro, chives, onions and a few leeks.

On the back fence I have 10 gallon grow bags which sit in plastic swimming pools with holes in them. I grow a variety of bell and hot peppers. Among all this mess are large pots and bags of dill and more flowers and peppers.

I started most of my stuff from seed or saved it from last year (kale, yarrow, many peppers) and the rest of it came up by volunteering. I think the only things I bought this year were 2 lemon balm plants and a bunch of snap dragons and geraniums because they were cheap. The lemon balm wasn’t all that cheap, but I’d tried multiple times to grow it from seed with no luck. I still have tons of tomatoes and peppers plants that I started in seed snails to give away to anyone interested.

I don’t usually have much success in the garden—given all the work I put in, you’d think I get a bounty crop every year, but I never get much. I hope this year will be different . I try to do everything right, like irrigate and feed and shade the plants when they need it, but I’ve struggled. Still, like most gardeners, it brings me too much joy to ever give up on gardening.

I love sharing about my garden and reading about yours. I’d love to hear your strategies for dealing with garden problems and pests. I’m so far successful with warding off the Texas squash vine borer, but we’ll see how the season progresses.