How does your garden grow: 2012 Edition!

[CarolinaPeach]

Wait.. What?!?!?!

Beans are one the best things you could be eating, Ms. Peach. Cut out the refined grains and sugar, and eat the beans daily for the high soluble fiber and complex sugars!!! The more you eat them, the better you will feel too, as adding them back into your diet will help stabilize your blood sugar levels and with daily usage, most bloating and gas goes away.

http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_diet_diabetes.htm

http://www.livestrong.com/article/275734-eating-beans-on-a-diabetic-diet/

Thank you so much for the encouragement Dawgboy, but the diet plan that I chose to help me control my blood glucose is the plan recommended by Dr. Richard K. Bernstein and beans are not really on that plan. If they are, they are extremely limited and if I'm only going to have a tablespoon or so, I'd rather just skip them. I don't eat any grains (wheat, corn, oats, etc.), potatoes, rice, fruit or refined sugars. If it's got flour, cornstarch, breadcrumbs, sugar (or some variety like dextrose, etc.), I just don't eat it. I do eat lots of green things (collards, turnip greens, kale, mustard, cabbage, asparagus, cucumbers, brussels sprouts, spinach), olives, and other vegetables, as well as olive oil, milk, cheese, cream, butter, meats, poultry and seafood. After about a month and a half of eating like this, plus implementing a strict, self-imposed exercise plan, I was told that I was in "remission" and things have been holding steady for the past couple of years. I only took Metformin for about 3 weeks before it gave me hives but my doctor was okay with just letting me continue with my eating/exercise plan and cut out the meds. I lost 85 lbs in about 8 mos. Time for me to buckle down and lose the rest though.

Granted, it's not the path that everyone would take but that's okay with me.

http://www.diabetes-book.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Bernstein

Mods: I apologize for the off topic stuff.

But yay again for the okra seed suggestion. So. Much. Yay.

[Dawgboy]

As long as it works for you, great. I am happy you are handling it through diet too. I thought you might have not known about the nutritional aspects.

[FlashDaddy]

Flashdaddy, your tomatoes are not going to produce much if the temps are staying above 90 degrees. But if it's growing well, when the weather cools down you will get fruit sets again. also, there is a product called bloomset that works well.

I've got tomatoes starting again!
I sprayed the blossoms with bloomset eleven days ago; it started to get cooler six days ago. I am one happy gardener!

edit to add: Thanks for your help Dawgboy!

[OKMommila]

I've got a question to those people who use the compost tumblers. We've got two - last year it worked wonderfully so we added a second this year. Unfortunately the second one leaks like a sieve, and the first one has stopped holding water as well. So my question is this: How do I seal the tumblers? They've both got a fair amount of organic matter in them. I know I COULD empty them one at a time and line the inside joints with some kind of silicone sealer, but I'm not sure if that's wise chemically. I COULD use duct tape on the outside but that's a very temporary measure. Does anyone have a better idea? Thanks!

[CaptBrainFreeze]

I got my garden planted a month late, dealt with the drought, followed by weeks of heavy, heavy downpours. One storm hit 6 inches of rain in two hours. However, okra is producing flowers now. I lost 3/4's of the corn crop but will still get 75-100 ears it looks like. Canned 40 qts of greens beans,. Tomato crop was a disaster this year. Planted 42 plants..getting a dozen tomato. It's been real rough this year.

However, very grateful for what we are able to bring in.

[Dawgboy]

I have a lot of tomatoes so I'm drying them in the oven at 170 degrees

[Dawgboy]

Half way to "sun dried"

[Dawgboy]

And fully dried

[NoAm]

Looks great dawgboy! Unfortunately our tomatoes got hit with blight. I have cut away 2/3's of the plants, but I am afraid they are goners.

Some of the heirloom tomato seeds I had started saving, sprouted. I decided WTH and planted them in the big raised bed garden last week, we will see what happens. There are about 15 plants that have come up so far. I figure we have a good 3 months or so before we see our 1st frost.

[Dawgboy]

Harvested crookneck squash and cucumber seeds today and got another haul of blue lakes and More of the Borghese tomatoes

[NoAm]

Awesome dawgboy! How's the garden looking now?

[Dawgboy]

I'm harvesting every day!

Almost a quart of sun dried tomatoes from yesterday

[NoAm]

You are a true inspiration this year dawgboy! Congrats on a very successful garden.

[scurvy]

Hello, my names scurvy and I'm a gardener....

"hello scurvy, welcome to the group. . ."

I've always had a garden because I like fresh produce,
I rarely store it because I constantly eat it.

It started with a couple tomatoes on the back porch and before I knew it......



anyway, most of my ZS posts have been out in the woods,
or talking about being out in the woods.
when I'm home I like being in the yard,
and have been enjoying this thread and thought I should add some content.


Thanks for all the cool posts and different techniques shown.



I'll add a little plant porn, and take you through my little backyard food stand:



here's where I sit and enjoy:




next to the BBQ is my blueberry plant, one last berry for the year:




looking down with my little plumaria in the shot:




I kind of "fenced" in this part with peas, beans, blackberries, sunflowers, and pumkin.

plenty of beans, on the menu twice a week with plenty for the neighbors:




the sunflowers and beans get along well, here I'm attempting a hybred:




sunflowers are on the verge of opening, the squirrels will be happy come winter:




grew this pumpkin over a couple of plastic crates, makes a nice storage area for stuff:




tomatoes and peppers in pots inside the "fence":




yellow peppers, and another pumpkin in the background, the neighbor kids will be happy come late october:




the wall of beans and sunlofwers:




behind, I have three raised beds that are my 'cycleing' boxes, as I pick I replace with new starts.
carrots, radish, spinach, cabbage, lettuce, kholrabi, sweet onion:




more of the boxes,




lemon cucumber:




egg plant:




kholrabi:




a couple chokes and rhubarb. yep that's more pumkin behind them:




catalope? I do believe I mixed up some seeds....




I plant so many pumpkins because they REALLY attract the honey bees, and are super low maintenance.
Opposite the garden I also have bee attractors; lavender and dahlia:




the bees really like my little patch of garlic chive too:




here's my banana grove in the strawberry patch. Plenty of strawberries in the spring,
I'm still hopeing for an 'Oregon Banana' some year.....



well there you go...


thanks for looking.

[Dawgboy]

Anybody want to guess on the edibility of this monster cucumber I found behind the planter box?

[curryman]

Still edible, just ugly. It'll have air pockets in it an isn't cannable. Just peel slice and eat.

Curryman

[Dawgboy]

Scurvy, your garden is awesome!

Here are a couple more photos, today's harvest, and some pics of how the lentils dried.





The little red things are the seed pods

[medic photog]

My garden is starting to wind down a bit. It started out as a 60 by 60 foot area with an underground drip irrigation set up on a timer with an in line liquid fertilizer proportioner. Also, there are three raised beds, 8 by 8 for onions, potatoes, blackberries and a raised bed 20 by 10 for asparagus and strawberries. The peas, corn, summer squash, cucumbers, cauliflower, broccoli and zuchinni are done but the wax beans, tomatoes, peppers and greens just keep on coming. I've been canning, drying, and freezing the extras as they come and have had the two fermenting crocks filled for most of the season making sauerkraut and fermented pickles. The temps are supposed to drop into the forties here the next couple nights so I just have to wait and see what happens. I'm planning on pulling everything by the first week in November regardless and tilling in the compost I've been making from the lawn clippings and dead plants. I can say the drip irrigation system has been the way for me to go for the past two years and has paid for itself a couple times over.

[OKMommila]

I'd love to know what you used for a drip irrigation system. Every time I try doing one I wind up with more water on the concrete surrounding my beds than in the dirt.

[TacAir]

Hard our first hard freeze on Sat. Harvest was less than 5 pounds of spuds and a single zuke. All the squash drowned, all but one zucchini plant died off, with one blossom making to a full size product. Windstorm destroyed the sunflowers...

Summer sucked this year, big time. Too cold, too cloudy, too wet.

[slannesh]

Hard our first hard freeze on Sat. Harvest was less than 5 pounds of spuds and a single zuke. All the squash drowned, all but one zucchini plant died off, with one blossom making to a full size product. Windstorm destroyed the sunflowers...

Summer sucked this year, big time. Too cold, too cloudy, too wet.

Sounds like here last year. Didn't have the house to do the garden then but I did this year.

Learned lots, many things will change for next year. Got a pretty decent crop of zucchini and tomatoes are still on the vine but not yet ripe carrots did ok but the peppers didn't do much. Winding down here as well and looking forward to next year with a new plan!

[medic photog]

I'd love to know what you used for a drip irrigation system. Every time I try doing one I wind up with more water on the concrete surrounding my beds than in the dirt.

I bought my supplies from Drip Depot on line. Using half inch main feed line and quarter inch drip line with some micro sprinklers for the shorter rows and half inch drip line for the long rows. I have the timer, filter, pressure reducer and fertilizer manifold at the house outlet and run a garden hose from that to the garden. After I tilled, I put the feed line around the entire perimeter of the garden and one down the center so I could tap in anywhere. I separate the long rows from the short with a set of half inch cut off valves so I can shut down the back half if I'm not growing corn or beans there and have shut off valves on each drip line and micro sprinkler for the same thing. It works like a charm and wasn't too hard to put in. At the end of the season I pull everything, roll it and store it in the basement so I don't have to worry about frozen and cracked lines the next year.

[medic photog]

As of today the produce that keeps on keeping on is tomatoes, several types of peppers, egg plant, okra, chard, kale, mustard greens, collard greens, three types of cabbage, wax beans, lima beans, turnips, beets, and kohlrabi. Guess I'll have fresh produce for at least another month. I'm slowly running out of jars, down to three cases of quarts and three of pints plus the freezers are full and I've dehydrated just about anything that I could think of. Note; dehydrated eggplant looks nasty but tastes pretty darn good. I'm thinking of canning a variety of soups and some different types of pepper cabbage, relishes, and slaws. Yeah, guess it's time to go buy some more jars this weekend.

[medic photog]

I'd love to know what you used for a drip irrigation system. Every time I try doing one I wind up with more water on the concrete surrounding my beds than in the dirt.

I bought my supplies from Drip Depot on line. Using half inch main feed line and quarter inch drip line with some micro sprinklers for the shorter rows and half inch drip line for the long rows. I have the timer, filter, pressure reducer and fertilizer manifold at the house outlet and run a garden hose from that to the garden. After I tilled, I put the feed line around the entire perimeter of the garden and one down the center so I could tap in anywhere. I separate the long rows from the short with a set of half inch cut off valves so I can shut down the back half if I'm not growing corn or beans there and have shut off valves on each drip line and micro sprinkler for the same thing. It works like a charm and wasn't too hard to put in. At the end of the season I pull everything, roll it and store it in the basement so I don't have to worry about frozen and cracked lines the next year.

On a side note, I've switched from drip heads to all drip lines, 12 inch spacing and 1GPM built in drippers and the micro sprayers. It's made up keep much easier. It's great to have control valves on each drip line and the ability to cut the water off to the back side of the garden if needed. Right now I have wax beans, beets, and butternut squash with a couple free soldier tomatoes on the back side but once I pick all that I'll shut the back side down so the flow is more concentrated on the front. The fish and kelp emulsion has been a fantastic fertilizer, everything is super huge and hearty and just keeps on producing. I added organic bone meal to the soil where I've planted the tomatoes, egg plant, and peppers and I have no blossom rot at all.