How does your garden grow: 2012 Edition!

[OTTB]

Problem. My lemons are turning yellow and then black. I have no idea what is causing this. The tree as far as I can tell is healthy but I have no idea what is causing this to happen. All my internet searches turned up conflicting information.

[Dawgboy]

Sounds like mold issues with the Lemon, but I'm no expert on citrus.

Couple more pics of leveling out the 10x20 where the beans are going. This is getting leveled then a layer of horse manure, then some real nice organic garden soil I get from a local dairy. In 2 weeks it will be ready for all the starts I have in peat pellets.

[2005RedTJ]

Most of my seed starts are at about 2" tall right now in the spare bedroom under grow lights. We are setting them outdoors a little every day too. I bought all the stuff yesterday to put together a homemade drip irrigation system, but my back is messed up right now so I won't be getting that together until we get back from our honeymoon a couple of weeks from now.

My fiance's dad is going to disc it up one final time with his tractor to have it ready. I managed to over-fertilize a little bit and lost a few plants but not too bad. I still think we'll end up with more plants than we need.

[Bethlehem]

Sorry I can't help with your tropical plants. This may seem like simple logic but if you are planting seeds indoors please tell me you don't have cats. Right now near St. Louis we have temps of 85 in the day and as low as 30 at night. We are having a weird March which is unusually warm. I already started my plants VERY early in pots on my deck. I shoved them under a glass patio table and wrapped clear plastic around the sides. It tends to stay 10 degrees above the outside temp and in effect is a makeshift greenhouse. I don't think I could have done this in previous years but it's working out well right now. My tomato plants are over 2 feet tall and flowering like crazy. My goal is to have enough to can some and make some storage-able items like salsa etc. By the way - those of you growing citrus fruits down south - the closest thing we have here are tomatoes... and yes they are a fruit!

[Murph]

I shoved them under a glass patio table and wrapped clear plastic around the sides. It tends to stay 10 degrees above the outside temp and in effect is a makeshift greenhouse. I don't think I could have done this in previous years but it's working out well right now.

That's genius.

[2005RedTJ]

In planning up my homemade PVC drip irrigation, I stumbled onto a question that I'm not sure of the answer. I am going from a standard hose bib, to a garden hose, to 1" Schedule 40 PVC for the main line, and 1/2" schedule 40 PVC for the rows. Will it matter that from the end water enters the main line to where the end of the main line is, there's about a 1'-2' drop in elevation (over about 40').

My thinking is that it shouldn't affect it very much, but wanted to check my math and see if anyone else has experienced the same thing. The rows are pretty much flat from end to end, just stepping downward from first row feeding off main line to last row.

[44Dave]

120 linear feet of potatoes in the ground. That will make more than enough for consumption and next years seed, so Ima learn to can them this year.

[Dawgboy]

Finished the bean bed today other than the top layer, which I will have to go buy this weekend as I'm out of the first yard I brought home. This is leveled with some soil brought up from the lower yard and heavily manured.



Fully levelled


Inspected for gophers


ready to go: I 'could' plant in this, but another layer would be good...

[sherlockbonez]

It's the time of year again!!

Calling for 4 days of rain starting the weekend. Going to put the potatoes out in the yard tomorrow.

I seeded several varieties of tomatoes, spinach, few kinds of beets, green peppers and thai peppers, pumpkins, gonna try carrots again, but they didn't turn out too well last year, 2 types of egg plants, red onions, lettuce and green beans.

Can't wait till it's veg time!!

[NamelessStain]

Well I got mine started this past week, here's my list of plants;

- 8 Cayenne pepper
- 4 Jalapeno pepper
- 2 Japanese Eggplant
- 2 Eggplant
- 4 Roma tomato
- 8 Green Pepper
- 2 Orange Pepper
- 2 Red pepper
- 3 Yellow squash
- 4 Zucchini
- 4 Cucumbers
- 1 Cantaloupe
- 1 Carrot that sprung up from last year.

[Wes613]

I've got a small garden, this is my second year. Last year wasn't very successful, the tomatoes went berserk and took over the garden no matter what I tried. This year they'll have their own pots on the patio. In my raised bed this year I've got a spice section with parsley, basil, chilantro, rosemary, thyme plus several varieties of peppers and some onions. The goal is too have the base ingredients for salsa and pasta sauces that I can can and use during the year.

Here's a before picture before I cleaned it up on Monday:


and here's two pictures that I took this afternoon:



I might plant some more peppers but I'm not sure if there's enough room at the moment.

[NoAm]

We are finally getting the raised bed garden installed.
We were able to get some scrap lumber from a saw mill. It's different, but I think it's going to look great when we are finished.


We got half of it installed and dug out today.

We have seeds and plants waiting inside. We will plant in the next 4 weeks or so, after the threat of frost is gone.
Various cucumbers

Tomatoes & Pumpkins

Lettuce planted 1 week ago, it will be ready to transplant into the salad garden soon.

[Anianna]

I love that! It looks great!

[Murph]

Did some upgrading and shuffling around.

[Bethlehem]

SKY GARDEN Here's my "greenhouse". I use it to get the plants started early. This year St. Louis had a very warm March so I got about a month jump on my planting. Inside we have cucumbers, white onions, green onions, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, carrots, and 2 tomato plants. All of these will stay in the pots throughout the season. I don't have a garden on the ground or a way to keep the deer/rabbit/raccoons/box turtles/ etc. out, so I keep this up on the deck which has no stairs. This is only my third year "gardening" and I've had good success this way. Last year I caught a bunch of large mouth bass and buried one in each pot to feed the soil. (Bass taste yucky!) Someday I'd like to get a garden on the ground in raised beds and a small greenhouse with gravity-fed sprinkler system. Have to wait until we move out to the property.






BTW, that's the oldest wheelbarrow I've ever seen... but whatever works.

[NoAm]

We finished getting the log slabs installed yesterday.


Rain started then and has pretty much rained through until this evening.
We hope to get the chicken wire & weed barrier cloth installed tomorrow. Maybe we'll even have time to pickup some soil
The cukes are doing great! We have flowers and tiny cucumbers starting

The tomatoes and pumpkins are happy as well. I transplanted 90 pods of lettuce starters on Sunday.

Next time, I am planting the seeds directly into the pods. Duh! That was a pain in the rear! LOL
A friend told me I could take the rest of the lettuce starters, rinse the roots and put them in ziploc bags.
Add water to the bags and refrigerate, they will continue to grow. I have GOT to try this!

[OTTB]

I like the greenhouse table. It's a real ingenious solution. I've been duely informed that our future parcel of land will have livestock of some type and stripe.

[NamelessStain]

Well I got mine started this past week, here's my list of plants;

- 8 Cayenne pepper
- 4 Jalapeno pepper
- 2 Japanese Eggplant
- 2 Eggplant
- 4 Roma tomato
- 8 Green Pepper
- 2 Orange Pepper
- 2 Red pepper
- 3 Yellow squash
- 4 Zucchini
- 4 Cucumbers
- 1 Cantaloupe
- 1 Carrot that sprung up from last year.

Added to this, I just got in my dwarf fruit trees:
- 1 lemon
- 1 lime
- 1 orange
- 1 fig

Also coming:
- 3 dwarf blueberry
- 3 Raspberry

[Murph]

There's some progress on stuff. Past couple of days have been damp and cold. Everything seems likes sunny days more.

[NoAm]

New experiment! A friend told me I can grow lettuce in a plastic bag.

Rinse the roots

Dated in a ziploc, I will let you know how it is progressing



Everything else is very happy and waiting to be planted in a couple of weeks
We got the soil put into the raised bed garden today. 2 Tons literally (per the place we bought it)

[Creepinjeep]

I've been around gardening all my life growing up in the country. My grandpa has always been a gardener/farmer and always sold produce at the local farmers market. Last year i had 2 tomato plants, in which one didn't make it. In an experiment to become more self sufficient, i figured i'd give it a shot. I have a few acres and decided to till a few rows about 20ft long. Last week i added top soil, and went to planting. I have 4 squash, 4 zucchini, a dozen or so okra, and a bunch of sweet corn. I seeded some peppers which are doing well and have transplanted some into planters. I'm gonna get a few tomato plants, even though i don't eat many. I figured i'd still can some. The squash and zucchini have popped through the ground and appear quite healthy. It has finally rained overnight so maybe i will have more signs of life.

[NoAm]

We had a rough tomato season, in our area, last year. Lots of growth, but they stayed green.
On Tuesday we planted 2 types of carrots and 2 types of radishes in the raised beds. I will be adding in green beans and sugar snap peas, today or tomorrow.

[Bethlehem]

Here's an update on what I called "Sky Garden" before. Since this is the 2012 edition I think Armegarden might be more appropriate. Everything is coming along. I got a very early start because of the warm March we had. I already have ten tomatoes coming in. If I can just keep the tomato horn worms off of my plants this year I'll be doing better than the last two years. Those things are mega destructive and they work fast! I pulled everything out of the "greenhouse" two weeks ago. Since then we got one hail storm which luckily missed my plants, and lots of rain. Everything seems to be holding up. It really makes me want to build a real greenhouse in the future.

[anonymac]

I am losing the battle against grass in my garden! Help! Mostly around the sides and between my potatoes. I've dug up grass every day and I've even mulched around my plants to kill off the grass but It's coming up through the mulch. I feel like I'm losing. My garden is only 20x20 but the freakin grass is getting difficult to keep up with....